Help guides

Start a session

1. Open the Workout tab It is the first tab. If a program is running you will see Up Next with the session it has queued for you; Start This Workout begins it with the exercises, sets and reps already filled in.
2. Or build the session as you go Tap Add Exercise and pick what you are doing. Nothing has to be planned in advance — a session you invent on the gym floor is logged exactly the same way as one from a program.

Hands full? Use Siri or Shortcuts

On an iPhone, say "Start a workout in Strength Almanac" or "Show my PRs in Strength Almanac", or find both in the Shortcuts app and in Spotlight. Each one only opens the app on that screen — the Train tab or your personal records — and you start the session yourself.

Log your sets

1. Enter weight and reps Each set is a row with a Weight and a Reps field. Tap a field, type the number, and the set saves as you go — there is no separate save button to forget.
2. Add, change or remove sets Add Set appends a row to that exercise. LONG-PRESS a set row for its menu: Edit, Delete, and Mark as warmup so a warm-up set is logged without being counted as working volume.
3. Let it suggest your next weight Optional, per exercise: tap the cog on an exercise block, find Progression and switch on Suggest my next weight. Next time the weight field starts at the number your own rule works out, with a line saying why. Type over it, or tap Use last for last session’s weight; nothing saves until you log the set.
4. Record how hard it was The RIR / RPE row lets you tag a set with reps-in-reserve or rate of perceived exertion. It is optional, and it is what the analytics use later to tell a hard week from a heavy one.
5. Link exercises into a superset Link Exercises on an exercise block joins it to the one below, so the two are tracked as a superset instead of as separate blocks.

Between sets

The rest timer starts on its own when you finish a set and shows as a bar you can leave running while you do anything else in the app. The default length is set in Profile, and Silver adds a per-exercise override for the lifts where the default is wrong.

Finishing

Finish the session when you are done. If any set beat a previous best, the personal-record celebration appears before the summary — you do not have to go looking for it.

One thing to know before a basement gym

Strength Almanac needs an internet connection to save a set. On a weak signal it usually still gets through, because each set is sent the moment the connection allows. With no signal at all a set can fail to save, and it is not held to send later — so if you train somewhere with no reception, write your sets down and enter them afterwards. Offline logging with automatic sync is built and in testing; it is not switched on in this build, and we would rather say so than let you find out at the rack.

Start a program

1. Browse Templates The Programs tab opens on Browse Templates — structured programs you can start as they are. Pick one and it becomes your active program.
2. Or Build Your Own Build Your Own opens the program builder, where you design the days, exercises, sets and reps from scratch. Your own programs live under My Programs.

Following it

Once a program is active, the Workout tab shows Up Next with that day already prescribed — exercises, sets and target reps filled in. You can still change anything mid-session; the program is a starting point for the day, not a cage.

Editing a program you have already started

Open the program from the Programs tab and edit it. Edits apply going forward only. Nothing you have already logged is rewritten by an edit, and no personal record is recalculated — your history is a record of what happened, and changing a plan does not change the past.

You do not have to claim a PR

Every set you log is compared against your previous best for that exercise. When one beats it, the celebration appears during the session — you do not mark it yourself and you cannot miss it by forgetting to.

What counts as a best

A PR can be the heaviest weight you have moved for an exercise, and it can also be an estimated one-rep max: a set of five at a weight you have never taken for five is progress even when the bar is lighter than your single. Both are tracked, so a rep PR is not invisible just because the number on the bar is smaller.

Finding them later

The Analytics tab has a Personal Records section listing every record you hold, and tapping an exercise shows how that record moved over time.

They find you

Achievements are earned by training, not by working through a list. Some mark real milestones. Some are jokes that only make sense once they land. All of them arrive on their own, in the moment they happen.

Why there are no locked rows

Your trophy case shows what you have earned and a count of how many exist in total. It deliberately shows nothing about the ones you have not — no greyed-out silhouettes, no question marks, no thresholds. Those are the standard furniture of achievement screens and they would ruin this one: the moment a threshold is visible it stops being a discovery and becomes an errand. The count is the honest amount to tell you — that there is more, without telling you what.

Keeping them to yourself

Achievements are private until you say otherwise. Profile has an Achievements Board section where you choose what is published, including publishing everything at once if you would rather not decide one at a time.

Opening it

While logging, tap the plate icon on a set row. It takes your target weight and shows the plates to load.

Read the per-side line, and read the unit

The breakdown is PER SIDE — what goes on each end of the bar, not the total. The line says which unit it is in, reading Per side (lbs) or Per side (kg), and that label matters more than it looks: the plate colours are the same in both systems, so the red plate is 45 lb in one and 20 kg in the other. Change your unit in Profile and the calculator follows it.

Very large numbers

Above 2000 the calculator stops drawing plates and tells you instead. No bar takes that, and a screen filled with hundreds of tiny discs is not an answer to anything — so it asks for a lower target rather than pretending.

Exporting

1. Profile, then Export Data Export Workouts writes your training history to a CSV; Export Measurements does the same for body measurements, and Export Suggestions for the exercises you have suggested. Together they cover your workouts, body measurements and exercise suggestions. The file is yours to keep, back up, or open in a spreadsheet.

Importing

1. Profile, then Import Pick a CSV — one of our own exports, or a file laid out exactly like one. The header row is how it recognises the file; a spreadsheet with its own column names is refused rather than guessed at.
2. It checks the whole file first Every row is validated before anything is written, and you are told what is wrong rather than left with half a file imported. If a row cannot be read, nothing lands until you fix it.
3. It warns about repeats Import adds history; it never merges or replaces. If most of a file looks like sets you already have, it warns you before adding a second copy.

Importing a sheet your own AI filled in

1. Profile, then Import a sheet you filled in This opens a guide with our AI instructions and a blank sheet. Share the instructions to the AI chat you already use, give it your old log, and let it fill in a sheet in our format. The sheet is only accepted if its first line is exactly our header.
2. Your old log goes to the AI you choose That is between you and that service. We never see it until you pick the finished file, and you can remove anything private before you paste it. We never send your log to any AI ourselves.
3. Check it before you import Only you know whether a number is what you lifted. Weights and units must match what you wrote, and nothing should be invented. The preview shows a real row from your file so you can compare.
4. A bad workout is skipped, not the whole file Unlike restoring one of our own exports, a sheet that has a problem in one workout still imports the others. You see exactly which rows were left out and why, and you can copy that list back to your AI to fix. Every import can be undone.

Switching from Strong or Hevy

1. Use the web version Importing a Strong or Hevy export is on the web: sign in to Strength Almanac in a browser, then Profile, then Import from Strong or Hevy. The iPhone app does not offer it, but restoring one of our own exports still works there.
2. Export from the other app, then pick the file In Strong: Settings, then Export Strong Data. In Hevy: Profile, Settings, Export & Import Data, then Export Workouts. The file is read on your device, and you see exactly what will be added before anything is.
3. Units are kept exactly as exported Hevy files state their unit, and so do some Strong files. Weights are stored as written: 225 lb stays 225 lb, never converted or rounded. If a Strong file does not say, you choose kilograms or pounds before it goes on.
4. Decide any exercise we do not recognise Names are matched to our catalogue first. For any that are not, you pick an exercise, create your own, or skip it, and skipped sets are counted in the report. Your choices are remembered for next time.
5. What cannot be read is left out, and listed A workout that cannot be read is left out whole and listed with the reason, never half-imported. Warm-ups stay warm-ups. Drop sets and failure sets come in as ordinary working sets, and the report says how many.
6. Safe to repeat, and undoable Picking the same file again adds nothing. Days you already logged here are skipped unless you switch that off. Undo, from the result screen or on a later visit, removes what the import added; achievements it earned stay.

Why this is at the floor tier

Export and import are both included in Bronze, deliberately. Data you cannot get out is data you do not really own, and a tracker that makes leaving expensive is relying on the wrong thing to keep you.

Two directions, both opt-in

Being coached — letting someone you trust see your training and suggest changes — is included from Silver. Coaching other lifters yourself is a Gold feature, for up to 3 lifters. Either way both sides have to agree: nobody can attach themselves to your training without you accepting.

Starting a coaching relationship

1. Open the Coach tab If you do not use coaching at all you can hide the tab entirely from Profile, and turn it back on the same way.
2. Invite, or accept an invite A relationship starts with an invitation and does not exist until the other person accepts it.

What a coach can and cannot do

A coach can see the training you have shared and make suggestions. A suggestion is a proposal: it is applied only when you apply it, and nothing a coach does silently rewrites a set you logged. You can end the relationship at any time from the same screen, without asking them.

What is in Analytics

The Analytics tab collects the Muscle Heat Map, your Strength Trend, Weekly Volume, Personal Records, Body Measurements and Recent Workouts. It fills in as you log — a new account sees an empty state, not a chart of nothing.

Body measurements

Body measurements are logged separately from training, on their own screen, and charted over the same date ranges so weight and strength can be read side by side.

Training Intelligence (Gold)

Training Intelligence is the deeper analysis layer, included with Gold: acute-to-chronic workload, deload signals, recovery, PR velocity and volume trends. Every metric has an About this metric explanation attached to it, because a number you cannot interpret is not information. This is the one genuine feature upgrade in the tiers — everything that counts as core tracking stays in Bronze.

Training preferences

Profile holds your unit preference, your default rest length and its end sound, and the theme — Light, Dark or System.

Privacy

Profile is also where you choose what is published: your Achievements Board, and the list of authors you have blocked in the community.

Your account

1. Email and password Both are changed from Profile. An email change can be made once every 7 days, and it takes effect only after you confirm it from the new address.
2. Subscription Your tier and what it includes are on the pricing screen. The subscription itself is managed by the App Store or Play Store, not inside the app — that is where you change or cancel it.
3. Deleting your account Danger zone, at the bottom. You confirm your password and then read exactly what happens before it is final. If you change your mind you have 7 days: sign back in and the account is restored.

Where to find Share

After a personal record, the celebration has Share PR. When you finish a workout, the completion screen has Share Workout, and so does the page of any finished workout. Beside each record in Personal Records there is a share icon, and a newly earned achievement offers Share. Not every achievement can be shared.

Preview, then choose where it goes

1. Tap Share From the celebration screens and from an achievement, the app builds the card and opens Preview your card. Under Card style you can pick Light or Dark, and the preview updates before anything is shared.
2. Share or Cancel This is the image that will be shared. Nothing is sent until you choose where it goes. Choose Cancel to share nothing.

From a workout page or the records list

From the page of a finished workout and from the share icon in Personal Records there is no preview step: the card is built and your phone's share sheet opens right away.

What is on a card

A workout card shows total volume, sets, duration, exercises and PRs hit. Every card carries the Strength Almanac name and strengthalmanac.com, and the text that goes with it reads Logged with Strength Almanac — strengthalmanac.com.

If it does not work

If the card cannot be made you will see Could not create the image — try again, and the preview offers Try again. If sharing is not available on the device you will see Sharing is not available on this device right now.

Log an entry

1. Open the log screen Tap Log Measurements on the Home tab, or the + on the Body Measurements card in the Analytics tab.
2. Fill in what you track The date starts as today (YYYY-MM-DD). Weight, Body Fat %, Chest, Waist, Hips, Biceps, Thighs, Calves and Neck are all optional, so fill in only the ones you measure. Weights and lengths use the unit you chose in Profile.
3. Save it Tap Save Measurements. Body Fat % has to be between 1 and 60, and the screen marks any number it cannot accept. Your last values show faintly in each field as a starting point.

See the trend

The Body Measurements card in the Analytics tab shows your latest weight and body fat and how long ago you last logged. Tap it for one chart per measurement, over 1M, 3M, 6M, 1Y or All.

Edit or delete an entry

Tap the Body Measurements card in the Analytics tab and scroll down to Your entries. Tap an entry to change its date or values, then tap Save Measurements, or tap Delete Entry and confirm. Deleting always asks first and removes only that one entry; the rest of your history is untouched.

Yours to keep

Body measurements are part of core tracking, included in Bronze. Export Measurements in Profile, under Export Data, writes them to a CSV. They are a log, not advice.

Where to find it

1. Open the Analytics tab Scroll to the section headed Advanced — Gold. With Gold it shows five cards: Volume Trends, PR Velocity, Recovery, Deload Detection and Training load.
2. Open a card Tap a card for its detail screen. Each one has an About this metric explanation. Read it before you act on a number.

If the cards are missing or locked

Without Gold the cards are shown but locked, with a note that Training Intelligence is part of Gold. At Beginner experience level the section reads Hidden at Beginner level and unlocks at Intermediate; change your Experience level in Profile any time.

What it needs from you

It works from what you have logged. Training load needs at least 4 weeks of logged workouts before it can compute a ratio, and Recovery needs workouts across more than one muscle group.

What it is, and is not

Training Intelligence is the one genuine feature upgrade in the tiers. It describes your training load and trends; it does not diagnose anything, predict an injury or promise a result. Everything that counts as core tracking, including charts and export, stays in Bronze.

How the trial works

Creating an account does not start a subscription and does not charge you. You start the trial by subscribing through the App Store or Google Play, and the store shows you the price and the date of your first charge before you confirm. Your first 14 days are free and include everything in Gold, so you can see the full app before deciding where you want to sit.

On day 15

When the trial ends, the Gold extras switch off and your first $1 Bronze charge is taken — unless you cancel by the deadline the store showed you, which costs you nothing. Bronze is the complete tracker, so the only thing day 15 changes is the Gold-only extras.

What never locks

You are never silently moved up a tier, and reading your history and exporting it do not depend on paying us — we will not restrict that because a trial ended, you downgraded, or a subscription lapsed, and we will not delete your history solely because you stop paying.

When logging pauses

The one case where logging new workouts pauses is if you have no active subscription at all — you cancelled it, or a renewal payment failed — and resubscribing switches logging straight back on with your history untouched. The prompt you see names the reason:

1. Choose a tier to keep logging Your free trial has ended. Pick a tier to start logging again — your history and export stay yours either way.
2. Subscribe to keep logging Logging needs a Bronze subscription. Your history, export and the option to delete your own workouts stay yours either way.
3. Payment needs attention Your subscription needs attention. Tap to update payment.

On the web

Subscriptions are bought in the Strength Almanac iOS app, not on the web. Subscribe there and signing in here unlocks logging too.

On your phone

The plans screen opens next: choose a plan there and buy it through your phone's app store.

1. If the app store is down The app store isn't available right now, so you can't subscribe at the moment. Try again later from the plans screen. Reading and export still work.

Send a suggestion

1. Open your custom exercise Open the exercise picker from Add Exercise and tap the information icon next to an exercise you created yourself. The Suggest for the library option only appears on your own custom exercises.
2. Tap Suggest for the library It sits in the Shared library card on the exercise's detail screen.
3. Fill in the form Give it a Name of 2 to 60 characters, search for the exercise it is a Variation of, then choose its Equipment, Laterality and How sets are measured. A Note to the reviewer is optional and can run to 280 characters.
4. Tap Send Send needs a connection. If we think the exercise might already exist, you will be shown it and can either use it or send yours anyway.

What happens next

A person reviews every suggestion, and nothing is added automatically. The Shared library card shows where it stands: Pending review, then Approved with publishing soon, then Live in the shared library, or Not added when it is declined, with the reviewer's note if they left one. While it is still pending you can tap Withdraw.

Good to know

Your own custom exercise and everything you have logged with it stay exactly as they are, whatever the decision. You can have up to 5 suggestions waiting for review at a time. You can suggest up to 10 exercises a day. Try again tomorrow. A name that is already in the library or that contains words we do not allow is turned away.

What a rating is

A rating is 1 to 5 stars for a program from the catalog: a template, or a program another lifter published to the community. There is no written review. You can rate a program only after you have trained it yourself, so the number comes from people who actually ran it.

Leave a rating

1. Copy the program and train it Copy a program from the catalog into your own programs. Your copy shows a line reading Based on, then the program's name. Workouts from every copy you make of the same program count together.
2. Train it on 6 different days Until you qualify, the button on your copy reads Rate after, then the number of workout days you still need. A day counts when a finished workout from your copy has at least one working set with at least one rep; warm-up sets do not count. Days are counted by UTC date, so a late-evening workout can fall on the next day's date.
3. Tap Rate and choose your stars Open your copy from your own programs and tap Rate, then the program's name. Choose 1 to 5 stars and tap Save. Saving needs a connection: without one the sheet says Connect to rate.

Change or remove your rating

Open the same program and tap Rate again; the stars you chose are already selected. Pick new ones and tap Save, or tap Remove and confirm. Removing cannot be undone, but you can rate again afterwards.

What other lifters see

Ratings appear as a total only, on the template and community program cards and on each program's detail screen. Until a program has 5 ratings you see just the count, such as 3 ratings, so one person's opinion never reads as a consensus. From 5 ratings it shows the average out of 5 to one decimal, with a bar for each star count. Other lifters never see who gave a rating or what any one person gave.

Good to know

There is no Rate button on a program you published yourself or one you built from scratch. Rating is open at every tier, Bronze included. Like logging, rating pauses when your account has no active subscription (see Your trial, and when logging pauses); reading the totals never does.

When it starts

The rest timer starts by itself when you log a working set. Warm-up sets do not start it, and editing a set you already logged does not restart it. Logging the next set replaces the countdown with a new one. Before you log, each exercise shows a small line such as Rest 90s, so you know what is coming.

While it counts down

A Resting bar sits just above the tab bar on whatever screen you are on, with the time left, a +30s button that adds 30 seconds and a Skip button that ends the rest now. The same countdown shows on the exercise you just logged. Finishing or abandoning the workout clears it.

Set the length

1. Your default In Profile, the Default rest timer card holds your everyday length. Tap 60, 90, 120, 180 or 240 seconds, or type a custom length from 5 to 1800 seconds and tap Set. Until you choose one it is 90 seconds.
2. One exercise differently (Silver) Tap the cog on an exercise block and use Rest between sets to give that exercise its own length; Use global default clears it. The per-exercise length is a Silver feature. The timer itself, and your default length, are part of Bronze.

When the rest ends

If the app is open, your chosen sound plays, even with the phone on silent, and the timer clears. If you have switched to another app or locked the phone, a Rest complete notification arrives instead, using your phone's standard alert sound (silent if you chose Haptic only or Off). The first time a timer starts, your phone asks permission to send notifications; if you say no, the countdown still runs but nothing arrives in the background. The web version shows the countdown only.

Pick the end sound

In Profile, the Rest timer sound card lists five bells (Classic, Heavyweight, Cutman, Single Ding and Round Start), Haptic only and Off. Tap any option to hear it. Haptic only vibrates without a sound, and Off does neither. The choice is kept on that device.

Find and use one

In the Programs tab, Browse Templates has two tabs: Official Templates and Community. Open a program to see its days and workouts, then tap Use This Program. It is added to My Programs as your own copy, which you can edit like any other.

Report or block

Community programs are shared by other lifters and are not reviewed by Strength Almanac before they appear. Use Report on a program that looks inappropriate. Use Block author if you just do not want to see someone's programs: it is private, they are not told, and you can unblock any time from Profile, then Blocked authors.

Publish your own

Publishing needs Silver or higher. On the page of a program you built, tap Publish to Community, fill in the name, description, level and goal, and confirm it is your own content. Content that breaks the rules can be removed and publishing access revoked.

Create your own exercise

On the Workout tab, tap Add Exercise, then Create Exercise. Name and Primary Muscles are required. Secondary Muscles, Equipment and a Description are optional, and a secondary muscle cannot also be a primary one. Tap Create Exercise to save; it shows a Custom label in the picker, and you can change it later with Save Changes. You can also suggest it for the shared library (see Suggest an exercise for the library).