Changelog
Follow up on the latest improvements and updates.
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The biggest addition since the last update is a much more useful AI lifting assistant. You can now ask for feedback directly from the parts of Strength Journeys you’re already exploring, with your relevant training data included automatically.
AI Training Reviews
You can now ask the AI assistant to review:
- A recent workout
- The session you’re viewing in the workout log
- A specific lift and its visible sets
- Training patterns shown on your dashboard
The assistant now has better context about when you trained, which sets you’re looking at, and the athlete details you choose to share.
Suggested follow-up questions also appear after each response, making it easier to explore your training without wondering what to ask next.
Personalisation controls now live inside the chat, where you can choose which parts of your athlete bio and lifting history to include.
Big Four lifts mentioned in responses can take you directly to the matching lift page.
Smarter Workout Logging
Workout suggestions now do a better job of picking up where you left off.
- New sessions can start from your previous opening set.
- Warm-up suggestions are more useful after deloads and breaks.
- Suggestions better distinguish warm-ups, repeated sets and heavier working sets.
- New lifts without any history start from the appropriate bar weight.
- The default bar weight now respects the sex selected in your athlete bio.
- Suggestions include a little more variety and personality.
You’ll also find a quicker route back to the workout log while exploring your lifts.
See Your Best PRs More Clearly
PR badges in the workout log are now more selective and meaningful.
For longer training histories, a set can show both an all-time PR and a yearly PR. Tapping a badge takes you directly to the relevant PR table, so you can see where that lift sits in
your history.
A Better View of Your Training Rhythm
The Long Game dashboard has been refined to make weekly and monthly patterns easier to read.
- Monthly activity now gives you a cleaner summary of each week.
- More detail is available when you hover or tap.
- Quiet or empty training periods use clearer wording.
- Heatmap views now transition more smoothly.
- Weekly streak leaders receive a little extra celebration.
A streak still means completing at least three training sessions per week. Equal streaks are ranked by average weekly tonnage.
Catch Date Mistakes Before They Distort Your History
Strength Journeys can now spot training dates that look like likely typos, such as a session accidentally entered years into the future.
A warning appears on the dashboard with a simple repair flow, helping keep your charts, streaks and PR history accurate.
More Transparent 1,000 lb Club Estimates
The 1,000 lb Club calculator now shows which recent sets were used to estimate your best squat, bench press and deadlift.
This makes it much easier to understand where each estimated max came from instead of treating the final total like a mystery number.
Import And Setup Reminders
If you preview imported training history without merging it into your own Sheet, Strength Journeys now gives you a clearer reminder on the home dashboard.
The aim is to make it obvious when you’re viewing temporary preview data and help you save it properly when you’re ready.
Plenty more small improvements landed across workout logging, dashboards and mobile layouts too.
Keep lifting.
Not as much time for coding, but I have been making improvements based on email feedback from our wonderful strong users.
The biggest new feature is the streaks tracking on the home dashboard:
A streak is a run of weeks with 3 gym sessions per week.
Importing Your Training History
- Added StrongLifts 5x5 CSV import support.
- Added a dedicated StrongLifts 5x5 import guide.
- Improved import pages with clearer feedback prompts.
- Made the Google Sheet ownership story clearer: your merged training history lives in your own Drive.
- Sheet chooser previews now show real workout sets and ignore goal rows.
- New blank onboarding Sheets now start clean, with headers only.
Workout Log
- Improved smart set suggestions, especially for warmups, repeat sets, and small jumps.
- Added more helpful first-time lift guidance and form cues for major lifts.
- Added quick video/form-check prompts where useful.
- Made log edits more reliable when adding, editing, or deleting rows quickly.
- Kept preview/import rows read-only so temporary data is not mistaken for saved Sheet data.
- Weight inputs now accept comma decimals, like 82,5.
- Pasting a log video link should no longer repeatedly autofill the same URL.
Progress And Milestones
- Reworked Plate Milestones with an Actual Lifts / E1RM Potential toggle.
- Plate Milestones now tracks achievement state from actual bar weight, not just estimates.
- Added cleaner milestone sliders, notches, and lifter-aware status copy.
- Merged overlapping “Now” and period labels so milestone timelines read more naturally.
- Improved bodyweight-loaded lift estimates for movements like weighted pull-ups and dips.
- Added a compact bodyweight editor directly inside the strength potential chart.
- Bodyweight lift aliases are now normalized more consistently.
Dashboard And Lift Explorer
- Added a Training Streaks leaderboard to The Long Game card.
- Streaks now show date ranges, average weekly tonnage, and stronger PR highlights.
- Copy Image works better for streak views, with cleaner image output and less visual flashing.
- Added a searchable lift selector in Lift Explorer.
- Widened the mobile lift search popover so it is easier to use on small screens.
Strength Tools And Learning Pages
- Expanded the strength percentile / “How Strong Am I?” FAQ.
- Added structured FAQ data to help search engines understand the strength percentile page.
- Added data ownership import prompts to relevant strength tool pages.
- Cleaned up Big Four lift naming and aliases across international variants.
Mobile And Visual Polish
- Improved mobile navigation spacing so sign-in stays visible on smaller landscape screens.
- Hid lower-priority nav text on cramped iPhone landscape layouts.
- Fixed the Apple home-screen icon.
- Cleaned up small card, shadow, and corner artifacts in log and suggestion UI.
Privacy And Reliability
- Clarified privacy and legal wording around limited operational metadata.
- Improved sign-in and Sheet connection messaging.
- Added better internal tracking for sign-in source and Sheet read activity so support and onboarding problems can be understood without storing analyzed training history.
- Updated Next.js, React, and related tooling patch versions.
TWO wonderful users bought coffees this week - thank you!!!!
Keep on lifting.
Two big new things this month, plus a stack of polish that makes the daily logging experience sharper.
Streaks Leaderboard in The Long Game card
For logged in users, your training streaks now have a leaderboard. Switch The Long Game card into Streaks view and see your longest training streaks ranked end to end, with the date range printed inside each bar. Bar thickness scales with the average weekly tonnage you logged during that streak — so the streaks where you really showed up visually dominate the ones where you just barely kept the chain alive. Hover any streak and you'll see your top Big Four PRs from that period (ranked above accessory PRs), plus your average weekly tonnage.
Plate Milestones page — your 1/2/3/4 plate club tracker
A brand-new page tracking your progress toward 1, 2, 3, and 4 plates on each of the Big Four lifts. Stacked rows with a custom blue plate SVG fill left-to-right like a thermometer, so you can see at a glance how close you are to the next milestone. Each row shows your personalised milestone date (when you got there, or a projection of when you might), a sparkline of your trajectory, and a reference table grounding the numbers. Imperial and metric users both get the right plate thresholds for their unit, and there are bonus tiers above the headline four for the heavy lifters. A satisfying way to frame goals that anyone in a gym instinctively understands.
Everything else
- New sign-in education dialog for first-time lifters that explains the Drive permission in friendly language before Google's consent screen.
- Live demo data on the log page for unauthenticated visitors.
- Homepage redesigned with tiered sections and a cleaner Your Training grid.
- Tonnage chart overhauled — per-session by default, with a 30-day rolling-average trend line, click-to-toggle legend, and proper hover on weekly and monthly views.
- Lift Explorer now carries the full progress-guide toolset, including top 5 sets per rep range and a richer chronology tooltip.
- Smarter chart tooltips everywhere: consecutive identical sets are grouped, and tooltips flip away from your cursor instead of covering the data.
- Up to three replay warmup suggestions on the log page, drawn from your previous session.
- Session dates are now clickable throughout the app
- Session Explorer (renamed from Session Browser) now appears in the navbar for everyone.
- Squashed an off-by-one date display bug affecting USA/EU users in several places.
Keep lifting!
Enjoying Strength Journeys? Buy me a coffee!
Import from any fitness app, no account required
You can now import your lifting history from Hevy, Strong, Turnkey, Wodify, BTWB, or a spreadsheet and immediately explore the full Strength Journeys experience — PR analysis, heatmaps, tonnage, strength levels, all of it — without creating an account or connecting Google Sheets. Drop your file on the import page and browse instantly. Sign in when you're ready to save and start logging.
Merge data from multiple apps
If your history is split across different apps, you can now combine them into one dataset. Import a second file and merge it with what's already loaded. We deduplicate sessions automatically.
The main E1RM calculator now shows your strength percentile
The 1RM calculator pages for squat, bench press, and deadlift now show how your result ranks against gym-goers in your age group — "Stronger than X% of gym-goers" — right in the tool. Enter your body weight and age in settings to unlock it. Links through to the full strength breakdown on the How Strong Am I page.
Everything links back to the log
A lot of the app got wired up this release:
- Tap any date cell on the heatmap to jump to that session in the log
- PR records in the Lift Explorer link directly to the session where you hit that lift
- Lift names in the log page are now tappable links
- Classic lift highlight cards and dated PR memories link to the log session
- The strength percentile ring links to the full How Strong Am I breakdown
Sign-in fix for some Google accounts
Some users were being silently signed out on every visit when Google didn't return a profile photo. Fixed — those users now stay signed in, with their initial shown in the avatar instead. Thanks to user Bram VC for reporting and testing this bug.
AI assistant now powered by xAI Grok
The AI lifting assistant has switched to Grok (xAI). Same coach, faster responses, with the xAI attribution shown in the chat header.
Video links on your sets
Attach a video URL to any set in the log. A play button appears inline with the lift name. Add URLs through the notes edit field on any set row.
Notes improvements in the log
Long notes no longer get truncated. You can expand any note inline without leaving the page.
Heatmap improvements
The yearly training heatmap now scrolls automatically to your most recent year. Heatmap cells on the dashboard are now clickable.
Improved BTWB and Wodify import
Wodify warmup and buildup sets are now parsed from the Notes column and included in your import. BTWB complex workout lines are split into individual lifts. AMRAP results are now pulled from the correct column. We extract most of the barbell strength movements from inside your WOD history.
Streak motivation added to the weekly card
The week-in-review card now highlights your current training streak to keep the momentum going.
Keep lifting!
New BETA import system: bring your training history into Strength Journeys
The biggest update this week is the new import system.
You can now import training data from other apps into Strength Journeys and explore it in preview mode before deciding what to do next. If you want to keep using it, you can save that imported history into Strength Journeys by creating a new linked Google Sheet or merging it into your existing one.
- More import support for exports from Hevy, Strong, BTWB, Wodify, plus CSV, XLS, and XLSX files.
- Preview mode so you can try Strength Journeys with imported data before committing to a full setup.
- Better save and merge flows for pushing imported history into your linked Google Sheet.
- Improved dedupe and reliability so merges are safer and repeat imports behave better.
- Clearer import/export UX with a more visible Import / Export entry point and better copy throughout the flow.
Also
: if you have exports from multiple fitness apps, you can ask Strength Journeys to transfer those exports into SJ for you. We can also merge data from different fitness apps into one Google Sheet so your training history lives in one place.Please report any bugs. If you have apps you want supported, please report - we want to support everything.
Log system improvements
The log got more polished, and now shows strength levels while you train. Very motivating!
- Strength levels now appear inside the log and update as you add or edit sets, so you can see where a session sits on the strength spectrum in real time.
- Tonnage and strength feedback update more smoothly during inline edits.
- A date picker was added to the log so it’s easier to jump to past training days.
- Historical session insertion was fixed so backdated entries land in the right place.
This is one of those features that feels small on paper but is very good in practice.
Remember you can still edit your google sheet yourself, or you can let Strength Journeys do it for you.
1000lb Club Chronological Chart
You may be in the club but now you know how long you've been in the club.
You can also see your lifetime PR and 90 day points on the sliders:
Other fixes and user-facing improvements
A lot of smaller user-facing improvements landed too:
- Barbell Strength Potential has been removed as a standalone page. That feature now lives inside the Lift Explorer and the big four progress guides - still a fun way to find easy rep scheme PRs.
- Progress Guides for the big four got improved with a clearer structure, better routing, and a dedicated section that’s set up to expand to more lifts soon.
- Strength levels pages were redesigned with cleaner navigation, cross-links, and clearer strict press naming.
- Strength badges throughout the app now link to detailed strength-level pages, making it easier to go from a quick rating to deeper context.
- Export system added, with a cleaner export section and improved CSV output including notes, labels, URLs. Your data is always yours.
Log Editor Beta
This is the biggest change ever in the 2+ years of Strength Journeys.
Strength Journeys can now edit your Google Sheet for you.
If you like editing your sheet directly, you can absolutely keep doing that. But for most people, the new Log page is meant to become the easiest place to actually enter training. You can build a full session there, add lifts, add sets, edit notes inline, delete mistakes, and let Strength Journeys handle the Google Sheet updates behind the scenes.
The new log flow also does more than just save rows:
- It suggests warmups and next sets as you train
- It gives lift-specific form cues and quick technique video help
- It shows instant PR feedback and stronger celebrations when you hit something meaningful
- It surfaces strength level and tonnage analysis right inside the session
- It links back into the deeper lift insight pages when you want more context
The goal here was to make logging feel like part of the coaching experience, not just data entry.
This feature is still in BETA - so please submit feedback via Canny or via the floating feedback widget.
The Home Dashboard now has a better weekly flow
The home dashboard now does a better job of helping you train this week, not just look backward.
A new Week in Iron card now gives you a cleaner week view with your sessions, lifts trained, set counts, PRs, and tonnage. It also acts as a better bridge into the new log flow, with quicker links into the exact date or lift you want to work on.
So the home dashboard shows your strength journey from week, to month, to lifetime.
Strength Journeys is for people who will
lift for decades.
Calculators got a meaningful upgrade
A lot of work went into the strength calculators over these two weeks.
What changed:
- New page: How Strong Am I.
- The Big Four strength standards experience got a rebrand and clearer framing
- There is a new 200 / 300 / 400 / 500 Strength Club calculator for the classic plate milestones
- Calculator pages now have better FAQs, stronger citations, more internal links, and example snippets that make them more useful and easier to explore
Sheet setup and switching got cleaner
Managing your data source is smoother now too.
The sheet chooser and switch-sheet flows were refined again, with better previews, clearer wording, cleaner action states, and more reliable handling when a sheet is empty or needs reconnecting. There was also a lot of safety work under the hood to make Google Sheets inserts, deletes, and row edits more robust.
Other improvements
A few more shipped changes worth calling out:
- The AI lifting assistant now has better session context, better metadata, and less annoying link behavior.
- The gym music playlist leaderboard got a solid upgrade with better cards, thumbnails, moderation, vote weighting, and API hardening
- The footer was rebuilt with clearer navigation, calculator links, legal links, and a changelog link
- A terms of service page was added
- Feedback prompts were polished in a few places, especially around the log flow
Keep lifting!
New Home Dashboard
The home dashboard has been rebuilt so it feels less like "here is some data" and more like "here is your lifting story so far."
Three main cards now anchor the experience:
- The Latest Session keeps your last workout front and center, with cleaner summaries and better links into lift-specific insights
- The Month in Iron turns the month into something you can actually win, with pace-based checks for sessions, Big Four tonnage, and strength standards
- The Long Game gives your full lifting history a much stronger visual treatment, with cleaner heatmaps, better year markers, and improved sharing for established lifters
A lot of the best parts of the old Analyzer have been pulled upward into the home dashboard now. That was intentional. The most motivating, most immediately useful stuff should live on the home screen, not be buriedin a deeper tool.
The dashboard also now adapts to your stage and coaches new lifters:
- If you are brand new, it stays simple and coaching-focused.
- If you are in your first real week, it helps you settle into the lifting habit.
- If you are in your first month, it starts introducing more context.
- If you have real history behind you, the deeper visualisations and comparisons unlock.
The goal was to make the app feel more like a training companion and less like a pile of charts.
Onboarding is much smoother now
Onboarding got a major rebuild too. Previously, getting started could feel too fiddly. That is much better now.
What changed:
- New users can now be auto-provisioned a Google Sheet
- The chooser flow is cleaner, with clearer options to use an existing sheet, create a blank one, or start from a sample
- The whole setup flow now lives in a more unified modal, instead of bouncing you through a bunch of disconnected states
- Recovery is better if your linked sheet has gone missing, been trashed, or needs to be reconnected
- Sign-in now more reliably drops you back on the home dashboard, where the next useful step is waiting
Lift Explorer replaces PR Analyzer
The old PR Analyzer has been renamed and redesigned as Lift Explorer. The best high-impact parts of the old Analyzer are now on the new home dashboard, where they belong. Lift Explorer is now the deeper, more focused place to explore your history lift by lift.
You can move through your lifts more cleanly, see rep-range PRs, view your lift journey, and get a better sense of how often you actually train each movement.
The lift explorer especially helps you track progress and data for accessory lifts outside of the big four.
Other improvements
A few more shipped changes worth calling out:
- Heatmap sharing is now faster, cleaner, and more stable
- Heatmap visuals got a solid polish pass: clearer hierarchy, stronger year labels, better spacing, and improved weekly/monthly views
- Strength calculator pages got richer lift visuals, better copy/share behavior, stronger internal links, and more useful supporting UI like plate diagrams and warm-up links
- Mini feedback widgets now appear in more places across the app, including dashboard cards and charts
- A bunch of sync, empty-data, and edge-case fixes shipped across dashboard and visualizer flows
- Also I've added some notifications for new user arrivals in order to get feedaback.
- please keep providing feedback using the button in the bottom right corner of the app.
New feature: How Strong Is a Gorilla?
It is exactly what it sounds like.
This Month in Iron is live (new flagship feature)
The PR Analyzer now includes a full This Month in Iron experience built to help you see if your month is actually being won, not just worked through. Win the month, win the year.
- A month verdict system that tells you where you stand right now (Month Won, Month Crushed)
- Big Four month checks for strength and tonnage in one clear table
- Smart “matched vs passed” context so progress is easier to interpret
- Designed to keep you doing the big four lifts for month and years to come.
Strength Calculator got a major visual overhaul
- New visual algorithm range bars (overview + zoomed detail)
- Strength standards integrated directly into the bar experience
- Better mobile readability, tooltip behavior, and label spacing
- Cleaner inline bio flow and stronger copy/share UX
- Better layout hierarchy so key numbers are easier to scan
Lifter status badges + progression tiers (late Friday night, now included)
Your lift pages now rank your status as a lifter with clearer progression feedback. We have a range of scientific tiers you can earn.
- A redesignedLift Journey cardwith expanded tier progression
- Badge-style tier ranks to show where you stand and what comes next
- Animated progress treatment so advancement feels earned and visible
- Cleaner thresholds and chart skeleton/loading behavior for a smoother experience
Home, analyzer, and session UX polish
- Big Four home cards now surface more useful monthly strength context
- Recent session cards are cleaner across breakpoints, with easier “show one more” flow
- Compact set/pill layouts are easier to read and compare
- Analyzer card ordering and chart presentation improved for faster scanning
- Some new cards: "Classic Lifts" where we show you some of your favourite lifting memories:
Themes and feedback systems expanded
- New "Blueprint" theme/background plus more background polish
- Mini feedback prompts now appear in key areas (analyzer, visualizer, AI assistant, lift journey)
- A few short articles added
- Improved feedback tracking detail to better capture your feedback (PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK!)
Keep lifting and giving feedback.
The world's best e1rm calculator is now even besterer.
Simplified and polished calculator UI
- Cleaner layout and spacing
- Improved readability of labels and controls
- Better mobile/desktop behavior across the page
- New all-in-one E1RM algorithm slider/line
Replaced the old formula radio-style selection with a visual comparison bar
- Shows all supported E1RM formulas on one line
- Lets you quickly compare estimates and tap/click a formula to select it
- Improved mobile label merging and popover interactions so crowded labels stay usable
- Automatic Big Four strength ratings (always visible)
Your estimated 1RM now automatically shows strength level ratings for:
- Back Squat
- Bench Press
- Deadlift
- Overhead Press
Ratings are benchmarked using your athlete bio data (age, sex, bodyweight)
UI was refined with better tooltips/popovers, layout, and inline bio settings
Two new programming tables
- Rep Max Projection Table(projects estimated weights across rep ranges)
- Percentage Table(100% down to lower percentages for programming)
These make the calculator more useful for planning sets, percentages, and training blocks
Copy / Share Improvements
- Improved copy result UX(clearer success feedback)
- Addedper-lift copy buttonson Big Four strength bars
- Copied text now includes more useful context (including shareable calculator link)
Supported E1RM Algorithms (all shown in the comparison slider)
- Brzycki
- Epley
- McGlothin
- Lombardi
- Mayhew
- OConner
- Wathan
Strong friends don't let friends use any other calculators.
kg/lb Unit Switching — Now Works Everywhere
This was the big one this week. Previously, toggling between kilograms and pounds only affected the calculators. Now it's truly global — switching units instantly updates your charts, PR displays, tonnage totals, strength standards, and year recap across the entire app. Your preference is also remembered between visits.
As a bonus: the app now auto-detects your preferred unit from your data on first load. If most of your logged lifts are in kg, it defaults to kg — no manual setup needed.
And to make the toggle a little more fun: switching units now fires a small emoji confetti burst from the button. The emojis cycle through themed sets so it's never quite the same twice.
Dashboard — Consistency Grade Circles
Your training consistency grades are now displayed as visual circles right on the home dashboard, so you can see your weekly and monthly consistency at a glance without navigating to the Analyzer. Hover over any circle for a tooltip with more detail, or click to go straight to the full Consistency section.
Consistency fairness fix: The weekly grade window now has a one-day buffer, so you don't get penalized first thing in the morning before you've had a chance to train. If a session is about to age out of the window and drop your grade, the tooltip will now warn you — "lift today to keep your grade" — rather than the previous unhelpful message.
Strength Standards Chart — Focused and Motivating
The mini strength standards chart (visible on lift insight pages) previously showed all standards from Beginner to Elite regardless of your level. It now shows only the standards you've already reached, plus exactly one next target to aim for. No point showing Elite to someone just starting out — the chart is now cleaner and more encouraging.
Chart Hover — Smoother and More Responsive
Hovering over a chart to see the session details card is now noticeably smoother. The sync between chart hover and the session card below now uses a smarter approach that scales with how much data you have, keeping things snappy whether you have 50 sessions or 5,000.
Feedback Widget — More Visible and Contextual
The feedback button (bottom-right of most pages) got a polish pass. It's more visible, shows different prompts depending on which page you're on, and has a wider variety of messages to keep it feeling fresh rather than repetitive.
Articles — Now Shareable
Article pages now have share buttons, making it easy to send a strength training article to a friend or training partner.
Under the Hood
A significant dependency upgrade landed this week: Next.js was updated from version 14 to 16, and React from version 18 to 19. These are the core frameworks the app runs on. The upgrade brings performance improvements, better memory usage, and keeps the app on a supported, secure foundation. A number of chart regressions introduced by the update were caught and fixed before release. Several other libraries were also updated, and three unused packages were removed to keep things lean.
As always — if something looks off after this week's changes, a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R) usually clears it up. And use the feedback button to let us know!
Keep lifting.
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