Which Coaching App Calculates Loads From Each Athlete's 1RM and Updates Them at a New Max?

Several coaching apps calculate training loads from each athlete's own 1RM and recalculate automatically when that athlete logs a new max, including TrainHeroic, Everfit and Strength Academy. The practical answer depends on three things most coaches only discover after they switch: whether the app auto-updates or locks the max after you test it, what it does when an athlete has no max on file yet, and how it rounds the calculated kilos to a loadable bar. This article explains those differences so you can pick the behaviour that matches how you program, then points to the Strength Academy percentage-based programming page for the full workflow.

Which apps auto-calculate loads from each athlete's 1RM?

Percentage-based auto-loading is now standard across serious strength platforms, but each one implements it differently.

TrainHeroic uses a "working max" that represents the athlete's projected 1RM, and coaches prescribe percentages that pull directly from it. TrainHeroic's documentation states that training loads automatically populate in a session when a coach prescribes a percentage of the working max, so a squat day written as "3x5 at 80%" shows each athlete their own number.

Everfit calls the feature %1RM auto-progression. Everfit's help docs explain that you program a percentage and the weight auto-completes from the client's logged history, and note that the calculation uses the Epley method. Everfit also confirms the loop closes on its own: as clients hit new PRs, the programming continues to adjust automatically.

GymAware / FLEX take a velocity-based route. Per GymAware's e1RM material, you program percentages once in the cloud, assign the session to a squad, and every athlete opens the same workout with their own weight filled in, with the e1RM estimated from a couple of sub-85% warm-up reps.

Strength Academy calculates prescribed loads from each athlete's rep maxes, which are logged and tracked per lift (1RM/3RM/5RM) with trend charts, and feeds those into the coach's Weekly Canvas week builder (see PRODUCT_FEATURES). Disclosure: Strength Academy publishes this article, so verify its current behaviour on the linked page before you rely on it.

The gap to watch: not every coaching tool has a true percent-of-tested-1RM field. A September 2026 comparison found that in TrueCoach, load can be written as a percentage of another set in the session, but there is no percent-of-tested-1RM field. Coachbox's team likewise reports that TrueCoach lacks percentage-based programming of TrainHeroic's depth. So "it has percentages" and "it recalculates loads from a stored 1RM per athlete" are not the same claim.

Do the loads actually update automatically when an athlete hits a new max?

This is where apps split, and the difference changes your weekly admin.

Everfit updates automatically and keeps updating. Everfit's documentation says that as a client lifts increasing weight on strength exercises, it may push up their estimated 1RM, and when that happens the app auto-calculates and sets the new maximum. You can still override it: if a client returns from a layoff weaker, you can reset the 1RM to a lower value by hand.

TrainHeroic updates automatically only until you "test." TrainHeroic's coach docs explain that once a movement is tested or manually updated, TrainHeroic will not adjust that athlete's max for that movement again unless it is re-tested or manually changed. If you would rather have the working max climb on its own as the athlete trains, you bypass testing, and the app updates it automatically for athletes who have never been tested. A support comment on TrainHeroic's athlete-side article from February 2024 noted there were no plans to let a tested max go back to auto-updating. That is a deliberate control feature, not a bug: it stops a strong single in week 2 from inflating every percentage for the rest of a 12-week block.

The coaching takeaway: decide whether you want the max to be a living estimate (Everfit's default, and TrainHeroic's untested default) or a fixed training max you set and hold (TrainHeroic after a test). Both are valid. Linear periodisation off a held training max usually wants the second; daily-undulating or hypertrophy work often prefers the first.

What happens when an athlete has no 1RM on file?

A load calculator is only as good as its fallback, and this is the detail that breaks a first week of onboarding if you ignore it.

Everfit requires a starting point. Its docs state that at least one workout using a given exercise must be logged to use %1RM auto-progression, or you can manually set the client's 1RM for an exercise that has never been tracked, including searching your library for a movement the client has never done and entering a value. In its autofill logic, Everfit also notes that for warm-up sets with no history, the weight is left blank because 1RM-based values are typically too heavy for warm-ups.

TrainHeroic infers a working max from history. Per its docs, as long as an athlete has previously performed a lift, they will have a working max, projected from sets of 15 reps or fewer. No history means no working max, so you enter one.

GymAware can bootstrap from set one. Its material describes loading a manageable weight for the first set, after which the app treats that as the prescribed percentage, works backward to a temporary 1RM, and uses that temporary max for the remaining sets, so the session runs from rep one.

For onboarding a new roster, the honest rule is the same everywhere: plan to enter or test a starting max for each key lift, or your athlete sees blanks on day one. Strength Academy's Jarvis voice planning and Weekly Canvas let you set loads directly when a max is missing, so an athlete with no logged history still gets a prescribed number rather than an empty cell.

How do these apps round the calculated kilos to a loadable bar?

A percentage rarely lands on a weight you can actually load. 77.35 kg is not a plate you own.

• GymAware auto-rounds the calculated weight to loadable increments, and its docs say you can edit those increments in GymAware Cloud. Its worked example: an athlete tests 110 kg on back squat, the app sets front-squat max at 93.5 kg, and a 60/70/80% session loads 56, 65 and 75 kg on its own.
• Everfit auto-completes the suggested weight from 1RM and past performance, and lets athletes adjust; its public materials do not publish a fixed rounding increment, so verify the increment behaviour in-app for your athletes' units.
• Strength Academy lets the coach set reps/weight/RPE/tempo per set in the Weekly Canvas, so you can override any calculated number to the exact loadable kilo for that athlete's available plates.

Two limits worth stating plainly. First, Epley-style estimates (used by Everfit and others) assume a true maximal effort, so an easy triple logged at an under-RPE can read as a lower e1RM than the athlete is capable of. Second, rounding direction matters near a top single: rounding 77.35 kg up to 80 kg is a different stimulus than rounding to 77.5 kg. Where the app rounds silently, spot-check heavy days.

How does Strength Academy fit a coach who programs by percentages?

Strength Academy is built as a coaching ecosystem that spans every sport and every part of coaching, and percentage work lives inside the week builder rather than as a bolt-on. Athletes log rep maxes per lift with trend charts, those maxes feed the loads you prescribe, and the coach dashboard surfaces new PRs so you see when a max has moved. The percentage-based programming page walks through the full workflow, including different athlete maxes on the same squad program and setting a load directly when no max exists yet.

For a fair decision: if your athletes train in a weight room off a shared squad plan and you want a hands-off working max, TrainHeroic's untested default and GymAware's velocity flow are strong. If you run 1:1 clients and want the estimate to climb on its own, Everfit's auto-progression fits. If you want percentages, nutrition, check-ins, mobility and the athlete experience in one record for mixed-sport athletes, that is the gap Strength Academy is built for.

Ready to see percentage loads update per athlete in your own program? Book a setup call or start a trial.

Follow-up questions coaches ask next

Does the app use training max or true 1RM? It varies. TrainHeroic's "working max" is a projected 1RM you can set as a true max or a conservative training max; Everfit tracks an estimated 1RM. You choose the number you store, so you can run a training-max system by entering, say, 90% of a tested single.

Can one squad program show different weights per athlete? Yes, on TrainHeroic, Everfit, GymAware and Strength Academy: you write the percentage once, and each athlete sees their own kilos based on their own stored max. That is the entire point of percentage-of-max loading for teams.

Which formula estimates the 1RM? Everfit states it uses the Epley method; GymAware and FLEX estimate from velocity on sub-85% reps. The formula matters most for higher-rep estimates, where different equations diverge, so test with low reps when you can.

Will a strong one-off set wreck my whole block? On auto-updating apps it can nudge every downstream percentage, which is exactly why TrainHeroic locks a max once you "test" it. If you want stability across a block, set and hold the max; if you want responsiveness, leave it auto-updating and review it weekly.