Tracking workouts on mobile

The hi.fitness mobile app has a workout tracker built for the gym floor: one exercise at a time, big touch targets, and everything saved on your phone as you go - so a closed app, a dead battery, or no signal never costs you a set.

Starting a workout

Everything starts from the workout card on your dashboard:

• Start - opens today's planned workout with every exercise, set, and target weight already filled in.
• Start free workout - pick one or more exercises to begin with, then build the session as you go.

On today's rest or unplanned day, the card offers a free session instead. It is only offered for today: a free workout starts the moment you tap it, so it is always recorded on today's date - a card headed with a past or future day cannot log one against that day. The bolt in the Workout tab's header starts a free workout at any time, whichever day the strip is showing.

When you start a free workout, the picker opens on the full exercise library - search it, filter by muscle group or equipment, and pick whatever you came in to train. If your plan has a workout waiting, it sits right at the top - one tap loads it with every set filled in, in case free wasn't what you meant.

What the day's card tells you

Pick a day in the Workouts tab and its card answers three things before you commit to anything:

• How many exercises the session has.
• Estimated - roughly how long it will take, worked out from the sets, the reps and the rest between them, and rounded to the nearest five minutes. It is a guide, not a stopwatch: your own pace decides. A session we cannot estimate shows a dash rather than a zero.
• Preview exercises - opens the whole session: every exercise with its photo and its prescribed sets and reps. Tap an exercise to see the demo video, the muscles it works and your history with it; tap the pencil on its right to open just that exercise, where you can adjust its reps and weight or replace it altogether. When you save, we ask whether the change is for this day only or for the whole plan - every day this workout is scheduled.

Once the workout is finished, the same card reports back instead: it reads exercises, sets and time - what you did first, how long it took last - and the button becomes See how it went: the records you set, the note you wrote at the finish, your voice memos, and every set in a table: reps, weight, the rest you actually took and the face you rated it with. It opens with what the session amounted to - volume lifted, sets, exercises, time and calories, each shown only when we have it - then the muscles you worked on a body map, and at the end how the volume compares with the last time you did this workout. An activity that arrived with a route - a run, a ride, a walk - draws its map inside that same card; tap the expand button in the map's corner to open the whole activity.

Your exercise list

Tapping Start opens the workout on its exercise list: the workout's name and the plan it belongs to, how many exercises and how many sets in total, a body showing which muscles the session works, and every exercise in its planned order with its picture, its sets and its reps.

• Tap any exercise to go into it and start logging. You do not have to begin with the first one - if the rack you wanted is taken, go straight to number four.
• Your workout time starts when you open your first exercise, not when the list appears. Reading the plan, reordering it or swapping something out costs you nothing on the clock.
• The body follows the exercises, not the workout's name. Swap a movement or add one and the highlighted muscles change with it. Solid means a muscle leads an exercise, faded means it assists.
• Press and hold a row to move that exercise up or down, replace it, or take it out of the session.
• The + in the top right adds an exercise from the library.

The list stays one tap away for the rest of the session - the back arrow at the top left of an exercise returns to it. Coming back never pauses or resets the clock.

A free workout goes straight to the first exercise you picked - its clock is running from that tap. The same list is one tap back, holding everything you chose.

Logging your sets

The current set sits in the highlighted card at the bottom of the screen:

• Tap Reps to choose a whole number on the wheel; each change is saved immediately, and Done only closes the sheet. Tap Weight to type a value; the existing number is selected, so your first digit replaces it instead of being appended. Weight is shown in your preferred kg or lb unit.
• Tap Save set to log it and start your rest. The badge on the button shows which set you are saving.

Where your plan sets no target and you have no history for a movement, reps and weight show a dash rather than a zero - there is nothing to match, so just enter what you did.

The list above is a table, and its numbers are printed rather than typed into. Tap a reps or weight value to correct it - the keypad opens on that set without moving you off the one you are on, so you can adjust a later set's plan before you get to it. The right-hand column of each row shows what you did at that position the last time you trained the exercise, with the face you rated it with, in quieter type so it can never be mistaken for today's number.

You work the sets in order: finishing one is what takes you to the next. A set you have not done yet can be opened by tapping its row - that is how you get back to the set you still owe after reading through the ones you have logged - but it cannot be ticked off or swiped done until you are on it, and its planned numbers can be corrected at any time. A set you have already saved is different: tap its row to bring it back into the card below and change anything about it. Once every set of an exercise is logged, no row is selected any more - the card below reports the exercise as complete, and tapping any row is what opens it. Your changes are kept as you make them, so the button simply reads Done and hands you back to that report: correcting a set never moves you to another one and never ends a rest that is still running. Add set puts an extra one at the end, and pressing and holding a row removes it.

Peeking at the demo video

The video playing behind the workout is the demo clip for the current exercise. To get a clear look at the movement, grab the small handle at the top of the sets card and pull down: a haptic tick confirms that the card is attached to your finger, the card slides out of the way and the top of the screen fades so the clip shows through. Let go and everything springs back into place.

The video keeps playing while your music does. Your Spotify album cover is not on the video any more - it tints the card the sets sit on, so you get the movement and the record you picked at the same time.

Rating how a set felt

You rate a set after you have saved it, while the rest timer runs - that is the minute you have to think about it, and the card you save from stays about the two numbers you are entering. The rest timer carries one cell: it shows the face you picked, or a plain outline face and Rate set while a set is still unrated. Tap it and all four open. The same cell is on the card when you tap a set you have already saved, so going back to rate one later works the same way:

• 😄 light - you had plenty left
• 🙂 OK - it went as expected
• 😤 hard - a genuinely tough set
• 🥵 very hard - at or near your limit

A set starts unrated and stays that way until you say otherwise: an unrated set is never counted as "normal", neither in your summary nor in what your trainer reads. The face stays on the set row, so you can see at a glance how each set went. Repeating the same weight does not carry the previous rating over either - the third set at 25 kg is rarely the first one.

Ratings feed your session summary and help your trainer see where a weight is too light or too heavy.

You can rate from your Apple Watch too. Right after you save a set there, the watch asks "How did it go?" for about five seconds - tap a face to rate the set, or tap Continue (or simply do nothing) and the set stays unrated while the watch returns to the rest countdown. During the rest you can still rate the set, or change your mind, on the set screen: tap the face you mean - it lands on the same set in the phone's tracker - and tap it again to take the rating back. You can also fix the saved set's reps and weight right there: tap the small value cards under the faces while the rest runs.

Voice memos

Mid-workout is a bad time to type. An exercise note can be spoken instead, and the recording is kept with the workout so you can play it back later.

Tap Note under the exercise name, then Add voice note, and tap Stop when you're done. The recording collapses into a single line with a play button and its length - tap it to listen back, press and hold it to replace or delete it. A note can have both text and a recording, or just one of them. An exercise that carries one shows a small blue dot on the Note button, so you can see at a glance where you left it.

Recordings are made on your phone, so they work with no signal - you can record and replay them in a basement gym. They upload on their own once the workout has been saved and you have a connection, and they show up under Voice notes when you open the finished workout from your history.

Open Note on an exercise you have written about before and your last five notes sit under the field - swipe sideways through them to see the date, the workout, what you wrote and a play button for that day's recording. They are read-only: the point is to see what you learned last time before your first set, not to edit your history. A small blue dot sits on the Note button once you have written or recorded something for this exercise in this workout, so you know there is something behind it without adding another row to the workout. Notes from earlier sessions do not light it - they are still here under the field, but the dot is about today.

Rest timer

Saving a set starts the rest countdown at the bottom of the screen. From there:

• Next set takes you straight to the following set.
• Next exercise appears once an exercise is done - or Finish workout on the last one.

You don't have to wait: the next action is always available, and the timer lets you know when rest is over. When it reaches zero the countdown is replaced by Rest over and a short nudge to get you moving. A new personal best is marked with a 🏆 on the set's own row the moment it lands, and stays there for the rest of the session.

Next set ends the break for you. There is nothing to confirm and nothing to close: pressing it is you saying the rest is over, and the time you actually took is written onto the set it followed. Looking around does not end it, though - tap some other row while the countdown runs and it keeps going beside Save set at the bottom of the screen, and that button reads Finish rest first, so a break you are still taking is never ended by a stray tap. Press and hold the timer, slide to +30 s, and release to extend the rest without keeping a permanent extra button on screen. The set and rest controls have the same height, so the set list does not jump when you save. The rest is recorded when you save the next set. The list does not run ahead of you while it counts down: the row you are about to do lights up when you press Next set, not before, so the break stays about the set you have just finished.

Between exercises

The break after an exercise's last set is a different moment, and it looks like one: Exercise complete!, how many sets you logged, and two ways on - Go to next exercise (or Finish workout on the last one) and Back to exercise list. The countdown keeps running beside it, so reading what is coming costs you nothing.

Next exercise takes you straight there - with the rest still running. You get the clip, the sets and last session's numbers while the countdown stays in the compact bottom rail, which is what the rest of that minute is for: reading what is next and setting the first weight. The timer stops when you save that first set, not when you arrive.

Rest times

Your rest is measured for you: the countdown starts when you save a set and the real length is written onto that set when you save the next one. A break under five seconds is not counted as one. You will see them all when you open the finished workout - a rest column beside the reps and weight.

They are not shown while you train, and there is nothing to fill in: a rest is a measurement of the set you just did, not a decision waiting for you between two rows.

Workout status on your iPhone

While a workout is active, supported iPhones show the current exercise and set in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen. During a rest, the compact Island switches from exercise progress to the live countdown. Press and hold the Island to see the exercise name, workout progress, and rest countdown. Tap it to return straight to the tracker.

It follows the workout even when hi.fitness is in the background. Finishing or cancelling the workout removes it automatically. Exercise artwork is cached for offline use; if it is not available yet, a workout icon appears instead.

Live heart rate from Apple Watch

When the heart-rate bubble is not receiving live readings, tap it to start the session on your Apple Watch. While readings are live, tap the bubble again and confirm that you want to stop heart-rate tracking.

This stops only the Watch sensor - your workout on the phone continues. If the Watch is unreachable, the stop request is queued and takes effect when it reconnects.

Training from your Apple Watch

You can run a whole workout from your wrist, with your phone in a locker or in your pocket. Open hi.fitness on the Watch and you get two buttons: Workouts and Nutrition.

Workouts lists the sessions from your plan. Pick one and the Watch starts it. From there the screens swipe sideways, in the order you train in:

• Media - Apple's system playback controls for whatever is playing.
• Exercises - every exercise in the session with its picture, its name, and how many of its sets are done. Tap one to jump to it.
• Set - the exercise picture and name, the set you are on, and your reps and weight.
• Rest - the countdown, with the next set underneath.
• Summary - how far you are, and Finish workout.

To change reps or weight, tap the number: it lights up and the Digital Crown changes it as you turn. There is nothing to confirm - the value is saved as soon as you look away. Tap Set 2 of 4 above the numbers to see every set of the exercise and jump to any of them, which is how you go back and fix one you have already saved.

Leaving is the X in the top corner, and it offers two different things. Stop only ends the measuring on the watch - heart rate stops, and a workout running on your phone keeps going. Discard workout ends the training and deletes it on both devices. A workout that exists only on your Watch says so before you discard it: there is no other copy to fall back on.

Your plan reaches the Watch from your phone, so open hi.fitness on your iPhone once after installing. After that the list works with no signal. The exercise clips travel with it, so the demo video plays on your wrist with no signal either.

On your watch face

Add the Workout complication to a watch face and today's training is one tap away. It lights up in the hi.fitness lime when a workout is waiting for you, fills in as you save sets while one is running, shows a green tick once the day's workout is done, and stays gray on a rest day.

Tap it: with a workout running you land straight back in it, otherwise you get your workout list with today's session at the top, marked Today. Opened this way the list fills the whole screen: there is no close button, because pressing the Digital Crown takes you straight back to your watch face. Add it the way you add any complication - press and hold the watch face, tap Edit, choose a complication slot and pick hi.fitness.

Starting on your phone, finishing on your Watch

The two devices are one workout, not two. Start on your phone and the Watch joins the same session; start on the Watch and your phone picks it up when it is back. Whichever device you touch last is the one that is right.

That includes the case this was built for: if your phone dies mid-workout, keep going on your Watch. Every set you save is written to the Watch itself before anything is sent, so the workout survives a phone that is out of battery, out of range, or switched off. Finish it on your Watch and it is saved there and waits - the home screen shows it is waiting to sync - and it uploads on its own as soon as your iPhone is back. Nothing is duplicated, and nothing older overwrites it. And finishing on the Watch does not cost you the celebration: the next time you open hi.fitness on your phone, it shows the same records screen you would see after finishing there, calories included.

The only thing that would lose it is deleting the app or erasing the Watch before it syncs. A flat phone, a restart, a lost signal, or closing an app will not.

Music controls on Apple Watch

Swipe right from the set screen (past the exercise list) to open Apple's system playback controls. They control the current or recent audio source on your Apple Watch or paired iPhone, not only Spotify.

Coach nudges

If your rest has been over for a while and you haven't touched the workout, the app gives you a gentle "Ready for your next set?" - like a trainer would, and only when you've actually drifted off, never during the rest itself:

• In the app, the heart-rate bubble shows the reminder with a light tap, and only while your heart rate says you're not already working.
• In another app - watching a video, changing your music - hi.fitness sends a single notification instead. Tap it to come back. The app asks for notification permission once, at your first rest; if you decline, this stays off (you can change it anytime in your phone's notification settings).
• On your Apple Watch, with the watch workout running, the reminder arrives as a tap on your wrist with the same message under the timer - handy when your phone is in a locker. When the watch is on your wrist, it takes over and your phone stays quiet.

Logging a set, adjusting the rest, or finishing the workout clears the reminder on every device.x

Exercise details, history, and swapping

The buttons under the exercise name, left to right:

• Details - the exercise demo video (tap for full screen) and description.
• History - your overall best, progress trend, and previous workouts for this exercise.
• Note - a note for this exercise, typed or spoken.
• Swap - replace the exercise for this workout only. If you already logged sets, you can keep them and replace just the remaining sets. The replacement list leads with the closest matches - the same kind of movement on similar equipment, so a machine fly is offered another fly rather than a bench press - and the rest of the muscle group sits below it.
• Remove - take the exercise out of this workout. We always ask first, and if you have already logged sets we say how many go with it.

The row scrolls sideways when the buttons do not all fit, so swipe it to reach the last ones.

Tap the back arrow at the top left to return to your exercise list - the Exercise X of Y beside your workout time is a label, not a button: press and hold a row to move, swap or remove that exercise, or add another one. Add exercise opens the library - search, filter by muscle group or equipment, or pick from Recently used. Two cards sit above the list: Muscles ("what do I want to train", and picking several shows exercises for any of them) and Equipment ("what can I reach right now"). Equipment asks which kit you want to use, and leaves only exercises that use it and need nothing outside your pick: tick Dumbbells alone and the dumbbell bench presses stay hidden, because those need a bench as well. Bodyweight exercises are not in that answer either - a push-up uses no dumbbells - so they have their own button, Bodyweight only, for a session with no kit at all. Each card has its own x, so you can drop one filter without touching the other. Your equipment is remembered for next time (a home gym is the same tomorrow) while muscle groups start clear on every open. Can't find what you need? Create your own exercise with a name and a primary muscle, and keep logging.

During a free workout, the library also shows exercises tuned to your workout. It considers the exercises you have added, the sets you completed, how they felt, movement variety, muscles already involved and your recent workouts. Close copies are moved down once an area has enough work. When the session already has enough useful volume, it may suggest finishing instead. These are suggestions only - you can always search for and add any exercise.

Finishing and records

Tap the checkmark button in the top-right corner to review the session: total volume, completed exercises and sets, your time, and optional energy burned - tap either to adjust. Then Save workout. Your elapsed workout time is shown right next to that button while you train, so you always know how long you have been at it.

If the session set new personal bests, they're celebrated on the confirmation screen, each with the value you improved from. Either way, the workout lands in your training history and counts toward your statistics and records.

Offline and interruptions

The tracker is built to keep working without a connection:

• Progress is saved on your phone after every action. If the app closes, your battery dies, or your screen locks mid-set, nothing is lost - reopen the app and the workout is right where you left it.
• Leaving the tracker keeps the workout in progress. Back on the dashboard, the workout card shows an In progress badge with your set count and elapsed time - tap Continue to pick up exactly where you left off. The same card sits at the top of the Workout tab on today, and while it is there today's start card steps aside - one workout to continue, not two to choose between. Move the day rail to another date and the card is not shown: a workout in progress belongs to today, and that day's plan reads exactly as it normally would. Cancel the session from that card and the planned workout comes back.
• Saving works offline too. Finish and save as usual; you'll see "Saved on this phone - it will sync when you're back online", and the app uploads the workout automatically the next time you have a connection.

One session runs at a time: opening the tracker while a workout is in progress always resumes that workout.