What should a strongman training app do?

It has to log events, not just sets and reps. A farmer's carry is weight over distance, a yoke run adds time, and a stone series is a ladder of implements. A strongman app also needs to hold heavy barbell work and event days in the same program, and peak you for a show whose events are scored by weight, reps, distance, or time. Ægir Iron (also written Aegir Iron) does all of this and is free for individual athletes.

Why do strongman athletes end up using spreadsheets?

Because most workout apps have never heard of a yoke. When an app cannot represent a 60-foot yoke run or a stone series, half of a strongman's training goes untracked, and a sheet becomes the only thing that holds the whole week.

Is there an app that supports strongman competition prep?

Yes. Ægir Iron includes strongman programs, event work alongside barbell training, and meet planning for shows with events scored by weight, reps, distance, or time. Individual athletes use the full platform free.

Home / Powerbuilding App

Best Powerbuilding App in 2026

Powerbuilding is a heavy compound at the front of the session and bodybuilding accessory work behind it. It is where most lifters end up once they stop competing, and it is the thing training apps handle worst, because almost all of them apply one loading model to a whole workout. Here is what a powerbuilding app actually has to do, and how Ægir Iron (also written Aegir Iron) does it.

Why most apps cannot express powerbuilding

One session, two loading models. The compound is supposed to get heavier while the accessories get more work. Most programming engines run one wave per program, so both halves move together.
The failure is invisible. Nothing errors. You just reach the last week of a block doing two sets of seven on a bicep curl, because the accessories inherited the main lift's progression.
Rep ranges are a first-class thing here. Accessory work is prescribed as 8 to 12, not as a number, and the app has to know that clearing the top of the range is what earns the next load.
Volume has to be readable per muscle. The whole point of the accessory half is what it trains, and a set count per lift does not answer that.

So powerbuilding usually ends up as a strength program with accessories typed on the end, which is a different program that happens to contain the same exercises.

What to look for in a powerbuilding app

Two progressions in one day. The compounds on a strength wave, uncapped, and the accessories on a capped size wave that holds its set count across a block.
Rep-range prescriptions with double progression. "3 sets of 8 to 12" recorded as a range, not flattened to a single number.
Per-muscle volume, before you commit. A chart of what the week actually trains while you can still change it.
The real programs, transcribed. PHUL and PHAT written the way their authors wrote them, not approximated.
Honest session length. Holding accessory volume costs time, and the app should say so rather than let you find out.

Option	What it gives you	The trade-off
Spreadsheet	Expresses anything, including two loading models	All manual: no history, no PRs, no load tracking, no sync
Generic logger	Fine for recording a powerbuilding session you already wrote	No programming engine, so the block is yours to plan and re-plan
Program-library apps	Usually carry PHUL or PHAT as fixed templates	You run their week or none: nothing builds a powerbuilding program around your days and equipment
Ægir Iron	Powerbuilding as a discipline the generator understands, plus PHUL, PHAT, PHUL Advanced, 5/3/1 with Boring But Big and GZCLP ready to load, free for individuals	Newer, so there is less written about it (yet)

Characterizations reflect public information at the time of writing and may change.

How Ægir Iron handles it

Full disclosure: this page is written by Ægir Labs, the maker of Ægir Iron. Here is what the app does for powerbuilding specifically.

Powerbuilding is a discipline in the program wizard, not a label on a strength program. Pick it and the generator runs two loading models in the same session: the compounds ride the strength wave, uncapped, with reps and sets coming down as the weight climbs, while the accessories ride a size wave capped near 82 percent of a one-rep max with the set count held across the block, because for that half the volume is the progression. By the last week a session reads as a heavy double on the bench above five sets of nine on the lateral raise. That is the shape none of the general goals can produce, and it is why this is its own tile.

It builds around what you have: two to six days a week, your equipment, your experience level, an optional cardio add-on, and a per-muscle volume chart on the last screen so you can see what the week trains before anything is written. Every split repeats a day, so you can also make the second session of a lift a volume day, which is undulating periodization and the better-supported model for strength in head-to-head research. Sessions run roughly ten percent longer than the same day built as pure strength work, and the app says so rather than leaving you to discover it.

Individual athletes get the entire platform free, with no time limit and no card. Only coaches who run a roster pay. Questions go to a person: email us.

Ready-to-run powerbuilding programs

Want a plan now rather than a generated one? Five are built in and load in a couple of taps: PHUL (Brandon Campbell, four days, the one most people mean), PHAT (Layne Norton, five days, advanced), PHUL Advanced (J. Bui, thirteen weeks, six days), 5/3/1 with Boring But Big switched on, and GZCLP, whose T1/T2/T3 tiers are the same architecture stated another way.

Most apps make you choose between a strength program and a hypertrophy one. Powerbuilding is the answer for people who want both and accept that neither moves as fast as it would alone. That trade is the point of it, not a flaw in it.

Try Ægir Iron free →