Workout apps that decide your next working weight
You are standing in front of a rack with ninety seconds of rest left, trying to remember what you did last Tuesday and whether it moved well. Almost every tracker answers that by showing you last week's numbers and going quiet. A small number of apps go further and name the weight for the set you are about to do. This page covers which ones, how each arrives at the number, and what the subscription costs.
Updated August 2026
The short answer
Ranked by one test: does the app hand you a specific working weight for the lift in front of you, without you doing the arithmetic?
- Superset, $49.99 a year: one instruction per exercise with the weight attached, computed on the phone from your own logged sets. Keeps whatever program you already run.
- Alpha Progression, $79.99 a year: the most rigorous version. Per-lift progression schemes inside a planned block, with deloads scheduled before you stall rather than after.
- Fitbod, $79.99 a year: names the weight because it wrote the whole session. You get the number by giving up the choice of exercise.
- JEFIT Elite, $69.99 a year: strong analytics and history, with the load call still yours to make.
- Hevy ($23.99/yr) and Strong ($29.99/yr): show you last session's numbers next to the empty field. That is a good prompt and it is not a decision.
- A notes app or a spreadsheet: works perfectly and costs nothing, as long as you keep doing the maths in your rest period. Most people stop.
Superset logs your whole workout from one spoken sentence. iPhone only, 873 exercises built in, 3 days free then $49.99 a year.
Start the free trialFour ways an app can answer "what do I put on the bar"
These get lumped together in App Store copy and they are quite different products.
Show the last session. Hevy and Strong put your previous set beside the input field. You still decide whether to add weight, hold, or back off, which means you are doing it on feel at the end of a working set.
Follow a fixed rule. Beginner programs add a set amount every session until you miss. Simple, effective for a few months, and it takes no account of how the reps actually looked.
Plan the block. Alpha Progression structures a mesocycle, advances each lift on its own scheme, and puts the deload in the calendar in advance. This is the closest thing to written programming.
React to the last set. Superset reads the top completed weight of your last session for that lift and how your reps have moved since, then returns a single action with the number. It plans nothing; it responds to what you did.
What each app actually gives you
| Names the weight | How it decides | Price per year | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superset | Yes, per exercise | Your logged sets, calculated on the phone | $49.99 after a 3-day trial |
| Alpha Progression | Yes | Planned scheme inside a mesocycle | $79.99 |
| Fitbod | Yes | It generates the session and the loads | $79.99 |
| JEFIT | No | Charts and analytics, you decide | $69.99 |
| Hevy | No | Shows last session's numbers | $23.99 |
| Strong | No | Shows last session's numbers | $29.99 |
| Liftoff | No | Scores and ranks the work afterwards | $39.99–$79.99 |
#1 Superset: one instruction per exercise
Superset assumes you brought your own program and answers the narrow question you actually have at the rack. For each exercise you are about to train it returns exactly one action, with the working weight attached, and for holds the rep count to beat.
The six actions are increase, hold, decrease, deload, restart and calibrate. Increase when you hit the top of the rep range. Hold and chase reps when you did not. Decrease when reps have started slipping. Deload when the lift has been flat or falling for weeks. Restart slightly lighter after a long break from that movement. Calibrate when there is no history yet and it needs a first session to work from.
Because the number is derived from your own logged sets rather than generated remotely, it is computed on the device and appears with no signal, which matters in a basement gym. The same subscription includes voice logging, so the fastest version of this loop is to speak the session at the end, save it, and have the next targets waiting the following week. It is $49.99 a year, $7.99 a month or $3.99 a week after a 3-day trial.
The honest limits. This is arithmetic on your logged sets rather than coaching. It does not know you slept badly, that your shoulder is sore, or that you are in a deficit. It will not design a program or periodise a block, and if you want the reasoning explained, Alpha Progression does that far better. Superset is also iPhone only, has no Apple Health sync in the shipping build, offers no CSV export or rest timer, does not group supersets and drop sets, and launched in August 2026 with no App Store ratings yet.
#2 Alpha Progression: the number, with the reasoning
Alpha Progression is the specialist and holds 4.92 stars from 2,089 US ratings. It advances each lift on its own scheme, tracks proximity to failure, and schedules deloads before performance drops rather than in response to it. Planning beats reacting, so if you want your training genuinely programmed, this is the better $79.99 and Superset does not compete with it.
What you pay for on top of the number is understanding. It explains the model it is using, which turns a year of subscription into a year of learning progression rather than following it. The trade is a learning curve, a smaller review base than Hevy or Strong, and no bundled offline exercise library.
#3 Fitbod: it picks the weight because it picked the exercise
Fitbod at $79.99 a year, rated 4.81 by 280,106 people, generates the whole session around your equipment and what you trained recently, weights included. If you have no program and want none, this is the most complete version of that idea on the App Store.
The cost is control. Sessions are generated server-side, so it is not the app for a gym with no signal, and if you already like your split, having it rewritten is a downside dressed as a feature.
#4 The loggers: Hevy, Strong and JEFIT
Hevy at $23.99 a year and Strong at $29.99 are excellent records of what you did, and both show last session's numbers beside the field you are filling in. That prompt is genuinely useful and it stops one step short of a decision, which is why plenty of lifters using them are still guessing on the bar.
JEFIT Elite at $69.99 gives you the deepest analytics here and a web interface to study them on, and it still leaves the load call to you. If you enjoy making that call, these apps are cheaper and better-established than anything above, and Hevy in particular is the value pick in the whole category.
Doing it yourself, if you would rather not pay
- Write down the top set of every exercise, every session. Weight, reps, and whether the last rep was ugly.
- Pick a rep range per exercise, for example 8 to 12, and stick to it for at least six weeks.
- Hit the top of the range on every set: add the smallest jump available, usually 5 pounds upper body and 10 lower.
- Miss the bottom of the range twice in a row: take 10 percent off and build back.
- Flat or falling for three weeks on the same lift: drop to about 60 percent of it for one week, then resume where you left off.
- Do this in a notebook and you have most of what any of these apps sell. Paying for one is really about whether you will keep doing it in a rest period.
How to pick
- You have a program and want the weights handed to you: Superset at $49.99 a year.
- You want the training planned, not reacted to: Alpha Progression at $79.99 a year.
- You do not want to choose exercises either: Fitbod.
- You like making the call yourself: Hevy at $23.99 a year, and keep the difference.
- You train where there is no signal: Superset computes its targets on the device; Fitbod generates sessions server-side.
- You are on Android: Alpha Progression, Fitbod or Hevy. Superset is iPhone only.
Frequently asked questions
Which workout app tells you what weight to lift next?
Four do it properly in 2026. Superset returns one action per exercise with the working weight attached, calculated from your own logged sets, for $49.99 a year. Alpha Progression advances each lift on a planned scheme for $79.99 a year. Fitbod names the weights because it generates the whole session, also $79.99 a year. JEFIT gives you analytics and leaves the decision to you. Hevy and Strong show last session's numbers and stop there.
Do Hevy or Strong tell you when to add weight?
No. Both display your previous session beside the field you are filling in, which is a useful reminder, and neither makes the call for you. That is a deliberate design choice: they are records of training rather than advisers on it. If you want a specific number on the bar without doing the arithmetic yourself, Superset or Alpha Progression are the apps built for that.
How does Superset decide the next weight?
It reads the top completed weight of your last session for that exercise and how your reps have moved since, then returns one of six actions with the number: increase, hold, decrease, deload, restart or calibrate. Increase comes when you hit the top of your rep range, deload when a lift has been flat or falling for weeks. The calculation runs on the phone, so the targets are there with no signal.
Is an app better than adding 5 pounds every session?
For your first few months, a fixed increment works fine and costs nothing. It breaks when the increases stop being possible, because it has no way to notice that your reps have been sliding for three weeks. That is the point where a reactive app like Superset or a planned one like Alpha Progression earns its subscription: both act on the trend rather than on the calendar.
Does the weight suggestion work without internet?
In Superset, yes, because the targets are computed on the device from your own logged history. Fitbod generates its sessions on a server, so it needs a connection to build a workout. Superset's voice logging also needs a connection, since the recording has to reach an AI model, while manual logging, your history and all 873 exercise guides work offline.
What is the cheapest app that picks your weights for you?
Superset at $49.99 a year, which works out at roughly $4.17 a month, against $79.99 a year for both Alpha Progression and Fitbod. Cheaper apps exist, and they do not make the call: Hevy is $23.99 a year and Strong is $29.99, and both leave the weight decision entirely to you.
Stop typing between sets
Say what you lifted. Superset writes down every set, rep and weight, then tells you what to lift next time. iPhone only, 3 days free then $49.99 a year.
Download on the App Store
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