I’m middle-aged and have been working out here and there for ages before apps came along. I’ve tried so many workout apps, and honestly, they’ve all been a bit of a letdown. But Gymverse? It’s a whole different story! Let’s start with the interface; I’m a huge fan! It’s not only visually appealing but also super easy to use. They offer a ton of workout programs that fit all sorts of goals. One of my favorite things is how customizable it is. I know how frustrating it can be when you’re at the gym and you come across an exercise that needs a specific machine or equipment, but it’s not available or you have some kind of limitation. You can switch the exercise for that day or make it part of your program. For example, I have a bad back and can’t do squats, but Gymverse, like other apps, has options to change it to another exercise that works out that particular muscle group. But what sets Gymverse apart is that their selection of alternative exercises is much bigger than most. Another cool feature I haven’t seen anywhere else is called smart weight and reps. It takes your weights and reps and, once you hit, say, your third rep with a given weight, it automatically increases the weight for you the next time you do that exercise. Oh, and get this: all of this is adjustable. The customizable timer is pretty neat, and the last thing is that while your phone is locked, they have a widget on the screen where you can see the exercise you’re doing, what set you’re on, and how much time you have left on the timer.

Have been using this app to help plan/track my strength training for 2 years. Have loved it and it’s definitely been a great asset to help move closer to my goals. However, I have a huge issue with the newest update. The app allows you to select from curated workout plans based upon your available equipment, type of splits, desired goal, and targeted weekly frequency of exercise. Then it would create a 10 week cycle based on this criteria. Each time you opened the app, it would take you to the next scheduled workout in your plan. However, the newest update makes you select which specific days of the week that you plan to workout, and the scheduled workouts are ONLY available on that day. If you have to take a day or more off due to life or injury, it now skips over those workouts entirely and takes you to whatever workout it projected you would be on based on your start date and there’s no way to go back to earlier plans. I live a busy life and have been dealing with some injuries, so this is a big annoyance for me. I seriously wish they would just scrap the scheduled days feature and go back to the previous “next workout” style. If they did, it would be 5 stars, but as is I give it 2.5/5 for the rigidity.

I am happy that fixes have been made to help track our progress through a program. My only suggestion is there are so many plans in the library. Ive completed probably a dozen of them. But i cannot tell which ones ive already done! I wish you would label some how on each plan in the library “last completed on xx/xx/xxxx” so we dont redo the same plan over and over. I might be on day 3 and think “geez this seems familiar” then realize oh ive already done this one before. So lost 3 days when i could have moved on to a different new program. Exercises overlap and there are so many combinations. I have to manually go back through months of a calendar of progress and compare the workout pattern of exercises to see on wow, 7 months ago i did “get lean, push pull split, plan 8”. It takes a whole crime scene investigation to figure that out. We are busy. We dont have a lot of spare time for that. I want to make sure im trying a brand new program each time. There are so many, there is no reason we shouldnt have a mechanism for tracking it in the app. I am having to keep an iphone note instead because there is no functionality for general notes. Only notes within a specific exercise. I cant even keep notes for a particular day or program. So notes get lost. Like if i dont do wide stance front barbell squats for 8 months, i dont have those noted i have to go dig for them even to see general information for that day that i recorded while working out.

I absolutely love this app. I’ve tried at least five other apps. Best things about this app: you can track your strength and lifting training as well as your cardio. It has excellent quality how to videos on every single exercise. Has a very robust selection of equipment to choose from and variety of exercises static exercise exercises to resistance and machines and free weights. The in app timer while working out is seamless and an awesome feature. Now for some of the major issues it lacks and needs fixed: the ability to rename workout days and shift the schedule without resetting the workout. If you create a custom workout, but want to change your rest day for example you have to manually re-create the workout. You should be able to just go into that workout day and change what day of the week it falls on. You should also be able to rename it. So it’s not just upper body or lower body, but can be whatever you want it to be called. Next, you should be able to set a default rest timer from the settings rather than having to manually set every single timer during every single workout. Next, there should be a way to shrink the view so you have the ability to view a compact list of your workout as well as larger bubble style workout icons. Finally, when during an active workout, you should be able to more seamlessly move between exercises with fewer taps or clicks so that way when you’re in a gym and there’s other people using the machines or the equipment you want to use you can quickly go onto the next.