Hevy Alternative With an AI Coach That Reads Your Log

ChatRPE is a Hevy alternative for lifters who want the workout log and an AI coach in the same chat. "Bench 205 for four sets of six, last set RPE 8. Should I add weight next time?" is one message: the coach saves the workout as a dated entry, then answers from that session and the ones before it. Sets go in typed, by voice, or through Siri on an iPhone, and the effort rating stays attached to each set.

To switch, export your workouts from Hevy, bring the last few weeks across by pasting rows or sending screenshots, and keep the export file as your archive.

What Hevy does well

Hevy is a logger built around tools you reach for at the bench. Its features guide lists warm-up, drop and failure sets, supersets, rest timers, plate calculators, a built-in exercise library with demonstrations, and apps for iPhone, Android, Apple Watch, Wear OS and the web. Turn on RPE and each set gets a 6 to 10 rating, entered during a live workout, and the "previous" column shows your last one (its RPE article has the steps).

The free plan caps you at 4 routines, 7 custom exercises and 3 months of workout history. Hevy Pro lifts those caps and adds Hevy Trainer. The Trainer article describes a program generated from your goal, experience, equipment, schedule and session length, with progressive overload suggestions that tell you when to add weight and how much. Hevy says it builds these with an algorithm, not AI.

If you like tapping through a routine and want its weights to move on a schedule, Hevy covers that. People usually switch for a narrower reason: they want a plan they can talk to.

A plan you can question

Hevy Trainer decides from your answers to a setup questionnaire and from the sets you complete. In ChatRPE the plan starts as a conversation, so it can take in what a questionnaire has no box for:

"I train Monday, Wednesday and Friday for an hour. My left shoulder is cranky on overhead pressing but fine on incline. I'm running a 5K in six weeks. Write me a three-day plan, say why each lift is there, and tell me the rule for when the weight goes up."

The reply lists each exercise with its reason. Push back on one ("why front squats on Friday?") and the coach explains or swaps it, keeping the rest. If a limit will last for weeks, like the shoulder, ask the coach to keep it as a coaching note. You can see your notes. They last 30 days unless you ask for longer, and the coach reads them again whenever it plans or checks in.

ChatRPE does not fill in weights on its own. You agree the progression rule in words, for example "add 5 lb to bench when all four sets of six land at RPE 8 or easier." Before a session, ask for today's targets and the coach works them out from your last logs of each lift. When a lift stalls, ask why. The coach links the sessions its answer rests on: the weeks reps dropped, the missed Wednesday, the RPE creeping up at the same load. The progressive overload tracker guide covers which numbers show a block is working.

Logging a set after the switch

Say the effort in the same sentence as the set: "225 for five at RPE 8," or "five reps with two left." The coach stores the rating with the load and reps, so later questions can use it. Suppose you logged 225 for five at RPE 8.5 last month and RPE 7 today. Ask for a comparison at the same load and you can see whether the easier rating is a pattern before you add weight, or ask what load hits RPE 8 for five today. The RPE training app guide works through that loop, and the RPE guide covers the scale itself.

A sentence can also carry why a session went sideways. You swapped rows for pulldowns because the station was taken, cut the workout short for a meeting, or dropped the load after a warm-up that felt wrong. Say so in the same message and the note is saved with the workout, so a dip in the numbers still has its explanation three months later.

Plate math and warm-ups are questions rather than calculators: "what plates go on each side for 102.5 kg?" or "give me warm-up sets for a 315 squat."

Between sets, without the keyboard

Ask the coach to start a live session and it lays out the exercises in order, updates as you report sets, and runs rest timers that also show on your iPhone's Lock Screen. When you finish, the workout is saved to your history.

On an iPhone with iOS 18 or later, Siri works without opening the app: "Hey Siri, log with ChatRPE," then the set, or "Hey Siri, start a workout with ChatRPE" to begin a live session. Siri requests and voice recordings in the app share a daily allowance, two a day on a signed-in free account and five on Basic, reset at midnight UTC. Premium has no voice limit, and typed messages never count. The hands-free logging guide covers setup.

Training and diet in one log

Hevy logs training, bodyweight and waist measurements. For food, its help center describes sending Hevy data to MyFitnessPal through Apple Health or Health Connect, so meals live in a second app.

ChatRPE logs meals, bodyweight and workouts in the same chat, which suits anyone lifting while they lose weight. Send a meal as a sentence or a photo, weigh in as a message, and ask a question that crosses them: "my bench has stalled for three weeks; how does that line up with my calories and weight since I started cutting?" The coach reads both sets of entries and can chart bodyweight beside a lift. A chart shows that two things moved together, not that one caused the other. The weight loss tracker guide covers the food and weight side.

What stays with Hevy

Some things don't come across. Hevy has a social side: a feed of workouts from people you follow, comments, exercise leaderboards and side-by-side comparisons with friends, all described in its social guide. ChatRPE has no feed or followers. Your log is private to you and the coach, though you can share any single workout as text.

ChatRPE runs on the web and as an iPhone app, with no Android, Apple Watch or Wear OS app. It doesn't sync with Apple Health or Strava, which Hevy can send workouts to. There is no exercise video library: the coach describes a movement in writing, or reviews a photo of your own rep, or a short clip on Premium, sent between sets.

Moving your Hevy history

Export before you uninstall anything. In Hevy, go to Profile, then Settings, then Export & Import Data, then Export Data, and choose Export Workouts. The export article says the file opens in Google Sheets or Excel as a CSV, and Export Measurements gives you a separate file of your logged measurements. Keep both. They are your archive for everything you don't carry over.

ChatRPE takes the CSV as text: paste rows into a message rather than attaching the file, and say what the columns are. The coach turns them into entries the same way it handles a sentence you typed.

"These rows are my squat sessions from the last six weeks, exported from Hevy. Columns are date, exercise, set number, weight in lb, reps, RPE. Save each session on its own date, then show me the RPE trend at 315."

Screenshots suit a handful of recent sessions, as far back as Hevy shows you (three months on its free plan). Open a workout, screenshot it, and send it with a sentence saying what to do with it. A signed-in free account attaches one image a day, Basic two per message, and Premium five per message. On an iPhone you can share a screenshot straight from Photos with the Analyze with ChatRPE action.

Dates are the part to check. ChatRPE reads "today" and "yesterday", and any other date has to be one it can parse. A date it can't read is refused rather than filed under today, and the coach asks which day you meant. Give a full date such as August 14, 2026 with each session, then ask for that week back after the first batch to confirm the entries landed on the right days.

How much is worth bringing

The recent weeks do most of the work. Each conversation starts with your 20 newest entries in view, and the coach fetches older ones when a question needs them; an analysis such as "is my squat moving?" reads up to 500 entries in the app. A workable import is the last four to eight weeks of the lifts you care about, your current working weights, and the progression rule you follow. That is usually a dozen screenshots or a few pastes.

Bring your all-time bests as one message too: "All-time PRs from Hevy: squat 405x1, bench 285x3, deadlift 495x1." The coach can check a new top set against them whenever you ask.

At the end of your first week, ask what to do next session and check that the answer uses the sessions you brought over. That tells you whether the workflow suits you, and a few weeks of history is enough to run it.

Hevy is a trademark of its respective owner. This independent comparison is based on publicly documented product features and is not sponsored or endorsed by Hevy.