Good, but could be better
I love the app, but I recommend adding a feature where we can set how long the rest time is
After trying app after app, Strong is the one I keep coming back to.
For context, I bought Strong Pro (Lifetime) back around 2020–2021 on Android. When I switched to iPhone, I completely forgot about it, so I was pleasantly surprised years later when I logged in and still had my lifetime purchase. Some of the features I mention may be part of Strong Pro, but this review is simply based on my experience.
Before settling on Strong, I tried Hevy, Lift, Strongify, RepCount, Setgraph, Liftin’, and GymBook. My goal was simple: I wanted an app that let me manage my workouts directly from my Apple Watch. I don’t follow rigid workout plans, I go into the gym with a general idea and decide what to do based on how I’m feeling that day.
That ended up being the biggest issue with most other apps. Many expect you to build routines ahead of time and don’t handle free-form workouts very well. Others had features I liked but always seemed to compromise somewhere else.
Strong does exactly what I was looking for.
I can start a workout from my Apple Watch and, if needed, switch over to my phone, but the best part is that I don’t have to. I can add exercises on the fly, log sets, reps, and weights, track personal records, see my total weight lifted, monitor heart rate, calories burned, and elapsed workout time, all from my wrist.
The app is intuitive, the Apple Watch experience is excellent, and everything feels well thought out. I’m still discovering features, but I honestly haven’t run into a single moment where I thought, “I really wish this app had…”
Highly recommended. If I lost my lifetime license today, I’d happily pay the current price for Strong Pro again. That’s how impressed I’ve been with it.
Before settling on Strong, I tried Hevy, Lift, Strongify, RepCount, Setgraph, Liftin’, and GymBook. My goal was simple: I wanted an app that let me manage my workouts directly from my Apple Watch. I don’t follow rigid workout plans, I go into the gym with a general idea and decide what to do based on how I’m feeling that day.
That ended up being the biggest issue with most other apps. Many expect you to build routines ahead of time and don’t handle free-form workouts very well. Others had features I liked but always seemed to compromise somewhere else.
Strong does exactly what I was looking for.
I can start a workout from my Apple Watch and, if needed, switch over to my phone, but the best part is that I don’t have to. I can add exercises on the fly, log sets, reps, and weights, track personal records, see my total weight lifted, monitor heart rate, calories burned, and elapsed workout time, all from my wrist.
The app is intuitive, the Apple Watch experience is excellent, and everything feels well thought out. I’m still discovering features, but I honestly haven’t run into a single moment where I thought, “I really wish this app had…”
Highly recommended. If I lost my lifetime license today, I’d happily pay the current price for Strong Pro again. That’s how impressed I’ve been with it.
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My 5 year anniversary
Starting using this in August 2021. And if nothing else, the fact that I’ve used it consistently during the last 5 years should speak for itself. I’ve logged 963 workouts in the app. It makes progress easy to track, the watch sync captures my hr data and the features such as sticky notes, adjustable timers and failure/drop sets really do cover eventuality for me. Can’t recommend this highly enough to anyone who is serious about getting bigger.
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Almost perfect
The exercise catalogue is impressive and you can create custom exercises if you can’t find what you need.
My biggest complaint is that sometimes the watch app doesn’t sync and then you need to remember what you did to log it correctly on the phone app.
And it seems you need to be connected to WiFi for the watch app to sync, which is incredibly frustrating.
My biggest complaint is that sometimes the watch app doesn’t sync and then you need to remember what you did to log it correctly on the phone app.
And it seems you need to be connected to WiFi for the watch app to sync, which is incredibly frustrating.
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It stinks now
It used to sync well with my watch. Not anymore. Almost useless.
My workout partner
I use this app in every single workout. I can’t remember the weights and repetitions and seeing them precisely allows me to see progress. I love the ability to create my own templates when I get too comfortable with my workout I create alternate templates to explore, newer types of exercise, like body, weights, or kettle balls, or any number of things.
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Best Workout Tracker
I have been using Strong daily since 2017 and because of its compatibility with my Apple Watch, I will go no where else. They have continued to develop the app and are quick with bug fixes. It has everything I can think of to track my workouts and progress. It is the main reason for me keeping my Apple Watch. I have the lifetime membership.
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Buggy
Today is my first day working with this app. I’m entering custom exercises to build my first routine. The app has frozen several times and needed to be restarted.
The workout app field is expanding rapidly and Strong is getting left behind.
I’m quickly finding that there’s no perfect workout app. There’s always a these things are great or improvements over this app…but…and the “but” is the key because it comes down to which app is offering the trade offs you’re willing to live without?
My frustration with Strong is we are still dealing with syncing issues between the Apple Watch and the iPhone. The whole purpose of starting and ending workouts on the Watch was supposed to be to minimize these issues yet I still find I’m having increasingly more issues with ghost workouts - workouts started and ended on Apple Watch but instead of syncing they go into workout purgatory only to show up after you log out and log back in. If this wasn’t as frequent as it occurs it may be something you could deal with occasionally but it’s not.
Secondly, when you create exercises, you’re unable to assign body parts to them after saving them initially. Even if you go to the exercise library and edit them there. Additionally there’s no way to add photos. I beta test a lot of workout apps and this is one place where people are smoking Strong. Here’s why this matters: Strong doesn’t have a lot of common gym exercises in the library. So when you create them that means they also won’t have images or instructions on how to do them. Meanwhile Strong is starting to feel very Windows XP in a Windows 11 world. This is also seen in the charts and graphs which seem flat and dated versus many newer apps offer richer charts and data presentation.
Likewise, there’s no options for having Strong enforce progressive overload which is something you’re seeing in more and more apps where they automatically boost or recommend boosting your weight on your next workout. This is great for people starting out on their fitness journeys that aren’t as familiar with these kinds of things. Not everyone is dedicated enough to watch hours of YouTube videos to figure them out.
Update: I think the part of the bigger picture that Strong misses is that you’re providing a part of the picture of someone’s fitness journey. Thinks that should be easy to get to like exporting workout data are buried under paths that don’t make sense like you clearly have a dedicated history button and you literally show my workout so why when I say share workout is it only showing the template info instead of the actual workout data - to get to the workout data it’s buried way over under settings with an option to do a CSV. The issue is this is you entire workout history - I do weekly check ins as do most people who are tracking their fitness metrics so this is a royal pain in the butt and a lot of extra steps to cut what you need and big picture: when EVERYONE does this there’s no efficient way to get your data points that you need because it becomes very time consuming.
My frustration with Strong is we are still dealing with syncing issues between the Apple Watch and the iPhone. The whole purpose of starting and ending workouts on the Watch was supposed to be to minimize these issues yet I still find I’m having increasingly more issues with ghost workouts - workouts started and ended on Apple Watch but instead of syncing they go into workout purgatory only to show up after you log out and log back in. If this wasn’t as frequent as it occurs it may be something you could deal with occasionally but it’s not.
Secondly, when you create exercises, you’re unable to assign body parts to them after saving them initially. Even if you go to the exercise library and edit them there. Additionally there’s no way to add photos. I beta test a lot of workout apps and this is one place where people are smoking Strong. Here’s why this matters: Strong doesn’t have a lot of common gym exercises in the library. So when you create them that means they also won’t have images or instructions on how to do them. Meanwhile Strong is starting to feel very Windows XP in a Windows 11 world. This is also seen in the charts and graphs which seem flat and dated versus many newer apps offer richer charts and data presentation.
Likewise, there’s no options for having Strong enforce progressive overload which is something you’re seeing in more and more apps where they automatically boost or recommend boosting your weight on your next workout. This is great for people starting out on their fitness journeys that aren’t as familiar with these kinds of things. Not everyone is dedicated enough to watch hours of YouTube videos to figure them out.
Update: I think the part of the bigger picture that Strong misses is that you’re providing a part of the picture of someone’s fitness journey. Thinks that should be easy to get to like exporting workout data are buried under paths that don’t make sense like you clearly have a dedicated history button and you literally show my workout so why when I say share workout is it only showing the template info instead of the actual workout data - to get to the workout data it’s buried way over under settings with an option to do a CSV. The issue is this is you entire workout history - I do weekly check ins as do most people who are tracking their fitness metrics so this is a royal pain in the butt and a lot of extra steps to cut what you need and big picture: when EVERYONE does this there’s no efficient way to get your data points that you need because it becomes very time consuming.
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Thanks for the application! I have a feature request :
Currently I export every training day separately to analyse it with AI but would like to simplify this process by bulk export
Is that possible to add a functionally to export training data for a month or a year?Thanks!
Is that possible to add a functionally to export training data for a month or a year?Thanks!
Phenomenal
Nearly 700 workouts done using this app. Absolutely a beast at tracking sets. The graphs monitoring progress over time are super helpful as well. Definitely recommend!
Apple Watch
To login with a user and password to use on watch is diabolical it’s near impossible to type my email and password I gave up many times
Buggy
Love the app for the features but it has become so buggy when trying to sync with my Apple Watch. Some days are great but others it plain out refuses to sync no matter what I do. This needs to be fixed.
Love it!
I love this app. I love being able to see how much better I can do each time I repeat a workout.
Fantastic workout partner
I’ve been using Strong for over two years. I now have a huge record of specific workouts and exercises and can see my progress. Super easy to plan workouts and record exercises.
Does the job
Does the job though I wish it allowed you to add the calories burned when you have the information to plug in.
Great App; Sync Needs Work
I’ve been using this app for years now and love it. It’s very helpful for keeping on track, calculating plates needed, and tracking stats over time.
That said, the Apple Watch / Phone sync has become incredibly buggy since the last major update. I haven’t had a single workout since then where it’s worked correctly. I’ve tried all the recommended fixes, uninstalling/reinstalling, checking permissions, restarting. Hoping this is fixed soon.
That said, the Apple Watch / Phone sync has become incredibly buggy since the last major update. I haven’t had a single workout since then where it’s worked correctly. I’ve tried all the recommended fixes, uninstalling/reinstalling, checking permissions, restarting. Hoping this is fixed soon.
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Amazing for it being free
Been using it to track workouts for the past 3 years. Very intuitive interface and very generous for it being free. No ADs either which is a plus.
Great history and tracking features as well
Great history and tracking features as well
Buggy, even with the paid version
This app is incredibly inconsistent, especially when it comes to syncing up to my Series 11, sometimes it absolutely refuses to communicate with the watch and vice versa. The timers between sets often freeze or don’t engage at all, it throws in random numbers for weight and reps into my workout templates and a large amount of my recorded sessions seem to disappear from my history altogether.
The app is great when it works, but even after several updates it just can’t seem to do what it’s supposed to consistently.
The app is great when it works, but even after several updates it just can’t seem to do what it’s supposed to consistently.
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Fantastic!
I have been using it for 9 months, I have 199 recorded workouts. It is really easy to navigate from my apple watch, I don’t need to use my phone when at the gym. Great to see the visuals on how to perform an exercise.
I only wish it had a record for tracking the amount of perceived effort for each set.
But, I tried many others, this is fantastic and have recommended it to many people.
I only wish it had a record for tracking the amount of perceived effort for each set.
But, I tried many others, this is fantastic and have recommended it to many people.
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