Getting Started with Herculog
You didn't download a lift log to spend the evening configuring it. This guide takes you from a fresh install to your first logged set in under five minutes — what the welcome screen is telling you, what each of the five tabs does, and where your training shows up once you've logged it. Every legend keeps a log; here's how to start yours.
What Herculog is
Herculog is a fast, private lift log for iPhone and iPad (iOS 17 or later). The pitch fits in one line: log lifts fast, track PRs, watch strength climb. You record what you lifted; Herculog turns that record into personal-record alerts, charts, and summaries you can act on.
It's also deliberately unlike most fitness apps. Herculog is free, with no cloud, no account, and no ads. There's nothing to sign up for and nothing to subscribe to — all of your data stays on your device, period. That has a practical upside from minute one: there's no registration form, no email verification, and no login standing between you and your first set. You open the app, you log, you leave.
The welcome screen
The first time you launch Herculog, a welcome screen introduces the app with four highlights. Here's what each one means in practice:
- Fast logging — recording an exercise takes seconds, so the phone goes back in your pocket and the plates go back on the bar.
- PR tracking — Herculog watches your numbers and tells you when a set is a personal record, so you don't have to remember what your best was.
- Guided plans — you can build structured workout plans and run them set by set, or start from a ready-made one.
- Privacy — your training history never leaves your device. No account, no cloud, no one reading your log but you.
Dismissed it too quickly? You can replay it any time from Settings → Welcome Screen.
Touring the five tabs
Everything in Herculog lives behind one of five tabs along the bottom of the screen:
| Tab | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Home | The calendar and summaries of everything you've logged — your month at a glance, day by day. |
| Add | Log a set-group in seconds. This is the tab you'll live in at the gym. |
| Plan | Build and run structured workout plans. |
| Metrics | Charts, personal records, and your muscle split. |
| Settings | Units display, appearance, language, import/export, and support. |
In practice, the rhythm goes like this: you spend your gym time in Add, review the week in Home, graduate to Plan when you want structure, and check Metrics when you want proof you're getting stronger. Settings you'll visit rarely — mostly for appearance, language, and exporting your data.
Double-tap the tab you're already on to reset it — it clears the Add form, returns Home to the month view, and so on. It's the fastest "start over" in the app.
Log your first exercise
Time for the whole point. The condensed version:
- Open the Add tab.
- Start typing the exercise name — say, "bench". Autocomplete offers suggestions from roughly 70 built-in exercises, so a few letters is usually enough. Do a lift it doesn't know? Type the name in full and log it anyway.
- Enter your sets, reps, and weight.
- Tap Add. Done — that's a logged workout.
That's the minimum viable log, and honestly, it's enough to start. The form has more to offer — RPE, warmup flags, notes, back-dating, and prefill tricks that make repeat sessions even faster — and it's all covered in Logging Workouts in Herculog.
Where your entry shows up
The moment you tap Add, your entry starts appearing around the app:
- Home calendar — today's date gets a dot, marking it as a training day. As the weeks fill in, that dotted calendar becomes the most motivating screen in the app.
- Day Summary — tap today on the calendar and you'll see the day's stats alongside the set you just logged.
- Metrics — after a few sessions, the charts and records here start earning their keep. One workout is a data point; a few weeks is a trend worth looking at.
The log rewards consistency. Log every session — even the short, unglamorous ones — and the picture Herculog paints of your training gets sharper by the week.
Next steps
You've installed the app, met the tabs, and logged a set. Three good places to go from here:
- Logging Workouts in Herculog — master the Add form: history bubbles that prefill a whole entry in one tap, the Metric chip for kg vs lb, RPE, warmups, and editing entries. Read this one first; it's the core daily workflow.
- Workout Plans: Create, Edit, and Run — when you're ready for structured training, turn your workouts into repeatable plans and run them set by set.
- Discover: Ready-Made Training Plans — skip the building entirely and start with a proven program from the built-in library.
Every legend keeps a log
Herculog is free on the App Store — no account, no ads, no cloud. Install it, log your first set, and start the record.