SetMaster 2.0 · Workout log for iPhone
User Guide
From your first exercise to a season of recorded training — your library, logging, history, and the data that stays on your iPhone.
Operating model
How SetMaster works
SetMaster records what you actually did, keeps the meaning of every recorded measurement, and calculates everything else from that record. Nothing is estimated on your behalf.
- Library
- →
- Workout
- →
- Sets
- →
- History
Three ideas carry the whole app
Exercises are definitions
An exercise says what gets measured — repetitions, load, distance, duration — and in which units. Editing it corrects every past occurrence's name and attribution, but never rewrites what you recorded.
Sets are evidence
A completed Set stores its own measurements, units, load meaning and, for a bodyweight exercise, the body weight it was logged with. Later edits to the exercise, or to your Settings body weight, can't change what a recorded Set means.
Totals are derived
A workout's volume, Set count and repetitions are calculated from its Sets. There's no separate score to repair or get out of date.
SetMaster never fills a blank with a guess — not even with today's Settings body weight. An older Set missing a required weight or repetitions keeps its blank and adds zero volume, and a recorded measurement SetMaster can't interpret is shown as a failure rather than calculated.
What SetMaster deliberately does not do
- It does not prescribe training, suggest weights, or score your effort.
- It does not require an account. There is no SetMaster server holding your training data — it stays on your iPhone.
When you open SetMaster it sends a single appLaunched signal to TelemetryDeck, at most once per calendar day, so the developer can see how many people use the app and which versions are in use. SetMaster attaches nothing of its own — no exercise names, workout counts, recorded dates or body data — and what you do inside the app is not instrumented. The signal carries the analytics SDK's standard metadata: app and build version, OS and device details, an event timestamp and an identifier the SDK manages. There is no setting for it, and Settings → Privacy says the same in the app.
Getting started
First launch and the four tabs
The first launch sets up your library on this iPhone. Everything after that happens in four tabs that never change.
Set up SetMaster
- Open SetMaster.
You'll see Opening SetMaster while it prepares local storage.
- Start clean, or restore a backup.
Set Up SetMaster offers two choices. Start Clean creates a new, empty library on this iPhone. Import SetMaster Export restores a backup you saved earlier with Export All SetMaster Data.
- Set your units.
In Settings → Measurement and Appearance, pick
lb/mileorkg/meter. This sets the units for your body weight and the defaults for new exercises; exercises and workouts you already have keep their saved units. - Enter your body weight.
Each bodyweight or assisted Set records a body weight beside its reps, and a new one takes it from Settings. Without one on file, the Set asks for a body weight before it can be completed.
| Tab | What it holds | You go there to |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Start New Workout, Recent Workouts, and your workout in progress | Start or resume training |
| History | Every workout you've finished | Review or correct what you did |
| Library | Every exercise and its configuration | Add or edit an exercise |
| Settings | Body weight, units, appearance, rest alerts, backup and reset | Configure anything |
Body weight, units, appearance and data controls all live in Settings. Screens elsewhere show your training; they don't hold their own preferences.
Preparation
Build your exercise library
An exercise defines what gets measured and how. Getting this right once means every later Set and total is meaningful.
Create an exercise
- Open Library and tap New Exercise.
Give it the name you'll recognize in history and search, and choose its primary muscle and equipment.
- Choose its Intent.
Strength, Timed, Cardio, Class or Hybrid. Intent chooses the fields a new exercise starts with; any metric you change by hand is kept.
- Choose tracked metrics.
Repetitions, Load, Duration, Distance and Total Time. Only what you track appears when logging. A Strength exercise can also be a Bodyweight Exercise, in Assisted, Unassisted or Weighted mode. Lengths isn't a separate metric — it's a distance style you choose once Distance is on, for pool work.
- Set units and increments.
Weight Defaults hold the weight unit and step size, plus an Equipment Base Weight for equipment that weighs something on its own, such as a hack squat or sled — it's logged automatically with your added weight. Distance Defaults hold the distance unit and entry style, including distance per length for pool work.
- Set its rest.
New exercises start from the saved New exercise rest in Settings. Each exercise then keeps its own Rest After Entry and Rest Duration. Interval Tracking adds an optional per-Set interval-rest override.
- Save.
Name, configuration and Favorite state commit together.
Save stays greyed out unless at least one of Repetitions, Load, Duration or Distance is on. Total Time alone doesn't satisfy it, because a completed Set has to measure something of its own, and Total Time measures the whole exercise rather than any one Set. For a purely timed move, track Duration and Total Time and log it as one timed Set — Rest, Stopwatch and Total Time explains what SetMaster then does for you.
Stopwatch, Total Time and goals
Show Stopwatch puts a stopwatch on the exercise while you log it. Default Countdown gives it a lead-in of None, 3, 5 or 10 seconds before it starts counting up, and your choice is kept even while the Stopwatch is switched off.
Under Goals, an exercise can carry a per-Set Duration goal and a whole-exercise Total Time goal, each aimed Faster or Longer. A goal is shown for reference while you train. It never changes what gets recorded and never fails a Set.
A goal requires the metric it measures. A Total Time goal switches Total Time on and disables its toggle; a per-Set Duration goal does the same to Duration. Clear the goal, and the toggle is yours again.
Load meaning matters more than the number
SetMaster distinguishes a total load, a base-plus-added load, an added-bodyweight load, and an assisted load. That distinction is stored with every Set you record, so a weighted pull-up and an assisted pull-up never get compared as if they were the same lift, and a later edit to the exercise can't retroactively change what an old Set meant.
A bodyweight Set also stores the body weight it was logged with. At 180 lb, a pull-up with a 20 lb belt moved 200 lb, and one with 40 lb assistance moved 140 lb. A blank added weight means no added weight — the load is your body weight alone. Set rows and Previous Workouts still show exactly what you entered — the 20 lb added, the 40 lb assistance — and never append the calculated total.
A Cardio exercise may track Duration alone and save with no distance unit. A distance unit is required only once Distance is actually part of what you log.
Exercise Setup and notes
Exercise Setup — seat position, handle position, range setting and setup notes — records how the machine was configured. It's saved per workout, so changing a machine setting next week doesn't rewrite last week's record. General exercise notes appear in the exercise header every time you train it; Notes for This Exercise are specific to the session you're in.
Correcting an exercise's name or primary muscle updates every place it appears — history, search, Previous Workouts — including imported history. Recorded measurements, units and completion are untouched.
Find and manage exercises
Search the Library by name, and narrow it with the Intent and Muscle filters; Sort changes the order. Tap an exercise to see its detail — its configuration, timing, Exercise Setup and notes — and Edit Exercise opens the editor.
- Swipe right on an exercise to make it a Favorite.
- Swipe left to Archive it, or to Delete it. Archived switches the list to your archived exercises, where the same swipe offers Restore; Active switches back.
- Deleting an exercise you've already logged archives it instead, so your workouts and history stay intact. An exercise you've never logged is deleted.
Workflow · training
Log a workout
An Active Workout is SetMaster's one live session. It survives leaving the app, locking the phone, and relaunching.
Start and work through it
- Start from Home.
Start New Workout opens the exercise selector. Pick the exercises you want to start with.
- Log your first Set.
Repetitions and compatible load are prefilled — the first Set from your most recent comparable history, each later Set from the one before it. Copied values appear in your Emphasis Color; editing a field clears that cue for that field only. A bodyweight Set records your Settings body weight; if none is on file, a Body weight field appears on the Set.
- Complete the Set.
A completed Set gets a solid green bar on its leading edge. Rest starts automatically if the exercise is configured for it.
- Add Sets as you go.
Add Set scrolls to the new current Set once it's saved. Repeat taps can't create a duplicate.
- Finish the exercise.
Exercise Done marks it complete and opens the Exercise List so you can pick the next one.
- Add exercises when you need them.
Add Exercise in the Exercise List puts your picks at the top of Remaining, in the picker's order. Pick one and it opens ready to log; pick several and you land on the Exercise List.
- Finish the workout.
Workout Actions → Finish Workout saves it to History. At least one completed Set is required. The Workout Complete summary then shows the workout's duration, exercises, completed Sets, repetitions and load volume.
While you log an exercise
The exercise's Exercise Setup sits on the logging screen. Edit Exercise Setup changes the seat, handle, range or setup notes; saving it while you log updates this workout and the exercise's current defaults, so the next workout starts from it. Correcting setup later in History changes only that workout. Notes for This Exercise holds notes for this session, and Previous Workouts shows what you logged for the exercise in earlier workouts.
The Exercise List shows Completed and Remaining exercises. Use Edit to reorder Remaining, and Add Exercise to bring in another one.
Rest, Stopwatch and Total Time
Rest
Counts down in the exercise header. It keeps running when you leave the screen, and delivers a notification if you've left the app. One timer produces one cue — no double alerts.
Stopwatch
Times the exercise as a whole, after its optional lead-in countdown. One Stopwatch exists per workout, and it belongs to the exercise that started it.
Total Time
The time attributed to the exercise as a whole, including the rest between its Sets. It's what history shows, and it's never a sum of your Set durations.
What the Stopwatch offers, and when
The controls change with what the Stopwatch is doing, and a destination appears only when this exercise can actually store that kind of time.
| State | What you get |
|---|---|
| Counting down | Cancel, with a confirmation. Cancelling records no time. |
| Running | Stop. The reading freezes; nothing is stored yet. |
| Stopped | Clear, plus Use as Set Duration and Use as Total Time where each applies. |
| Owned elsewhere | A Go to Stopwatch link instead of controls, naming that the Stopwatch is in use for another exercise. |
| Destination | Offered when | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Use as Set Duration | The exercise tracks Duration | Fills the current unfinished Set, or creates one if there isn't one. If that Set already has a duration, you're asked before it's replaced. |
| Use as Total Time | The exercise tracks Total Time — unless it also tracks Duration and fewer than two completed Sets have a recorded duration | Records the exercise's Total Time. If a Total Time is already recorded, you're asked before it's replaced. |
| Clear | Always | Discards the reading. Nothing is recorded, and your Sets are untouched. |
Applying either destination also ends the Stopwatch — it doesn't stay parked holding a value. Both are unavailable while a Total Time you typed is still saving, and while the reading is still zero.
When an exercise tracks both Duration and Total Time, one timed Set is the total, so SetMaster never asks you for the same number twice: the Total Time field is hidden, Use as Total Time isn't offered, and Exercise Done copies that Set's duration into Total Time for you. Record a second Set with a duration and the two stop being the same thing — the field appears, the Stopwatch offers the destination, and the automatic copy stops. An exercise that tracks Total Time without Duration always shows the field.
The section is headed Timing when there's a Total Time field or a Total Time goal to show, and Stopwatch when the Stopwatch is all that's there.
Exercise Done won't complete an exercise, and Finish Workout won't finish the workout, while a Stopwatch is still open. You'll see Clear Stopwatch First, and your logged Sets are unaffected. It's the moment to decide whether that time is a Set duration, the exercise's Total Time, or nothing.
Fix an exercise mid-session
Wrong units, a missing metric, or the wrong rest duration doesn't require removing and re-adding the exercise. Open Workout Actions → Edit this Exercise to open the library editor over the logger. Saving applies the new name, tracking, units, load options, goals, setup fields and default rest to the live exercise immediately. Your logged Sets and their recorded measurements are unchanged.
It takes the new duration but keeps its elapsed time and running or paused state. If the new duration has already passed, that rest simply ends.
Turning Show Stopwatch off closes it where it stands — its time is not copied into a Set or into Total Time, and nothing already recorded changes. Left on, a lead-in countdown that hasn't finished adopts the new countdown length, and time already accumulated is kept.
Pause, resume, and leaving
Pause Workout pauses the workout and returns you to Home; while it's paused, the same button reads Return to Home. On Home, Resume Active Workout — or Continue Active Workout when it isn't paused — puts you back exactly where you were. Nothing is lost by closing the app.
Workout Actions → Discard Workout permanently deletes the Active Workout and all of its Sets, after a confirmation.
Starting another one — or duplicating a workout from history — while one is active shows Active Workout Already in Progress with an Open Active Workout action, and creates nothing.
Workflow · review
History and corrections
History lists every workout you've finished. Open one to review it, correct it, or start it again.
Find a workout
Search narrows the list. Relaunching the app starts with an empty query.
Correct a completed workout
A completed workout is fully reconstructable without becoming live again. You can add, remove and reorder exercises; add, edit, duplicate, delete and reorder Sets; and correct setup, notes, Total Time and workout details. Workout Actions holds Edit Workout and Edit Exercise List.
The workout already supplies its own date, so a corrected Set uses it. Changing the workout's start date or time shifts its end and its contained timestamps by the same amount; changing active duration alone doesn't move those facts.
The Set's editor shows the body weight that Set recorded, or a blank if it has none — today's Settings value is never filled in. A notes-only save keeps the blank; any other save needs a body weight (Bodyweight is a required entry on a bodyweight indicated exercise). Entering one recalculates that Set alone.
Repeat a session you've already done
From a completed workout, Workout Actions → Duplicate as Active Workout recreates its exercise order, setup and notes with no Sets copied, using each exercise's current name and settings.
Delete a workout
Workout Actions → Delete Workout, after a confirmation, deletes the workout with all of its exercises and Sets.
Data
Back up, import, export
A full backup is a single .workoutlog.zip file you can keep anywhere and import back.
Exporting
Settings → Data Portability → Export All SetMaster Data saves everything SetMaster holds on this iPhone — your exercise library, workout history and settings — as SetMaster Export.workoutlog.zip, in a location you choose.
Importing
- Choose the file.
Use Settings → Data Portability → Import and Merge SetMaster Data, or Import SetMaster Export when you first set up SetMaster. The file is staged as an immutable copy before anything is read.
- Review what it will do.
The review screen counts what will be added, what will be skipped as identical, and what will be kept as yours, and names anything that will be normalized on the way in.
- Confirm.
Nothing is written until you do.
Import and Merge keeps your current settings and adds what's missing. A record you already have stays as it is.
Importing content you already have doesn't duplicate it. But a backup isn't inert either — if a record in it was deleted since export, importing restores it.
Settings → Reset All Data deletes all SetMaster data on this iPhone — exercises, workouts, history and settings — and can't be undone. You confirm by typing RESET. Export a backup first if you might want any of it back. Files you exported earlier are separate and aren't touched.
Reference
Settings reference
Where each control lives and what it reaches.
| Setting | Section | Affects |
|---|---|---|
| Body weight | Measurement and Appearance | The body weight new bodyweight and assisted Sets record; never changes a saved Set |
| Distance/Weight Unit | Measurement and Appearance | lb/mile or kg/meter for body weight, summaries and new exercise defaults — never rewrites recorded units |
| Appearance | Measurement and Appearance | Light, Dark or System across every screen |
| Emphasis Color | Measurement and Appearance | The highlight color, including prefilled Set values |
| New exercise rest | Workout Defaults | The rest each newly created exercise starts with, and the fallback for an exercise without its own |
| Haptic feedback | Workout Defaults | Logging feedback throughout the app |
| Background notifications | Rest Timer Notifications | Rest alerts when you've left the app |
| Export All SetMaster Data · Import and Merge SetMaster Data | Data Portability | A full backup out, and a reviewed merge back in |
| About · Privacy · User Guide | Information | Version and legal detail, the privacy statement and its Privacy Policy link, and this guide in your browser |
| Reset All Data | Last section | Deletes all SetMaster data on this iPhone, after you type RESET |
Reference
When something fails
SetMaster distinguishes loading, failure, and retained data on purpose. A screen never quietly shows you stale numbers as though they were current.
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Loading | The first read hasn't finished | Wait — no data is missing |
| Last known, with Retry | A refresh failed; what you see is the previous successful read | Retry when convenient; nothing was lost |
| Failed, with Retry | An operation didn't complete | Retry; your saved data remains authoritative |
When a write fails, the previously saved value stays authoritative and is what you see. SetMaster won't report a save it didn't make, and it won't discard your draft.
Common situations
A bodyweight Set won't complete or save
It has no body weight. While logging, enter one on the Set or in Settings. In History, enter that Set's body weight — that's what Bodyweight is a required entry on a bodyweight indicated exercise is asking for.
An old bodyweight Set adds no volume
It was recorded without a body weight, so it counts as zero rather than a guess. Edit the Set in History and enter its body weight; only that Set is recalculated.
A workout won't finish
At least one completed Set is required, and an open Stopwatch must be cleared first. Complete a Set, or clear the Stopwatch.
Something you expected isn't on screen
These aren't failures. Each one is a control SetMaster withholds because, in that exact state, it would ask you for something it already knows or can't store.
There's no Total Time field
The exercise tracks Duration as well, and fewer than two completed Sets have a duration. That single Set's duration is the total, and Exercise Done records it for you. See Rest, Stopwatch and Total Time.
The Stopwatch won't offer Use as Total Time
Same rule — or the exercise doesn't track Total Time at all. Turn Total Time on in the exercise, or log a second timed Set.
The Stopwatch won't offer Use as Set Duration
The exercise doesn't track Duration. Turn it on with Edit this Exercise; Sets you've already logged are unchanged.
Save is greyed out on an exercise
It needs a name and at least one of Repetitions, Load, Duration or Distance. Total Time on its own isn't enough.
A metric toggle won't switch off
A goal requires it. Clear the goal first.
Exercise Done won't complete
Either a Stopwatch is still open — Clear Stopwatch First — or the exercise has no completed Set yet.
The Stopwatch is in use for another exercise
A workout has one Stopwatch, held by the exercise that started it. Go to Stopwatch takes you there to stop, use or clear it.
The Total Time you typed reverted
The save failed, so the previously saved value is shown rather than your draft. Edit it again to retry.
Reference
Glossary
SetMaster uses these terms precisely, so configuration and history stay readable.
- Active Workout
- One live training session. Only one can exist at a time, and it survives leaving the app.
- Set
- One logged effort, labelled
SET #. A completed Set carries its own measurements, units, load meaning and, where it needs one, body weight. - Intent
- Strength, Timed, Cardio, Class or Hybrid. It chooses the fields a new exercise starts with, and the Library can be filtered by it.
- Load meaning
- Whether a recorded weight is a total, a base plus added weight, added bodyweight, or assistance. Stored per Set.
- Exercise Setup
- Seat position, handle position, range setting and setup notes for an exercise. Saved per workout.
- Recorded volume
- Effective load times repetitions, saved with each Set — for a bodyweight exercise, using the body weight that Set recorded.
- Prefill
- Repetitions and compatible load copied into a new Set — shown in your Emphasis Color until you edit the field.
- Duration
- The time recorded on one Set. Tracked per Set, and distinct from the exercise's Total Time.
- Total Time
- The time attributed to an exercise as a whole, including the rest between its Sets. Never a sum of Set durations.
- Stopwatch
- One per workout, owned by the exercise that started it. Stopped, it can be cleared, used as a Set's Duration, or used as the exercise's Total Time.
- Backup
- A SetMaster
.workoutlog.zipfile of your real records, saved with Export All SetMaster Data and imported back into SetMaster. - Last known
- Data from the most recent successful read, shown and labelled as such after a refresh fails.
Define your exercises so they measure the right things, log Sets as you train, correct history when you need to, and let every total be recalculated from that record.