How to track strength progress: estimated 1RM, volume and personal records.
A workout log becomes more useful once it can answer a simple question: am I getting stronger? GymTribe turns the sets you already log into charts for each exercise, personal records, volume trends and a map of the muscles you trained. Here is what each one shows and how to read it.
4 min read
01 / Each exercise
Every exercise keeps its own progress charts.
Open an exercise and its Progress section shows three groups. Strength charts your heaviest weight and estimated one-rep max. Set charts your best set volume and the most reps in one set. Session charts your best session volume and the most reps in one session.
Each workout that includes the exercise adds a point, and you can view the last 3 months, 6 months, a year or all time. Each chart also shows how much the value changed in that period.
Volume is weight multiplied by reps. A set of 10 reps at 20 kg is 200 kg of volume, and a session's volume adds up every completed set.
02 / Estimated 1RM
What estimated 1RM means, and why it helps.
Your one-rep max is the most weight you could lift for a single rep. Testing it directly is hard work, and most people rarely do it. GymTribe estimates it from the sets you already do, using the Epley formula: weight × (1 + reps ÷ 30). A set of 8 reps at 60 kg gives an estimate of 76 kg.
Because the estimate works from any set with weight and reps, a heavy set of 3 and a lighter set of 10 land on the same line. If the line rises over a few weeks, you are lifting more for the reps you do.
It is an estimate, not a tested max. Estimates from very high-rep sets are usually less precise, so read the trend rather than any single point.
03 / Personal records
Personal records, as they happen.
Each exercise keeps six records: heaviest weight, estimated 1RM, best set volume, most reps, best session volume and max session reps. When a set beats your heaviest weight, estimated 1RM or rep record for that exercise, a New PR unlocked card appears during the workout, with the new value next to the one it beat.
The first set you ever log for an exercise is never a record, because there is nothing to beat yet.
04 / Volume over time
Look at weeks, not single workouts.
The Trends card adds up your training by period: volume, workouts, duration, sets, reps, calories or distance. Each bar covers a week or longer, depending on the range, and you can view the last 3 months, 6 months, a year or all time. Beside the chart you see the latest period, your average and your best.
A single week can dip for ordinary reasons, like travel or a busy stretch at work. The pattern over several weeks says more than any one bar.
05 / Muscle distribution
See which muscles your training reaches.
Muscle distribution shades a body map, with a male or female figure, by how many sets each muscle received. Open it for a table of sets, reps and volume per muscle, for ranges from today to all time.
Each set counts once, toward the exercise's primary muscle only, so one set is not counted again for every muscle it touches.
- Spot a gap. If part of the map stays pale for weeks, that muscle group is getting fewer sets than the rest.
- Check a new routine. After a few weeks on a new routine, see whether your sets are spread the way you planned.
- Compare ranges. Switch between last week, the last 28 days and the last 3 months to see whether a change has held.
For how these charts compare with other apps, see GymTribe vs Hevy and MyFitnessPal.
Keep it in context
Charts describe your training. They do not judge it.
GymTribe's charts are built from the sets you log, so they are only as complete as your log. They show what you did, not what you should do next, and they do not replace advice from a coach or a medical professional.
