Train Smart vs a workout logger
Workout loggers — the category that includes most of the best-rated gym apps — are genuinely excellent at one job: recording sets and showing you your history. Train Smart is a different kind of tool, and if you want a logger you should buy a logger.
What the alternative does better
What logging apps do well, and better than us: fast set entry, huge exercise databases, rest timers, plate calculators, detailed personal-record tracking, and social feeds around lifting specifically. Many are free or nearly free. If your training is already programmed and you just want to record it cleanly, that is exactly what they are built for and you should use one.
Where Train Smart is different
The gap is prescription. A logging app is, by design, a blank page: you decide the exercises, the sets, the reps and the weight, and the app remembers what you chose. That is a feature — it is completely flexible — and it is also the entire problem for someone who does not know what to program.
Train Smart starts from the other end. It decides the week, the sessions, the exercises, the sets, the reps and the weight in kilos, then adapts all of it to your sport, your season, your recovery and your injuries. You can override every part of it. But you never start from a blank page.
The comparison
| Workout logger | Train Smart | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides the program | You | The app, adapted to your sport and season |
| Weight on each set | You choose | Prescribed in kilos, calculated from your history and block |
| Sport-specific programming | Not typically | Twelve sports, each with its own template |
| Season periodisation | Not typically | Built in, on real Australian season calendars |
| Running and conditioning | Usually lifting-only | Ten goal-driven conditioning plans |
| Injury rehab programming | No | Intake, rehab block, adapted program |
| Fitness testing battery | No | 24 tests, sport-matched, retested every 8 weeks |
| Nutrition and meal planning | Usually no | Targets plus a 188-meal plan and shopping list |
| Set-entry speed | Excellent — their core job | Good, but not the primary design goal |
| Exercise database size | Often very large | 554 movements, each with cues and alternatives |
| Price | Often free or low-cost | A$24.99/month after a free month |
When Train Smart is the wrong choice
Every comparison page on the internet ends with the author winning. Here are the people who should not buy this.
- You already have a coach writing your program. You need a logger, not a second opinion. Use one.
- You are an experienced lifter who enjoys programming. If writing your own block is part of the hobby, a prescriptive app will annoy you.
- You want a free app. Ours is not, and the free loggers are genuinely good.
- You only lift and have no interest in conditioning, recovery, testing or nutrition. You would be paying for most of a product you will not open.
Common questions
Can I use Train Smart just as a logger?
Does Train Smart have an exercise database?
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OpenStart training properly
Pick your sport, answer a few questions, and your first week is built before you leave the kitchen.
One month free, then A$24.99/month. Cancel any time. iPhone and iPad.