How to Log a Strength Training Program on iPhone (2026)

Strip the spreadsheet formatting off any strength program and what is left is a list of prescribed sets: this lift, this many sets of this many reps, at this weight, and a little more next time. Whether the program worked is a question about numbers, and it can only be answered if those numbers were written down while they were still true. This guide covers what a program asks you to record, how the four common templates differ in what they need, what to do with the sets that do not fit neatly, and how to read the log twelve weeks later.

What does a strength program actually ask you to record?

Three numbers per set, and the log needs all three.

The load is the weight on the bar, the pin in the stack, or the dumbbell in your hand. For barbell work, include the bar. For bodyweight movements the load is your body plus anything hanging off a belt.

The reps are how many you completed, not how many were prescribed. A prescribed 5 that ended at 4 is logged as 4. That gap between prescribed and completed is the most useful signal in the whole log, and it vanishes the moment you write the target instead of the result.

The sets are usually implicit. Log each one on its own line and the count takes care of itself. Three lines of 100 × 5 are a 3×5.

That is the mandatory core: sets × reps × load, per set, per lift, per day. Two optional fields sit beside it.

RPE, or reps in reserve, matters when your program prescribes effort instead of or alongside weight. "5 reps at RPE 8" means five reps with roughly two left in the tank. If your program uses it, record it. If it does not, a felt-effort number on every set is noise you will stop keeping by week three. A tracker whose set line is weight × reps holds the numbers that resulted, and the RPE target belongs in the program sheet.

Rest matters for strength work, where the ACSM position stand recommends longer rest periods between heavy sets, but it rarely needs logging. Record it only when your program changes it deliberately, such as a density block where rest drops week over week.

What you do not need to log: calories, minutes on the clock, prose about how it felt. If it does not change what you lift next session, it is not part of the program.

Which template are you running, and what does it need logged?

Most programs are one of four shapes, and the shape decides what the log has to capture.

Straight sets are the easiest to log and the easiest to read. Every working set is meant to look identical, so the log becomes an exception report: five lines of 100 × 5 is a pass, and 5, 5, 5, 4, 3 is your signal to hold the weight. This is where a keypad that prefills your last session earns its keep. Same load, same reps, one tap per set.

With a top set and back-offs, the top set carries the progression and the back-offs carry the volume. Log them as separate lines with their real weights, never as one heavy set plus "some lighter ones". Estimated 1RM comes off the top set. Weekly volume needs the back-offs.

Percentage waves derive the prescription from a stored training max, which gives the log two jobs. Record what was lifted, because percentages become real kilograms the moment you load the bar, and real kilograms are what records and volume are computed from. Then record the exact reps on the last, open-ended set, because that number decides whether the training max rises at the end of the cycle. The training max itself lives in the program sheet. The log holds what happened.

In an RPE-based template you choose the load in the moment, so the load is the result. Logging the weight you landed on at the prescribed reps turns "5 at RPE 8" into "5 at 110", which is comparable across weeks in a way an effort target never is. When the same RPE buys more weight, the program is working.

How do you log warm-ups, AMRAPs, failed reps and deloads?

The tidy sets are easy. Four kinds of set cause most of the mess in a training log.

Warm-up sets flow into volume, so log them or skip them, but be consistent. The case for skipping: warm-ups inflate volume with sets that provide little stimulus, and a 5×5 at 100 preceded by 40, 60 and 80 reads as eight sets. The case for logging: a warm-up you performed is work you did, and a history that starts at the bar is a truer record. The usual compromise is to log the last warm-up, the one within 10 to 15 percent of working weight, and skip the empty bar. Whichever you choose, choose it once. Volume comparisons across months only mean something when the rule has not changed underneath them.

AMRAP sets are the most informative sets in most programs and the most under-logged. Record the exact count. "Lots" and "12+" are both useless. In a wave template the AMRAP reps decide next cycle's training max; in a straight-set template with an AMRAP finisher, they tell you whether the load is due to rise. It is also where automatic record detection matters, because 100 × 12 on an AMRAP is a weight-at-reps record even when 100 is nowhere near your heaviest weight, and an estimated 1RM computed from it can beat the one from a heavier triple. Strongbro checks every saved set against your history for exactly this reason, whether it arrived by voice or by keypad.

Failed reps go in as what you got. A prescribed 100 × 5 that stopped at 3 is logged as 100 × 3. Do not log the prescription and mentally footnote the miss; in a month the footnote is gone and the log says you owned the weight. Two consecutive sessions of missed reps at the same load is the standard stall signal, and it is only visible if the misses are in the data. A complete miss with zero reps can be left out.

Deload weeks, typically 60 to 80 percent of working loads at the same sets, or the same loads at half the sets, get logged exactly like a normal week. The temptation is to skip them because they "don't count". They count twice: the volume drop is a planned feature you want visible on the chart, so a lower month reads as a deload, and the sessions still count toward consistency. When you judge the following week, compare it against the pre-deload week.

Should you track per lift or per session?

Both, for different questions, and the log should give you both views without re-entering anything.

Per session is the program's view. What did Monday look like, did I do every lift on the sheet, how much total work was that. It answers "am I following the program", and a program that prescribes four days and gets two is not the program you are running, whatever the sheet says.

Per lift is the progression's view. What has the squat done over the last eight sessions, when did bench last move, which load have I held for three sessions running. It answers "is the program doing anything". This is the view spreadsheets handle worst, with a new tab per lift or a filter rebuilt every week, and the one a tracker should give you for free. In Strongbro, every exercise in the library carries its own history: best weight, estimated 1RM, session count, lifetime volume, and the day-by-day list of sets. Per-lift tracking is a matter of opening the lift.

The practical rule: enter data per session, because that is how training happens, and read it per lift, because that is how progress shows.

One more rule about entry. Log during the session, between sets, while the numbers are still true. Evening logging from memory loses sets and rounds weights up. On iPhone there are two fast paths. Speaking, where a whole lift is one sentence, "squat 100, five sets of five", and per-set weights come out as said, "bench 60, 70, then 75 for six"; the voice logging guide covers what to say. Or the keypad, with last session prefilled, for when the gym is too loud to talk. Both land in the same log, and a forgotten session can be backdated.

How do you know whether the program is working?

A program is working when the numbers it was designed to move are moving. Which numbers depends on the template, but three checks cover all four shapes.

The direct test is load at the prescribed reps, per lift. For straight sets: is the weight you completed every set at higher than it was four weeks ago? For waves: did the training max go up at the end of the cycle on evidence, meaning AMRAP reps above the minimum, rather than on schedule? For RPE: is load at the same RPE rising? Read this from per-lift history and give it four to six weeks. The ACSM position stand frames progression as gradual, and a single flat fortnight is noise.

Estimated 1RM per main lift is the normaliser. Programs change rep schemes across blocks, and a 5s week cannot be compared with a 3s week on load alone. An estimated 1RM from the best set in each session puts them on one line. Strongbro computes it with the Brzycki formula from your best weight-and-reps set and keeps it per exercise, alongside your best weight at each rep count, on the Records screen. The strength trend survives a change of template.

Weekly volume and sessions are the inputs, and when load has stalled you check them before blaming the program. Volume down two weeks running without a planned deload, or sessions below what the sheet prescribes, explains most stalls. Insights shows monthly volume with the change against last month, sessions, a six-month chart, and a "ready to progress" list of lifts held at the same weight for consecutive sessions. In a straight-set program, that list is your set of lifts due an increment. For how big the increment should be and what to do when it fails, see how to apply progressive overload.

A working program in the log: load rising in small steps on at least one main lift per month, estimated 1RM trending up across blocks, volume steady or rising except in planned deloads, sessions matching the sheet. A failing one: load flat on every lift for six weeks with sessions and volume intact. The log is the only thing that tells them apart, and it can only do that if the misses, the AMRAPs and the deloads went in as they happened.

What to fix first if your log is already a mess

Pick the warm-up rule and write it at the top of the program sheet, because it is the one decision that silently corrupts months of volume data. Then commit to logging between sets rather than in the evening. Those two changes cost nothing and they are what make everything above possible: three numbers per set, entered as they happen, per session and read per lift, judged on load at the prescribed reps and estimated 1RM over four to six weeks. Do that for twelve weeks and the promise the program made is something you can check, one set at a time.

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