The best app for a push/pull/legs split

The short answer

Judged on three things a PPL lifter actually cares about: does the app arrive with the split, does it label your days, and does it name the weight.

• SayLift, $4.17 a month (billed $49.99 a year): pick Push / Pull / Legs in Settings and you get a built-in three-day split plus a coloured Push, Pull or Legs chip on every workout you log. The coach gives each exercise one action with a weight attached.
• Hevy, $23.99 a year: build the three days yourself as routines, four of them free. It shows last session's numbers beside the field and leaves the load call to you.
• Strong, $29.99 a year: the same deal, three custom routines free, unlimited workout history. Again, no weight decision.
• Fitbod, $79.99 a year: names the weights because it writes the session. That also means it decides which exercises your push day contains.
• Alpha Progression, $79.99 a year: the most serious progression model here, inside a planned block. You still lay out the three days yourself.
• JEFIT Elite, $69.99 a year: deep analytics on your PPL history, with the weight call still yours.
• A notes app: fine for the split, useless at the arithmetic, which is the part people quietly stop doing.

What each app gives a push/pull/legs lifter

What the Push / Pull / Legs setting actually does

In Settings there is a Training Style picker with four options: Let the app decide, Hypertrophy, Push / Pull / Legs, and Full Body. Choosing Push / Pull / Legs does two jobs, and it is worth being clear that it does only these two.

It picks the starter program. While your log is still thin, the Today page follows a built-in three-day push/pull/legs split, and the card says YOUR PROGRAM · DAY 1 OF 3. There is a tappable "Why this day?" next to it that tells you where the session came from, so you are never guessing why the app chose what it chose.

It biases the label on what you log. Finish a session and SayLift names it Push, Pull or Legs rather than guessing a muscle-group title, with a coloured chip on the Log tab: push is blue, pull is green, legs is orange. Scrolling your log then tells you at a glance that you have done two pull days and no legs this week.

What it does not do is write your programming. It does not periodise, it does not plan a block, and it does not decide your weekly frequency. If you want the split designed properly, including how many exercises per day and how to schedule three days against six, that is a different job and it is covered in how to build a push pull legs routine that sticks.

There is one more thing to know. Once you have logged enough of your own sessions, your real rotation takes over from the built-in program, and the overline on the Today card changes to NEXT FROM YOUR HISTORY. The detail of how that is learned sits on the app that learns your split.

The three built-in days

Every exercise is 3 sets of 8 to 12, and none of them ship with a weight. That is deliberate: the coach calibrates the loads from your first logged session rather than inventing a number for a stranger.

What the coach says on a push day

This is the half most PPL lifters are really shopping for. You know it is a push day. You want to know what goes on the bar.

For each exercise in today's session, SayLift returns exactly one action with the weight attached. There are six: increase, hold, decrease, deload, restart, calibrate. Increase arrives when you hit the top of your rep range last time, and it adds 2.5 kg on upper body work or 5 kg on lower body (5 lb and 10 lb if you train in pounds). Hold keeps the weight and asks for one more rep than your lowest working set last session. Decrease takes 7.5% off when your reps dropped below the bottom of the range, or slipped across three sessions at the same weight. Deload takes 10% off when a lift has shown no progress across three or more sessions spanning three weeks. Restart also takes 10% off when it has been fourteen days or more since you trained that movement, which happens to the legs day more than anyone admits.

The reasons are written in plain language, one line each: "You hit 12 reps at 60 kg, time to go up." "Solid at 60 kg, same weight, push for 10+ reps." "7 reps is below your 8-rep floor, drop back and rebuild." "Three weeks without progress here, take a lighter week and come back fresh." For a lift you have never logged, it says "New one for me, log a first session and I'll calibrate your weights."

Above the list there is one headline for the whole session, so you know the shape of the day before you read a single row: "Add weight on 3 lifts", "Hold every weight, win more reps", "Time to go up on Barbell Squat", or "2 lifts go up, 1 goes lighter". On your first week every lift is calibrating, and the headline says "Log your weights to set baselines".

Two details that matter on a push day specifically. Warm-up sets and drop sets are marked as accessory work, so the ramp-up triples you do before pressing never count as a working set and never pull your target down. And bodyweight movements get a hold and track reps or time instead of a weight, which is why the Plank at the end of the legs day does not ask you for a number.

Because all of this is arithmetic on your own logged sets, it runs on the phone. The targets are sitting there in a basement gym with no bars of signal. The general case for this, across every app that attempts it, is on workout apps that decide your next working weight.

How to set it up in SayLift

1. 1Open Settings and find Training Style. Pick Push / Pull / Legs. The subtitle under it reads "Push, Pull, and Legs days."
2. 2Go to the Today tab. It now shows day 1 of 3 from the built-in push/pull/legs program, five exercises at 3 sets of 8 to 12. Tap "Why this day?" if you want to see the reasoning.
3. 3Log that first session with real numbers. Type the sets, or finish your last set and say the whole workout out loud. Either way the coach needs one session with weights in it before it can advise anything.
4. 4Check the Log tab. The session you just saved carries a Push, Pull or Legs chip. Blue, green, orange.
5. 5Come back for day 2. Every exercise now has one action and a weight, shown as previous weight to target weight with a one-line reason.
6. 6If you have your own PPL routine, build it on the Profile tab instead. A routine you write there outranks the built-in program, and the Today page and the coach follow your days, your exercises and your rep targets. You can paste the plan in as text, in any language, and it will be turned into training days.
7. 7Keep logging and let the rotation take over. After enough sessions the app follows the push/pull/legs order you really train rather than the built-in one, and the Today card says NEXT FROM YOUR HISTORY.

Who SayLift is for

• You run push/pull/legs and want the weights handed to you. This is the case the app was built for: you brought the split, it brings the number.
• You are starting PPL and want a three-day split to copy on day one. The built-in program gives you fifteen exercises across three days, and the loads calibrate from your first session.
• You train on a rolling schedule rather than a calendar. Miss Wednesday and nothing breaks. The Today page suggests the next day in the rotation based on what you logged.
• You hate typing between sets. Say the session out loud when you finish and it writes down every exercise, set, rep and weight, on a review screen you check before anything saves.
• Not for you if you want programming. SayLift reacts to your last session. It does not plan a mesocycle or schedule a deload in advance; Alpha Progression at $79.99 a year does that properly.
• Not for you if you want the exercises chosen for you every week. That is Fitbod's job, and it means giving up the choice.
• Not for you if you are not on an iPhone. It is iPhone only, iOS 17 and up, with no Android, iPad, Apple Watch or web version, and no Apple Health sync. Supersets are not grouped, so a paired exercise goes in as a note. Voice logging needs a connection and is capped at 10 recordings an hour and 20 a day, while manual logging, your history and the coach's targets work offline.
• Not for you if free is the requirement. There is a 3-day trial, then $4.17 a month (billed $49.99 a year), $7.99 a month, or $3.99 a week. The app is new and has no App Store ratings yet, which is worth weighing against Hevy's 85,100.