Guide
What a workout tracker should do for muscle gain.
For muscle gain, a workout tracker needs to capture three things per set: the weight, the reps, and how hard it felt. Everything that matters — progressive overload, PRs, weekly volume per muscle — is computed from those three numbers. But here's the real test of a tracker: not what it stores, what it decides. A log that doesn't change what you lift next session is a diary, not a tool.
The numbers worth watching.
If your tracker can't show you these without manual work, you'll stop checking them by week 3 — and untracked numbers quietly stop moving.
- →Top-set weight per exercise, week over week — the cleanest single line for "am I progressing?"
- →Rep PRs — same weight for more reps is growth, even when the weight hasn't moved yet.
- →Estimated 1RM — lets you compare sessions even when rep counts differ.
- →Weekly hard sets per muscle group — the number that decides whether a muscle can grow at all (10–20 is the zone).
From log to decisions.
The log exists to answer one question at the rack: what should this set be? Last session's 60 kg × 8 that felt manageable should become this session's 60 × 9 or 62.5 × 8. Three stalled sessions on a lift should trigger a change. Weeks of grinding sets should trigger a lighter week.
You can make those calls yourself from a good log — plenty of lifters do, with a spreadsheet and discipline. The failure mode is predictable though: the analysis takes effort every single session, and the moment it lapses, training drifts back to repeating comfortable weights.
Tracker or coach?.
Trackers like Strong or Hevy are excellent diaries — fast logging, clean history, you make every decision. Coaching apps go further: they read the log and pick your next sets. Which you want depends on whether the decision-making is a hobby or a chore for you. If your weights haven't moved in months, that's your answer.
GainBlocks: the log that shows what's missing.
GainBlocks tracks everything above — every hard set's weight, reps and how much was left in the tank, PRs flagged the moment you beat a number, and weekly volume per muscle rendered as a board of blocks: one hard set fills one block.
The difference is what happens next. A diary tells you what you did; the board tells you what's still missing this week, and every exercise opens with your last top set and today's target — "Last time: 77.5 × 10. Take 80." Logging apps look backward. The board looks at the week you're still in.