Recently, I’ve been using StrengthLog to track and analyse my workouts. The app has been fantastic to use and has really added an extra layer of analysis to my training that has been incredibly valuable.

Progressive Overload

If you want to gain muscle, you need to be doing progressively more and more over time. This is a concept known as progressive overload. Do a little bit more than last time, and keep doing that over a long time. That’s how you get stronger.

A “little bit more than last time” can be either in terms of the load (weight) you are using, or how much time your muscles spend under a given load (measured with either the actual duration or the number of reps).

You will need to keep records and refer back to them before and/or during workouts in order to know what you need to do to be better than last time out.

Some people are “pen and paper type people” and like to keep notebooks. Others like spreadsheets, or just a simple text editor on their phone.

I like purpose built apps, as I feel they are easier to use and can present the data in nice and informative ways – taking the time out of analysis so you can get on with the lifting.

In the past I’ve used Personal Training Coach, 531 Pro and Fit Notes.

Enter StrengthLog

I can confidently say that StrengthLog is better than all of the workout tracking apps I have used before, and it meets all of my needs sufficiently that I doubt I’ll ever be tempted to try anything else.

I’d recently been chatting to the founder, Daniel, on twitter. He gave me premium access to the app so I could try out all of the features, in exchange for this review.

Although I’ve been incentivised to write it, this is a totally unbiased review. If the app sucked, I’d tell you (but it doesn’t!).

Here’s A Summary from the StrengthLog Play Store Page

The StrengthLog App is both a workout log and a source for proven strength training programs and tools that will speed up your gains. With it, you’re able to log every workout, view and analyze your progress, and find a program that’s right for you.

This workout app truly is built for lifters, by lifters (in cooperation with thousands of other lifters). We know that flashy features mean nothing unless everything works as expected. So we’re always listening to our users, adding new features, and fine-tuning existing ones.

Here’s a quick run down of all the features

Free Features:

• Log an unlimited number of workouts.
• Plan your workouts in advance.
• Timer for rest between sets.
• Basic statistics of training volume and workouts.
• PR tracking.
• Several tools and calculators, like 1RM estimates and suggested warm-up before PR attempt.
• Popular and proven strength training programs such as Starting Strength and Russian Squat Routine.

Premium Features

• Entire catalogue of premium programs, including ones for individual lifts (the squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press), powerlifting, bodybuilding, powerbuilding, and push/pull/legs.
• Advanced statistics for tracking and analysing your strength, training volume, individual lifts/exercises.
• Summary statistics for all your training, individual muscle groups, and every single exercise.
• Advanced logging features such as Rate of Perceived Exertion or Reps in Reserve and quick stats for every set.
• Advanced timer features such as intervals and individual rest times for selected exercises.

For premium, you can choose between 1 month ($/€ 12.95), 3 months ($/€ 28.95) and 12 months ($/€ 89.95).

Using the App

The interface is excellent. Everything is designed well and easy to find. It’s very intuitive to use and it all works perfectly with no lag.

It’s very customisable. You can completely customise your start screen to display all kinds of graphs using data from your lifting.

When you actually want to start a workout, you have several options.

You can select a pre-made program that will have all the workouts already set up for you, with the exercises and sets already populated.

You can also build a new workout from scratch and add exercises and sets as you go.

Or you can reuse a previous workout, either with the same weights (which you can edit as you go) or with weight increments added to the previous weights. Personally, I liked to just populate it with what I did last time, and edit the weight/reps that I improved on.

Tracking workouts is very intuitive. I didn’t have to spend any time figuring out how to track workouts, add exercises or record weights or reps.

There’s a nice feature where you can customise your rest times for different exercises, and it will remember this custom rest time for the next time when you do that exercise.

Analysis

Where StrengthLog really excels is in the way that it analyses your lifting data, allowing you to see your improvement (or non-improvement) visually on graphs.

One analysis I like is the screen where you can see all your rep maxes for an exercise.

Every time you lift a new 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. rep max, StrengthLog will remember and store it.

This is a nice screen to visit when you want to set yourself a target.

As you can see in the screenshot below, my 5 rep max for Incline Bench Press was the same as my 6, 7, 8 and 9 rep maxes. That’s because most of those lower rep sets were not an all out effort.

This is great because it’s highlighted an area of opportunity in my training. I could go into my next Incline Bench session with a target of setting a new max for 5-9 reps, or spend the next few weeks working in that lower rep range as it’s something I’ve neglected.

 

Some more nice features are that StrengthLog will calculate an estimated 1 rep max for every exercise, based off your workout data. You can also add videos to sets, or add warmup sets (so that they don’t get included for analysis with the data from your main sets)

In Conclusion

There’s too much to go over here in full detail, but I highly recommended you download StrengthLog and check it out.

It’s got every feature you could possibly need and it’s incredibly nice to use and the app never gets in the way of your workouts.

Using StrengthLog has been a joy, and I will continue to use it indefinitely.