App to Track PRs Across Every Lift You Do
Not just the big three. Zenith automatically detects personal records on every exercise you log — weight PR, rep PR, and volume PR — without you having to think about it.
iPhone · iOS 17 +
Quick answer
Three things worth knowing before you choose an app
What makes a good PR tracker
A genuine PR tracker watches every set you log and compares it against your full history for that exercise — not just the last session. It should track at least two PR types: a weight PR (heaviest single set at any rep range) and a rep PR (most reps at a given weight). A volume PR — total weight moved in a session for that exercise — is a useful third signal that most apps skip entirely.
Why most gym apps miss compound lift PRs
Most apps only flag PRs on exercises they pre-classify as "main lifts" — typically squat, bench, deadlift, and overhead press. Everything else — Romanian deadlifts, incline press, cable rows, Bulgarian split squats — is logged as a plain set with no comparison against prior bests. If you care about getting stronger across your full program, not just four exercises, that coverage gap is significant. You end up setting PRs constantly without the app acknowledging them.
What Zenith does differently
Zenith runs PR detection on every exercise in its catalog — over 500 movements — automatically, every time you log a set. When a new PR is hit, a dedicated celebration screen appears in-session showing what was beaten and by how much. Each exercise has a historical PR graph you can pull up at any time, not just during a workout. No manual flagging. No list of "tracked lifts." Every lift you do is tracked.
You finish a set of incline dumbbell press. You used 85 lb dumbbells for 8 clean reps — more than you have ever done on that exercise. Your app logs the set and moves on. No notification, no badge, no record of the fact that you just hit a personal best. Because incline press is not on the short list of exercises the app bothers to compare against your history. You know you hit a PR. The app does not. In six months, when you try to remember what your best incline sets have looked like, there will be nothing useful to show you.
The deeper problem is that during a training session, your mental bandwidth belongs to the training — not to manually cross-referencing your log history, deciding whether to flag a set, or keeping a separate note for exercises the app does not track. PR detection should be something the app does for you, completely in the background, for every single thing you log. When you have to manage it yourself, you miss PRs, lose track of which exercises are progressing and which are stalled, and end up with incomplete data at exactly the point where the historical record would be most useful for informing your next training block. See how progressive overload works to understand why tracking it accurately across all lifts matters over a full training cycle.
The core problem
Why most apps fail at PR tracking
Problem 1
No per-exercise history view for accessory movements
Most apps store raw session data but do not surface it in a usable way per exercise. You can scroll back through your workout log to find old sets, but there is no view that shows you every time you have ever done a Romanian deadlift with the weight plotted over time. Without that view, the app cannot compare your current set against historical bests, which means it cannot detect a PR. This is not a hard technical problem — it is a product decision that most apps have not prioritized for accessory and secondary exercises.
Problem 2
No distinction between volume PR and intensity PR
Hitting 225 lb for 3 reps is a different kind of PR than hitting 185 lb for 12 reps, which is itself different from logging 4 sets and moving a total of 5,400 lb on that exercise in a single session. Each of these represents a meaningful training milestone — they signal different things about your fitness and your readiness for future loading. Apps that flatten all of this into a single "PR" flag, or that only track a one-rep-max estimate, are discarding information that is directly relevant to how you should program the next mesocycle.
Problem 3
No automatic detection — requires manual flagging
A number of apps allow you to mark a set as a PR manually, which is better than nothing but still puts the cognitive load on you. During a heavy session, your working memory is occupied by rest periods, form cues, and loading decisions. You are not cross-referencing your log history mid-set to decide if the weight you just moved beats your previous best. Automatic detection is not a luxury feature — it is the entire point. An app that makes you decide what counts as a PR has inverted the tool-and-user relationship.
The Zenith approach
Automatic PR detection
across all three PR types
Zenith runs PR detection on every set you log, across every exercise in its catalog. There is no list of "tracked lifts" and no requirement to configure which exercises you care about. When you complete a set, the app automatically checks it against three independent PR records for that exercise: your weight PR (heaviest load moved for any number of reps), your rep PR (most reps completed at a given weight), and your volume PR (total load moved in a single session, calculated as sets × reps × weight). If your current set beats any of those three records, the detection triggers immediately.
When a new PR is set, Zenith shows a dedicated celebration screen mid-session — not a small badge in the corner of a log entry, but a full-screen acknowledgment with the exercise name, the type of PR hit (weight, rep, or volume), the previous best, the new best, and the percentage improvement. That last number matters: seeing that your incline press volume PR improved by 14% over the previous session is more informative than a generic "new PR" notification, because it tells you the magnitude of the gain and gives you a concrete reference for how your training is progressing. Research on training motivation consistently shows that specific, quantified feedback produces more durable effort than generic positive reinforcement.
Each exercise also has a historical PR graph accessible at any time, not just during a workout. Pull up any lift and you can see your weight PR, rep PR, and volume PR plotted over your full training history. This is useful not just for motivation — it is useful for programming. If your overhead press weight PR has been flat for 12 weeks while your volume PR has been climbing steadily, that pattern tells you something specific about where to direct your next training block. You can see the same kind of analysis for hypertrophy-focused work in our guide to training for hypertrophy at home, where volume tracking per exercise plays a central role in managing progressive overload without a fixed program template.
The broader context for why this matters is covered in our full ranking of the best apps for tracking lifts and PRs, where we compare how each major app handles per-exercise history, PR types, and detection automation. Zenith is not the fastest pure logger in that comparison — but it is the only one that tracks all three PR types automatically across the full exercise catalog.
Step by step
How it works, concretely
Log a set as you normally would — no extra steps
You select the exercise, enter your reps and weight, and mark the set complete. That is the entire logging flow — there is nothing additional to fill out or flag. Zenith looks up that exercise in your full training history, compares the set you just logged against your existing weight PR, rep PR, and volume PR records for that movement, and determines whether any of the three records have been beaten. This happens instantly in the background without any visible delay or prompt. You do not need to indicate whether the set felt like a PR, or navigate to a history screen to check. The detection is fully automatic.
If a PR is hit, a celebration screen appears immediately
When any of the three PR types is beaten, Zenith interrupts the session with a full-screen celebration card. The card shows the exercise name, the PR type (weight, rep, or volume), your previous personal best, your new personal best, and the percentage by which you improved. For a volume PR, it also shows the total load moved in the current session versus the prior record. You can dismiss the card and continue logging immediately — it does not require any input. The point is to surface the achievement clearly and specifically rather than as a small badge that is easy to miss or ignore. If you hit multiple PR types on the same exercise in the same session, each one gets its own screen in sequence.
Review your PR history graph per exercise, any time
Every exercise in your log has a dedicated history screen accessible from your exercise library. On it, you can see your three PR records at the top and a line graph plotting your weight PR over time — every logged session where you set a new weight best, shown in chronological order. You can also switch the graph to rep PR or volume PR if those are more relevant to your current training focus. There is no minimum number of sessions required to unlock the graph — it populates as soon as you have two or more logged entries for an exercise. This is useful for estimating your one-rep max on exercises where you do not train near maximum load — the 1RM calculator can extrapolate from your rep PR data if you prefer a sub-maximal approach to testing strength.
Sample Output — In-Session PR Screen
New Personal Record
Romanian Deadlift
Weight PR
Previous best
185 lb
× 8 reps
New best
205 lb
× 8 reps
Improvement
+10.8%
+20 lb
Previous PR set April 3, 2026
7 weeks ago
Also — Volume PR
Romanian Deadlift
9,840 lb
prev: 8,880 lb (+10.8%)
Honest comparison
Other options worth considering
Three alternatives with genuine PR tracking capabilities, and how they compare on the criteria that actually matter.
| App | Auto-detection | PR types tracked | History graph |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hevy | Yes — in-session callout for all logged exercises | Weight PR only (no volume or rep PR distinction) | Yes — per exercise, all-time |
| Strong | Partial — tracks PRs but no in-session callout screen | Weight PR only; estimated 1RM shown per exercise | Yes — per exercise, estimated 1RM plotted over time |
| Fitbod | Limited — PR detection is secondary to recovery model | Weight PR only; no volume or rep PR tracking | Basic — session history view, no dedicated PR graph |
| Zenith★ | Yes — all exercises, all three PR types, every set | Weight PR, rep PR, and volume PR (sets × reps × weight) | Yes — dedicated graph per PR type, per exercise |
Hevy is the strongest pure logger if you want fast session entry and a clean social layer. Strong is the right choice if you are running a specific powerlifting program and want a one-time purchase. Fitbod is better suited to users who want auto-populated workouts than to users primarily focused on PR tracking. For a broader view of how these apps compare across logging speed, programming depth, and adaptive features, see our full ranking of the best apps for tracking lifts and PRs. If hypertrophy is your primary goal, our guide on training for hypertrophy at home explains why volume PRs are particularly useful signals for tracking muscle-building progress over a full training block.
Marcus Chen
NSCA-CPT, MS Exercise Science · Reviewed May 2026