Incredible vs Strong: Do You Need a Separate App for Gym Logging?

Incredible is a free health intelligence app with integrated strength training, readiness scoring, and vitals tracking for Apple Watch. Strong is a dedicated gym logging app focused on workout tracking with clean exercise logging and progression tools. Both help you log lifts. Only one tells you whether you should be lifting today.

At a Glance

Feature	Incredible	Strong
Price	Free	Free (3 custom routines), $4.99/month, $29.99/year, $99.99 lifetime
Strength training logging	Yes	Yes
Exercise library	Yes	Yes (large)
Apple Watch app	Yes	Yes (standalone gym logging)
Workout templates	Yes	Yes
Supersets	No	Yes
Readiness score	Yes	No
HRV tracking	Yes	No
Sleep analysis	Yes	No
Fitness score (CTL/ATL)	Yes	No
Muscle group recovery	Yes	No
Body temperature	Yes	No
SpO2 tracking	Yes	No
Respiratory rate	Yes	No
Platforms	iOS/watchOS	iOS, Android
Cloud sync	No (on-device)	Yes
Account required	No	Yes

The Core Difference

Strong is a gym logger. It does one thing -- tracking sets, reps, and weight -- and it does it well. The interface is clean, the exercise database is extensive, and the progression tracking is solid. It supports supersets, rest timers, detailed workout notes, and a standalone Apple Watch app that works independently from your phone. For years, it has been the default recommendation for anyone who wants a no-nonsense lifting tracker.

What Strong does not do is anything with that data beyond recording it. It cannot tell you whether your body has recovered from yesterday's workout. It has no awareness of your sleep, your HRV, or your overall physiological state. Your training log and your recovery exist in separate worlds.

Incredible merges those worlds. The same app that logs your bench press sets also tracks your overnight HRV, scores your readiness each morning, and factors your lifting volume into muscle-group-specific recovery estimates. When you open Incredible before a workout, you see not just what you did last time but whether your body is ready to do it again. That feedback loop -- train, recover, assess, train -- is the foundation of effective programming, and it should not require two apps to achieve.

Strength Training

Both apps handle the fundamentals: exercise selection, set/rep/weight logging, workout templates, and history tracking.

Strong has a larger exercise database and more mature pure-logging features. It supports supersets with linked rest timers, detailed workout notes, plate calculator, and robust progression tracking. The Apple Watch app is a standout -- it works standalone, meaning you can leave your phone in the locker and log your entire session from your wrist. Strong also has cloud sync across devices, so your workout history follows you to a new phone or iPad.

Incredible covers the core logging needs -- exercises, sets, reps, weight, templates, and Apple Watch control. Where it differs is what happens to that data after you log it. Every set feeds into two systems: your muscle group recovery model (which flags when specific muscles need more rest) and your long-term fitness score (which tracks whether your training load is building fitness or trending toward overtraining).

If you need advanced features like plate calculators, supersets with linked rest timers, or the deepest possible exercise database, Strong has the edge in pure logging depth. If you want your gym data to inform your recovery and fitness trajectory, Incredible has the edge. Strong is also the choice if you need Android support or cloud sync across devices.

Readiness and Recovery

Strong has no recovery features. It does not read HRV, sleep, or any other biometric from Apple Watch or HealthKit. To get recovery data, Strong users typically run a second app -- WHOOP, Athlytic, or similar -- and mentally cross-reference the two.

This two-app approach has a fundamental problem: the recovery app does not know what you did in the gym, and the gym app does not know how your body is responding. You are left to mentally bridge the gap between "my HRV is low" and "I did heavy squats yesterday." The connection between training stimulus and recovery response is exactly where the most valuable insight lives, and it falls into the gap between apps.

Incredible provides a daily readiness score (0-100) derived from HRV, resting heart rate, sleep quality, and your recent training load. The training load component is the key differentiator: it includes your actual strength training volume, not just heart rate during workouts. If you deadlifted heavy two days ago, Incredible knows your posterior chain is still recovering, even if your cardiovascular system has bounced back.

This eliminates the two-app juggle. Your gym log and your recovery data live in the same app, informing each other. The feedback loop is closed: you train, the app measures the load, it monitors your recovery, and it tells you when you are ready to go again.

Fitness Level Tracking

Incredible models your long-term fitness using CTL/ATL (chronic training load / acute training load) -- a framework borrowed from endurance sports science and applied to both cardio and strength data. You can see your fitness trend over weeks and months, and the app flags when your acute load is spiking relative to your chronic baseline, a known risk factor for injury. This matters for anyone who trains consistently: the difference between productive training and overtraining is often invisible until you stall or get hurt.

Strong tracks workout-level stats -- volume per session, personal records, historical trends for individual exercises -- but does not aggregate these into a fitness model or provide periodization-aware analysis. You can look at your bench press trend over six months, but you cannot see whether your overall training load is sustainable or whether you are accumulating fatigue faster than you are building fitness.

Vitals

Incredible tracks six vitals with trend charts: HRV, Sleep Score, Resting Heart Rate, Body Temperature, SpO2, and Respiratory Rate. These are pulled from Apple Watch and HealthKit, displayed with historical context so you can spot patterns. Seeing your HRV trend alongside your training log in the same app makes it easy to connect the dots between training decisions and physiological outcomes.

Strong does not track any vitals. It writes workout data to HealthKit but does not read biometric data back. Your Apple Watch is collecting HRV, sleep, and resting heart rate data every day -- Strong simply does not use any of it. That data sits in HealthKit unused, waiting for an app that can make it actionable.

Pricing

Incredible is completely free. Every feature -- strength training, readiness scoring, fitness tracking, all six vitals -- is available without paying anything. No subscription, no account, no ads. A voluntary tip jar supports development.

Strong offers a free tier limited to 3 custom routines. Beyond that, it costs $4.99/month, $29.99/year, or $99.99 for a lifetime purchase. The lifetime option is reasonable compared to most subscription apps, but it is still $100 for a gym logger that does not track recovery.

Here is where the math gets interesting. Many Strong users also pay for a separate recovery app -- Athlytic ($29.99/year), WHOOP ($199+/year), or similar -- because they want readiness data that Strong does not provide. That means the real cost of a Strong-based setup is $100 lifetime + $30-$200/year for recovery, compared to $0 for Incredible with both built in.

Privacy

Incredible requires no account and processes everything on-device. Your health data never leaves your phone. There is no sign-up screen, no email collection, no cloud sync. You install it and start training.

Strong requires account creation and syncs workout data to their servers for backup and cross-device access. This is a reasonable trade-off for cloud sync, but it means your training data -- exercises, weights, body measurements -- lives on external servers. For people who are particular about where their health data goes, this matters.

Who Should Choose What

Choose Incredible if you want your gym logging and recovery data in one app, or if you are tired of paying for a strength tracker while running a separate recovery app on the side. Incredible gives you both for free, with the bonus of your lifting data actually informing your readiness score.

Choose Strong if you need the most polished pure gym logging experience available, need Android support, or rely on cloud sync across devices. Strong's exercise database, superset support, standalone Apple Watch experience, and logging UX are more mature. If your priority is the deepest possible gym logging feature set and you already have a separate recovery solution you are happy with, Strong remains one of the best at what it does. The $99.99 lifetime option also makes it a good value if you only need a logger.