HeavySet alternative: what to move to, and what you give up

What is HeavySet?

HeavySet is an iPhone-only gym log from Runloop Ltd, first released on 21 January 2017. It is aimed squarely at people who program their own training and want the app to hold the whole structure: rep ranges, set ranges, AMRAP sets, RPE, intensity, estimated duration, and supersets that auto-advance while you work through them. The logging screen fills in suggested values from your previous set, so a straight set is usually one tap.

It is free to download, and the free version is a real one with an unusual shape. You can improvise as many workouts as you like with no limit at all. The restriction lands on structure: as a non-paying user you are limited in how many times you can run the routines you have created, and routines produced by importing or duplicating are not available to you at all. The upgrade is an in-app purchase sold by user level, which lifts those limits.

The current version is 2025.1, released on 20 August 2025. It needs iOS 16.6 or later and runs on iPhone only, with no iPad, Android, web or Apple Watch version.

Why people look for a HeavySet alternative

• Nothing has shipped since 20 August 2025. The App Store listing is the checkable fact here. For an app that has to keep up with new iOS releases every September, a gap over a year long is the reason most of this page's readers are here.
• The free tier rations your own routines. Improvised sessions are unlimited, but a routine you built yourself can only be run a set number of times before the upgrade prompt arrives. A routine you imported or duplicated will not run at all until you pay.
• Every set is typed. HeavySet's data entry is genuinely good, but it is still a screen you handle with chalky hands between sets. There is no way to say what you did.
• You supply the exercise knowledge. HeavySet lets you add any movement you like and attach notes and a training max to it. What it does not carry is a library of exercises with photos and step-by-step instructions for the moment you are standing at an unfamiliar machine.
• It expects you to be your own programmer. Training-max percentages, deload rules and rep ranges are all there, and they are all yours to configure. Nothing in HeavySet reads your last few sessions and decides today's weight on its own.
• One platform, one device. iPhone only, iOS 16.6 minimum. If you have moved to Android or want your log on a laptop, HeavySet has no answer.

Superset vs HeavySet

The two apps disagree about where the effort should go. HeavySet puts it in the plan: you describe the session in advance with ranges, percentages and rest presets, and then the workout is mostly confirming what you already specified. Superset puts it in the record: there is no plan to fill in, you train, and afterwards you hold a button and say "bench press, three sets of eight at 135, then incline dumbbell press, ten, ten and eight at fifty." The audio reaches a model that returns the exercises, sets, reps and weights already structured, and a review screen appears before anything saves.

That difference decides who each app suits. If you already know your programme cold and want it enforced set by set, HeavySet is the better tool and has been for years. If your problem is that you keep abandoning trackers because logging became a chore around week three, the microphone is a real fix rather than a marketing line.

Superset also carries what HeavySet deliberately does not: 873 exercises stored on the device, each with photographs and written instructions, available with no signal in a basement gym. And its importer takes a plan in whatever shape you have it, including a message from your coach or a paragraph you paste in, rather than a specific plain-text format.

Where Superset is plainly worse is price and track record. HeavySet costs nothing to try properly and lets you improvise forever without paying. Superset walls you at the end of onboarding: a 3-day free trial with everything unlocked, then $49.99 a year, $7.99 a month or $3.99 a week, with no permanent free tier underneath. It also launched in August 2026 and has no App Store ratings yet, against HeavySet's 1,269.

• Speak a full session instead of typing it. One recording, six exercises, no taps.
• 873 exercises with photos and instructions, stored on the phone and readable offline.
• Import a routine in any format. Paste your coach's message or speak the plan; the app structures it into training days.
• A coach that picks the next weight from what you actually lifted, rather than a percentage you configured months ago.
• Still under active development, with an iOS 26 era release rather than a 2025 one.
• No account required. You can go straight past the sign-in screen as a guest.

Where HeavySet is stronger

This is the honest half of the page, and on features per set HeavySet wins it comfortably.

• Supersets and giant sets are native. HeavySet groups the movements properly and auto-advances between them during the workout. Superset has no structured grouping at all: the closest you get is a free-text note on the session, which is a workaround rather than a feature. If your programme is built on paired movements, this alone should decide it.
• Rest timers per exercise, and a tempo metronome. Presets, quick modifiers, and a local notification when the timer ends. Superset ships none of this.
• Real programming machinery. RPE, AMRAP sets, rep ranges, set ranges, intensity, training-max percentages that calculate the weight for you, and automatic deloads for intensity, volume or rest.
• A plate calculator, which is one of those small things you miss every single session once you have had one.
• Personal record notifications during the workout, for rep records, estimated 1RM and volume, plus a filterable log of every rep record you have set.
• Your data comes out. CSV export without upgrading, CSV import, plain-text routine export you can send to a training partner, and automatic iCloud backup. Superset has no export of any kind.
• Apple Health sync. HeavySet syncs body weight in and shares workouts out to Health. Superset does not: the integration is written but switched off in the shipping build, so nothing reaches the Fitness app or your rings.
• Nine years and 1,269 ratings. Superset has none yet, and that is a fair reason to be cautious about it.

Who should switch, and who should not

Choose Superset if the part of tracking you hate is the tracking. You want to finish your sets, talk for twenty seconds, and be done. You want an exercise library with instructions already on the phone, you want to bring your existing routine over by pasting it rather than retyping it, and you want the app to work out the next weight instead of asking you to specify it. You should also be comfortable paying $49.99 a year after a 3-day trial, and comfortable being an early user of an app with no ratings.

Stick with HeavySet if your training is structured and you want the app to hold that structure: supersets that advance on their own, rest presets per exercise, a tempo metronome, RPE, AMRAP, training-max percentages and automatic deloads. Stick with it if you want CSV export and iCloud backup, if you want your lifts in Apple Health, or if paying nothing while improvising your sessions is the arrangement that suits you. The stale update date is a genuine risk, but a logging app that already does what you need does not stop doing it.

These are not really the same product. HeavySet is a precision instrument for someone who writes their own programme. Superset is a way to get a session recorded when you would otherwise not have recorded it. Pick the one that matches the problem you actually have.