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

A strength program is a promise about numbers. On this day, do this lift for this many sets of this many reps at this weight, and next time do a little more. The promise only holds if the numbers get written down, and most of them don't. Lifters run a program for twelve weeks and cannot say, at the end, what week six looked like. This guide covers what a program asks you to record, how the common templates differ, what to do with the awkward sets, and how to read the log to see whether the program worked.

What does a strength program actually ask you to record?

Strip away the spreadsheet formatting and every strength program is a list of prescribed sets. Each set has three numbers, and the log needs all three.

Load. 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 from a belt.

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

Sets. Usually implicit. Log each set 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. Some programs prescribe 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 doesn't, 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; the RPE target belongs in the program sheet.

Rest. It 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. 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 the 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.

Top set and back-offs. The top set carries the progression; the back-offs carry the volume. Log them as separate lines with their real weights, not as one heavy set and "some lighter ones". Estimated 1RM comes off the top set. Weekly volume needs the back-offs.

Percentage waves. The prescription is derived from a stored training max, so the log has two jobs. Record what was lifted, because the percentages become real kilograms the moment you load the bar, and real kilograms are what records and volume are computed from. And 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.

RPE-based. You choose the load in the moment, so the load is the result, not the input. 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 the 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. Log them or don't, but be consistent, because they flow into volume. 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, 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. "As many reps as possible" is the most informative set in the program and the most under-logged. Record the exact count, not "lots" and not "12+". 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: 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 keypad.

Failed reps. Log what you got. A prescribed 100 × 5 that stopped at 3 goes in 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.

Deloads. A deload week, typically 60 to 80 percent of working loads at the same sets, or the same loads at half the sets, should be logged exactly like a normal week. The temptation is to skip it because it "doesn't count". It counts twice: the volume drop is a planned feature you want visible on the chart, so a lower month reads as a deload and not a slump, and the sessions still count toward consistency. When you judge the following week, compare it against the pre-deload week rather than the deload itself.

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". 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 are worst at, with a new tab per lift or a filter rebuilt every week, and the view 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 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 is designed to move are moving. Which numbers depends on the template, but three checks cover all four shapes.

1. Load at the prescribed reps, per lift. The direct test. For straight sets: is the weight you completed every set at higher than 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, not a verdict.

2. Estimated 1RM per main lift. 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.

3. Weekly volume and sessions. The inputs. When load has stalled, check these 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 the 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 only can if the misses, the AMRAPs and the deloads went in as they happened.

The bottom line

Logging a strength program is three numbers per set, entered as they happen: load, completed reps, one line per set. Know which template you are running, because each has one number that decides the next session, and make sure that number is in the log. Fix a warm-up rule and keep it. Record AMRAPs exactly, misses honestly, and deloads like any other week. Enter per session, read per lift, and judge the program on load at the prescribed reps and estimated 1RM over four to six weeks, checking volume and sessions first whenever a lift stalls. Do that and the twelve-week promise a program makes becomes something you can verify, one set at a time.

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