Progressive Overload Apps: Who Sets Your Next Weight

Every rule below comes from the app maker's own help pages, website or App Store listing, read on 15 October 2026. GainsLog's comes from its code. Of the apps here that suggest a next weight, I used RP Hypertrophy before I built GainsLog, and say where that experience comes in. The apps differ in who decides the next weight and how predictable that decision is, and that's what this page compares.

Take one exercise from a muscle-building program: machine chest press, three working sets, aiming for 8 to 12 reps. Last session you did 60 kg for 12, 10 and 9 reps, each with about one rep in reserve (RIR, the reps you could still have done). The machine's stack goes up in 5 kg steps. The numbers are an example, not anyone's real log.

Reps falling from set to set is normal. RP's own help center says "Seeing reps decline over sets is normal and expected" (RP Strength). The rules below treat that drop in different ways. Where a maker's page gives a rule, the table applies it. Where it doesn't, the table says so.

Hevy lists what you did last time in a Previous column while you train (Hevy). The weight and reps in a routine also update to what you did, unless you turn that off or switch on a rep range for the exercise (Hevy). So the example comes back as 60 kg for 12, 10 and 9, and adding a rep or a plate is up to you. Strong compares each exercise with the last time you did it through a Focus Metric you choose, such as total volume or reps per set (Strong). Its help pages describe templates and each exercise's history, and nothing that picks the next weight (Strong templates, Strong exercise detail). The template and exercise pages were last updated in 2021, the Focus Metric page in 2024. The free versions have limits: Hevy keeps four routines and three months of history (Hevy), and Strong three templates (Strong). Both apps also run on Android.

That's enough if you already run a program with its own progression rule and follow it yourself.

Stronglifts adds weight the next time you do an exercise if you completed every set. If you missed reps, it repeats the weight, and after three failed sessions in a row it lowers the weight 10% by default. You can change the step size and how often it adds weight (Stronglifts). The app is built around five sets of five on barbell lifts, so a 12-rep machine press is a stretch for it, but the rule reads the same.

Hevy Trainer, on Pro, works the same way for rep ranges. Its FAQ says "You must hit the upper end of the rep range with a specific weight on all prescribed sets for Trainer to increase it" (Hevy).

Liftosaur runs whatever rule you write in its scripting language, Liftoscript. Its built-in double progression, written `dp(5kg, 8, 12)` for this example, raises the target reps once you complete every set, adds the weight at 12 and goes back to 8. A second built-in rule, `sum`, adds weight once the total reps across all sets pass a number you choose (Liftosaur).

Stronglifts, Hevy Trainer and Liftosaur's double progression all need every set to reach the target. In the example, set 3 has to reach 12 before the weight moves, while set 1 got there a session ago. These rules suit programs where every set has the same target, as in five sets of five, better than ones where reps fall across sets. Liftosaur's total-reps rule is the exception among them.

MacroFactor Workouts publishes the most exact rule of this group. For sets with at least one rep in reserve, it expects you could reach the middle of the rep range plus your RIR target if you went to failure. Beat that and the targets go up (MacroFactor). Fall short and the next load can come down a little (MacroFactor). With 8 to 12 reps at 1 RIR the expected number is 11. In the example, set 1 adds up to 13 (12 reps plus 1 in reserve), set 2 to 11 and set 3 to 10. The help pages don't say how the app weighs the three sets together.

Alpha Progression keeps its progression recommendations for Pro; the free version lists "No recommendations" (Alpha Progression). Its guide to the recommendations lists the inputs: your last workout, the sets you've done today, your planned rep target, your gym's available weights and, if you track it, RIR. Internally it compares sets through an estimated 10-rep max, and it says "Progression does not require every set to beat the last one". It doesn't publish the calculation, so the example can't be worked through (Alpha Progression).

RP Hypertrophy plans by the week. Its help page says the weight "is increased by a few percentage points each week", and when the next weight step is too big, "it adds a rep to each set instead". The number of sets moves with how pumped, sore and worn out you report feeling (RP Strength). A 5 kg step on 60 kg is about 8%. If RP treats that as too big, as in its example of going from 10 lb to 15 lb dumbbells, the next session asks for 60 kg for 13, 11 and 10. If not, it moves to 65 kg.

I used RP Hypertrophy before I built GainsLog. It had good progression rules, though they weren't as flexible as GainsLog's, at least back then. RepCount, another app I used, didn't have built-in progression rules. My RP Hypertrophy app review covers its prices and how it changes your sets.

Fitbod changes the prescription on purpose. Its help center says its mStrength system varies intensity and volume between sessions, so some workouts favour more reps at a lower weight and others fewer reps at a heavier one. It also uses your RIR ratings and an estimated one-rep max, which it checks with occasional "Max Effort Days" (Fitbod). So a lighter session than last time can be the plan, and the next set can't be worked out from its pages.

GainsLog sets a target for each working set from that set's last comparable performance: the weight, the reps and the RIR you logged. A set below the top of its rep range gets another rep at the same weight. A set at the top moves to the next weight step, with a rep target estimated to match what you did at the lighter weight.

The example needs two settings: a rep target of 12, set on the exercise in a saved workout or program, and a weight step of 5 kg on the exercise. Without them GainsLog uses its own defaults, and the numbers change. With them, set 1 reached the top, so the exercise moves to 65 kg. Each set's reps are estimated from what that set did at 60 kg: 65 kg for 9 is about the same performance as 60 kg for 12, and 7 and 6 match the 10 and 9. GainsLog allows targets of 7 and 6 even though the example's range starts at 8. Each set gets its own target, so the weight moves without set 3 first reaching 12. When to increase the weight explains how GainsLog handles large weight jumps and sets you took to failure.

The targets are in the free version, for every exercise you've logged before, and the free version saves up to three workouts. The programs and the program builder are Premium, at $5.99 a week with a free trial, or $39.99 a year (Premium).

Prices are the yearly products on each app's US App Store listing on 15 October 2026. Where a listing shows more than one current yearly price, all are given; products labelled legacy, GainsLog's two older Gains Premium products and its $29.99 yearly offer, which its Premium page doesn't show, are left out, as is MacroFactor's annual bundle ($89.99). Check the price in the app before you pay.

Sources for the table: each app's US App Store listing, plus Stronglifts, MacroFactor, Alpha Progression and Fitbod for the trials. RP Hypertrophy's yearly price is more than twelve times Hevy Pro's.

• You already follow a program with its own progression, and want to log it for free: Hevy or Strong. You make the call each session, comparing with last time. Free, Hevy keeps four routines and Strong three templates, and both run on Android.
• You run a barbell strength program such as 5×5 or GZCLP: Stronglifts or Liftosaur. The rule is fixed, and in Liftosaur you can write it yourself.
• You want the app to plan for muscle growth and are happy to rate pump and soreness: RP Hypertrophy, if $299.99 a year is acceptable.
• You want the most detailed published rule based on reps in reserve: MacroFactor Workouts, at $71.99 a year.
• You want per-set recommendations that take your gym's weights into account, with a free version for logging: Alpha Progression.
• You want a different workout each session: Fitbod.
• You're on iPhone and want each set's weight and reps set from your last ones without paying: GainsLog. It has been on the App Store since November 2025 and had three US ratings in October 2026, far fewer than the others, and its Android app is still in closed beta.
• Comparing a few of these directly: GainsLog vs Hevy and Fitbod vs Hevy. Whether Hevy Pro and Trainer are worth paying for is in the Hevy app review.

Researched and drafted with AI assistance from each app's help pages, website and App Store listing and from GainsLog's code, checked against those pages on 15 October 2026. The worked example is illustrative; the rules applied to it are the makers' own descriptions.

• Hevy help: previous workout values
• Hevy help: previous values vs routine values
• Hevy help: Hevy Trainer
• Hevy: workout plan generator FAQ
• Strong help: templates
• Strong help: exercise detail
• Strong help: Focus Metric
• Hevy help: free and Pro
• Stronglifts: increments and deload settings
• Stronglifts: Pro and the free trial
• Liftosaur: Liftoscript and built-in progressions
• MacroFactor help: progressive overload
• MacroFactor help: lower recommendations
• MacroFactor Workouts: prices and trial
• Alpha Progression: Free and Pro
• Alpha Progression: how the recommendations work
• RP Strength help: Hypertrophy App progressions
• RP Strength help: reps in reserve
• Fitbod help: how Fitbod decides sets, reps and weight
• Fitbod help: how the trial works