Setnote is a workout tracker built around one idea: keep last time’s numbers in front of you while you train, so you can beat them. If you want the reasoning why beating your last session is important, we break that down here. For now, just know, everything in the app serves that purpose, and there is not much else to get in the way.

Open it on a fresh day and you get just the date and a field to add an exercise. The screen stays empty until you start, and fills in as you log. This guide covers how to use Setnote for a normal workout, and then the handful of hidden features that live a tap or a long press away.

A fresh day in Setnote: just the date and an Add exercise field, with nothing logged yet.

Part I · Using Setnote for your workouts

Adding an exercise

Open the app and make sure you are on the Log tab, the leftmost of the three at the bottom. This is today’s page, where you build a workout.

The Log tab is where you log a workout.

Tap the Add exercise field and start typing the movement. As you type, Setnote suggests matches, and next to each one it shows what you did last time, so you can pick the right exercise and see where you left off. If you have never logged it, it shows no history and you add it fresh.

Type a movement and Setnote suggests matches with your last numbers, like Dumbbell Lateral Raise at 15 lbs x 9, or no history if it is new.

Ghost numbers, the part that matters most

Once an exercise is on the screen, its set rows appear with your previous numbers already in place, faint and grey behind the input fields. Setnote calls these ghost numbers. The number to beat is in front of you at the moment you decide how hard to push, not something you reconstruct afterward. You see 9 reps from last time, so you go for 10. Tap a field to enter your weight and reps, and use add set for another set.

Last session’s numbers sit faint in the fields before you type. Here the previous sets were 15 lbs for 9, then 10, then 10 reps.

Saving your workout

When you are done, you have three options at the bottom of the screen. Save workout logs the session, the one you will use most. It records your sets, updates your volume and any personal records, and adds the session to your Today card and your history. Save as template banks the list of exercises for reuse, and you can tap it before Save workout to do both at once. Clear all wipes the screen without saving. Just above these is a Notes field, where you can jot how something felt or a reminder for next time, like watching your form on a lift.

The Notes field and the three options: Save workout to log the session, Save as template to reuse the exercises, or Clear all to start over.

What you see after you save

Once you save, your Today card fills in, and this is where Setnote’s three measures show up in plain language. It marks a personal record when you hit a heavier weight than you ever have on a lift. It calls out your most improved exercise by volume, which is weight times reps times sets and the clearest measure of how much work you did, so a lift can show progress even on a week when the weight on the bar did not move. For cardio it shows training load, your duration combined with your average heart rate, or pace, distance over time, depending on which you set as your focus. A footer counts the exercises and sets you logged.

If you want to see more about choosing between tracking weight or volume, we wrote a post on it here.

The Today card after a session: a PR (Calf Raises at 40 lbs, Back extension at 125 lbs), your most improved lift by volume (Leg extension, up 180 lbs), a treadmill training-load line, and a count of 7 exercises and 18 sets.

Tapping the card opens the full session, with every set, rep, and note. When you have repeated a workout enough times, the card also surfaces trends, so you can see where you are moving and where you are not.

Stats: your progress over time

Tap the Stats tab, on the right, to step back from today and look at the trend.

The Stats tab holds your progress over time.

Stats opens on a calendar with a green dot for every day you trained, so your consistency is visible at a glance. Below that, Setnote splits your recent work into notable progress and needs attention. The second one is worth reading, because it catches a common trap: raising the weight while quietly dropping reps, which can leave your total volume flat even though the number on the bar went up. Setnote points it out and nudges you to bring your reps back.

The Stats page marks the days you trained and splits recent work into notable progress and needs attention. Here EZ Bar Bicep Curls are up 10 lbs, with a flag to watch the reps on two lifts.

Each exercise on the Stats page has a small carrot icon in its top right corner. Tapping it opens that exercise’s full progression on its own: your top weight, your volume trend, and every past session set by set.

An exercise’s full progression, opened from the carrot. Top weight went from 10 lbs to 15 lbs and last-session volume from 200 lbs to 435 lbs, with every session listed below.

Your past workouts

Tap the History tab to see everything you have logged, newest first. Open any session to view it, edit it if you logged something wrong, or delete it.

The History tab is your full record of past sessions.
The History tab: every session you have logged, newest first, each one openable to view, edit, or delete.

The search bar at the top is the reason to come here for one specific lift. Type a movement and Setnote pulls every session you have logged for it, with your top weight, your volume trend, and the full set-by-set record. So when you want to know how a single exercise has been going, you search it here and see its stats directly, instead of scrolling the Stats page to find it.

Search one exercise in History to see just its progress. Hammer curls here went from a 15 lbs top weight to 20 lbs, and last-session volume from 450 lbs to 500 lbs.

Part II · Hidden features

Setnote keeps a few things off the main screen on purpose. None of them are hard to reach once you know they are there. They are tucked away so the screen you see while training stays focused on your workout.

Settings, behind the app name

There is no settings gear, and that is deliberate. For now, Setnote keeps the top of the screen uncluttered, so the settings live behind the app’s name. Tap the word Setnote in the top left and the menu opens. Inside, you can switch appearance, choose your units, set your default number of sets so new exercises start with the right rows, pick whether cardio is scored on pace or endurance, export or import your data, and open the short in-app help guides.

Tap the word Setnote in the top left to open Settings: appearance, units, default sets, cardio focus, data export and import, and the in-app help guides.

Templates

If you run the same few sessions on rotation, templates save you from building them from scratch each visit. To create one, build a workout on the Log tab and tap Save as template before you tap Save workout, so you bank the routine and log today’s session in one go. Setnote asks you to name it, then stores the list of exercises.

Tap Save as template, give it a name like Push day, and Setnote stores the exercises for reuse.

To pull your saved templates back up later, tap and hold the strip just above the bottom menu. There is no button for it on the screen, which is why it is easy to miss.

Tap and hold the area just above the bottom menu to bring up your saved templates.

Your templates slide up. Tap Load to drop one onto today’s screen, where the ghost numbers come from your most recent actual session rather than the day you built it, so your targets stay current as you get stronger.

Your saved templates. Tap Load to use one, or the pencil to edit it.

The pencil opens the editor, where you can rename the template, reorder exercises with the handles, remove ones you no longer want, or add new ones. Editing the individual sets inside a template is planned for a future update.

The template editor: rename it, drag to reorder, remove an exercise with the red button, or add another.

Why the app stays this simple

Setnote leaves a lot out on purpose. There is no program builder telling you what to do, no streaks, no badges, no feed. The point is to get you out of the app and into your workout, and then to show you, plainly, whether the work is paying off. The hidden gestures are part of that. They keep the everyday screen down to what you need mid-set, while the deeper tools are a tap or a long press away when you want them. If you are new to Setnote, the fastest way to learn it is to log one real workout. Add an exercise, beat one ghost number, and save.