Which app marks warm-ups, drop sets and sets to failure properly?

The short answer

One test: can you tell the app what kind of set that was, and does the app then handle it the way a lifter would expect?

• Three set kinds in SayLift. Warm-up, drop set, to failure. In the set list the badge replaces the set number, so you see W, D or F where the number used to be.
• A warm-up never sets a record and never moves your estimated one-rep max. It does still count toward volume and tonnage, because it was work you did.
• A drop set does count toward records. It is real work at a real load, so nothing is held back from it.
• Neither takes a set number. Three working sets plus two warm-ups is still three working sets, and neither a warm-up nor a drop fills a prescription.
• Your session target adjusts. The coach subtracts warm-up and drop sets from the set target, so a long ramp-up never makes it look like you fell short.
• Say it out loud and it tags itself. "Warm-up", "ramp-up" or "feeler set" marks a warm-up. "Dropped to 20 for 10 more" comes back as its own set. "As many as I could" marks a set to failure.
• Supersets are the gap. SayLift does not group them. Two exercises done back to back stay two separate exercises, and the pairing goes in a note.
• Price: $4.17 a month (billed $49.99 a year), $7.99 a month or $3.99 a week after a 3-day free trial. iPhone only, iOS 17 and up.

What each app documents about set types

This table only records behaviour we can point at. For SayLift that is our own source code. For the other six we are not willing to put a yes or a no in a cell we cannot support, so those cells read "Not documented", and you should check your own app rather than trust a roundup about it.

If you are shopping on this feature, the question worth asking is never really "can I tag a warm-up". It is "what does the app do with the tag". An app can let you mark a set and still feed it into your records, your charts and your last-time numbers, which leaves you no better off than before you marked it.

Three badges, and what each one changes

SayLift has exactly three set kinds, and a set with no kind is a plain working set. The badge sits where the set number would be, so a heavy chest day reads W, W, 1, 2, 3, D down the list and you can see the shape of the session at a glance.

Warm-up (W). It cannot set a personal record and it cannot move your estimated one-rep max, no matter how many reps you got. It stays out of the coach's progression and out of the PREVIOUS column, so next week the numbers beside each set are your real working weights. What it does keep is volume: a warm-up still adds its weight times reps to your volume and tonnage totals, because the plates did move.

Drop set (D). The opposite call. A drop is a hard set at a load you really lifted, so it counts toward records exactly like a working set does. Log each drop as its own set with its own weight, and mark the drops D.

To failure (F). This one is a marker rather than a rule. Nothing is excluded or included differently, you simply get to see later which sets you took all the way, which is useful context when a weight stops moving.

Warm-ups and drop sets are accessory work. Neither takes a set number and neither fills a prescription. If your routine says three sets of eight to twelve and you do two warm-ups, three working sets and one drop, the app still counts three working sets. The coach does the same arithmetic: it subtracts warm-up and drop sets from the session's set target, so a careful ramp-up on squats never pulls the target down or makes it look like you missed reps.

Old sets are untouched. A plain working set carries no kind at all, so everything you logged before set kinds existed still counts exactly as it always did. Marking sets changes what happens from now on and rewrites nothing behind you.

Volume yes, records no

That split is the part almost nobody states out loud, so it is worth being blunt about it: in SayLift a warm-up is excluded from your records and your estimated one-rep max, and included in your volume. Two different answers for the same set, on purpose.

Whether warm-ups *should* count toward volume at all is a training question rather than a software one, and we answer it separately in should warm-up sets count toward volume and personal records?. Short version if you do not want to read it: records no, working-set count no, volume is a convention you pick once. If you would rather keep warm-ups out of volume too, do not log them at all.

For the other half of the picture, how the records themselves are detected and when you get told about one, see the personal best tracker that tells you while you are still in the gym. And if what you want is plain set and rep logging with no intensity work in it, the best workout log app for tracking sets and reps covers that ground instead.

Where this model stops: supersets

SayLift does not group supersets. If you pair incline press with cable flyes, you get two separate exercises in the log, each with its own sets, and no object anywhere in the app that says those two were run together. The pairing can only live in a note.

That is a real limitation and you should know it before you pay, especially since set kinds might make you assume the app models every intensity technique. It does not. Drop sets, warm-ups and to-failure sets are first-class. Superset pairing is not.

In practice two separate exercises is the format you want for progression anyway, because it keeps each movement comparable week to week. How to log supersets and drop sets without wrecking your history has the full workaround, including what to write in the note and how to speak a pairing so both exercises come back correctly.

How to set it up in SayLift

Two ways in. Marking by hand is three taps, and speaking is faster if the session had a lot of sets in it.

1. 1By hand: tap "Start session by hand". Your planned exercises open with the sets already filled in, and a PREVIOUS column shows last session's working numbers beside each row.
2. 2Tap the set number of the set you want to change. That opens its menu.
3. 3Choose Warm-up, Drop set or To failure. The number is replaced by W, D or F, and the rules above start applying to that set immediately.
4. 4Tick the set once you have done it. Only ticked sets are saved, so a planned warm-up you skipped never enters your history.
5. 5By voice: say the kind out loud. "Two warm-up sets at 40, then three at 80 for 10" tags the first two. "Ramp-up" and "feeler set" work the same way. A light weight on its own is never assumed to be a warm-up, which is the right call: only you know whether 40 kg was a warm-up or your working weight.
6. 6Speak a drop as what it was. "Dropped to 20 for 10 more" comes back as its own set with its own weight and reps, not as a note bolted onto the set above it. "As many as I could" marks the set to failure.
7. 7Check the review screen before it saves. Every voice log lands on a review screen first and nothing is written to your history until you confirm it. Intensity work is the likeliest thing to be misheard, so this is the screen to read properly.

Who SayLift is for

• You ramp up heavily and it keeps polluting your log. Four warm-up sets before a heavy single is normal, and in most logs it is indistinguishable from four easy working sets. Marking them W fixes the records, the targets and the last-time numbers in one move.
• You train with drop sets and want them counted. They are hard sets at real loads, and SayLift treats them that way for records while keeping them out of your working-set count.
• You would rather talk than tap. The whole session, set kinds included, can go in by speech at the end, then you check one screen.
• You already have a program. SayLift reads what you logged and picks your next working weight. It does not write your training for you.
• Not for you if you need superset grouping. Pairings go in a note, and nothing in the app records the two exercises as one block.
• Not for you if you are not on an iPhone. iPhone only, iOS 17 and up, with no Android, iPad, Apple Watch or web version, and no Apple Health sync.
• Not for you if you want a free tier. There is a 3-day trial and then it is $4.17 a month billed yearly, $7.99 monthly or $3.99 weekly. Voice logging also needs a connection and is capped at 10 recordings an hour and 20 a day, though manual logging, your history and the coach's targets all work offline.