Gym Workout Logger: Sets, RPE, RIR & Rest Timer

What it is

Workout Logging is the part of Kinoku you use most, because you write down what you lifted here. The app stays out of your way between sets so you can focus on the work. The reasons it earns that place are speed, the detail it can hold per set, and the fact that a dead phone does not lose your session.

Choose your set layout

In 1.4.0, inline set editing comes in three styles: Clean Inline, Compact Pills and Tabular Grid. Use simple text, rounded fields or aligned columns on Today and in the full session view. Weight, reps and optional effort fields stay editable where you see them.

The familiar FitNotes-style exercise screen is still available, with one exercise and its history in focus, and your first workout or first post-import workout asks which set layout you prefer. Exercise notes, routine notes, and last session’s set notes stay pinned above your sets, and any exercise can switch on “Weight is per hand” for dumbbells or “Both sides” for one-sided timed holds. Compare the layouts and see how to change them.

Guided logging, one set after another

Guided logging is a switch in Workout settings, and it is off by default. With it on, Kinoku picks the next set for you after each one you finish, and a panel at the bottom of Today and the full session view holds − and + buttons and a Complete button for that set. In a superset the lifts take turns, and the rest timer waits until the round ends.

A second switch sits beside it for anyone who ticks sets in Today’s list. A tick saves the faded numbers the row shows, such as last time’s weight and reps, and turning off Tick saves faded numbers makes a tick save only what you type. Both switches are free.

What you can capture per set

• Weight and reps: the basics, with quick-tap values from your last set.
• RPE or RIR: rate of perceived exertion, meaning how hard the set felt (1 to 10), or reps in reserve, meaning how many reps you had left in the tank. Your choice. If you run a program that adjusts itself, the RPE vs RIR page says which one to pick.
• Set type: working, warmup, drop, failure, or rest-pause.
• Notes: anything you want to recall next time, like “felt heavy, slow it down.”
• Photos: form-check shots saved next to the set. Kinoku does not upload them to a Kinoku server; as eligible app files, Android system backup may copy them to your Google account.

What makes it fast

• Auto-fill copies your last set. Most of the time you only change what’s new.
• Rest timer starts on its own when you log a working set. Pro can save a rest time per exercise.
• Voice input for notes. Say “go heavier next time” and get back to your set.
• One-tap drop sets: log the working set, tap drop, log the next. They cluster as one entry.
• Crash-safe: if your phone dies mid-workout, your session comes back on the next launch. The timer too.

Rest-pause, run for you

Rest-pause is a way to get more reps out of one weight, where you push near failure, rest about 15 seconds, then go again. Kinoku runs that clock for you, so when you log a rest-pause set a 15-second countdown starts on its own, and when it hits zero the app adds the next mini-set, ready to log.

Take a set of pull-downs that stalls short of your target as the example. You mark it rest-pause, and the 15-second clock runs while you shake out your arms. The continuation set is waiting when the clock reaches zero, so you skip the timer math and keep moving. None of the big trackers we compared even has a rest-pause set type, and here it is free with the countdown running itself.

Classes, your own included

Not every session is sets and reps, so Log a class saves a class such as yoga or boxing as one entry with its length. New class in that sheet makes a class of your own, with a name, a class type, an icon and color, its usual length and the muscles it works. You can add the studio and the instructor when you log it, and Manage classes edits any class, archives the ones you made and hides built-in classes you never take.

A logged class moves you along a Journeys road by the distance that a walk or run of equal length and effort would cover. It also goes to Health Connect as its own activity, such as yoga, stationary biking or boxing, rather than as strength training, though classes logged before 1.5.0 keep the old type. Making classes and counting them on a road are both free.

What’s tracked across the session

You see it all live: total volume, total reps, working set count, time, and rest time. There’s also a per-muscle breakdown, so you know if you’re hitting things evenly, and the pull-down set above lands in the back and biceps columns the moment you log it. The same history also holds your runs, swims, classes and steps, and the all-in-one fitness tracker apps list compares that breadth across ten Android apps.

Free, forever

Logging is on the free tier, and there is no paid version of the part where you write down what you lifted. The global rest timer is free too. Pro can save a different rest-time preset for each exercise and adds deeper charts and analysis on top of your logged data.

Kinoku is Android only, so the log lives on that phone and moves by a backup file rather than a cloud sync. What is fixed is that the act of logging costs nothing, while the list of things you can capture per set is the current set rather than a final one.

If you log in Hevy or Strong today, the Hevy alternatives and Strong alternatives pages show what each app’s own pages say about free caps and accounts. Every compare page quotes its sources with the date they were opened.