Hevy Coach vs. WeStrive: An Overview
WeStrive is a popular online coaching and fitness training platform advertised as the #1 option for building programs faster, training three times the clients, and automating your business.
At first glance, the claims appear authentic because the platform has a clean and sleek interface with all the features you need: informative client profiles, a flexible program and workout builder, analytics, and even coaching teams.
WeStrive provides a bit of everything, which makes it a good option for various fitness professionals, including those in charge of coaching teams. However, Hevy Coach was designed for personal trainers and strength coaches.
For trainers and coaches, Hevy Coach is better than WeStrive because client profiles offer more information to track training performance and body composition, the workout builder is more flexible and allows you to create more detailed strength workouts, the exercise library is curated and more relevant, and the client app is more refined.
| Features Comparison | ||
| Feature | Hevy Coach | WeStrive |
| Client Activity Feed | ✅ | ✅ |
| Individual Exercise Performance | ✅ | ✅ |
| Body Measurements | ✅ | ✅ |
| Progress Photos | ✅ | ✅ |
| Program Folders | ✅ | ❌ |
| Drag and Drop | ✅ | ✅ |
| RPE | ✅ | ✅ |
| Automatic Rest Timers | ✅ | ❌ |
| Manage Coaching Teams | ✅ | ✅ |
| Lead Generation | ✅ | ❌ |
User Interface and Navigation
WeStrive has a clean and sleek interface. The primary menu on the left takes you to the most important sections: your client list, training programs, business section, and coaching team.
Its dashboard is also clean and informative. It displays the number of clients, their compliance percentage, payment balance, recent programs, clients that need attention, and your clients’ recent logged activities on a dashboard.
You can click on each client update to expand it for more information:
These features allow you to monitor your clients’ activity at a glance and quickly see if any need attention.
Hevy Coach has a similarly straightforward and intuitive interface. The most important sections are on the main menu: dashboard, client list, program and exercise library, chat, team feature, and lead generation. This allows you to access all the essential areas with just one or two mouse clicks.
The dashboard is simple and informative. It displays your clients in three categories: active, inactive, and all clients. Below, you can track your clients’ recently logged activities on a feed and click on any update for additional information. On the right, you can see a graph of your weekly active clients.
“It’s a simple and easy dashboard that has a very clean app with UI. It has all the tools required to track progressive overload and ensure clients enjoy their workouts. Compared to other apps, they’re either too confusing or have too many bells and whistles that confuse clients. Hevy does a very good job at keeping things simple but extremely effective and easy to use. My clients love it.”
-Rashid K. (Source: Capterra)
Program Library
You can create and store unlimited training plans in WeStrive’s program library. Each plan is listed with its name, date of creation and last update, and duration. You can mouse over on the right of each plan to reveal additional options: assign, duplicate, download as PDF, or delete.
In addition to the drafts section, you can look at assigned programs and templates, which can be entire training plans, weeks, days, or circuits. This allows you to organize plans to a degree and more easily find the one you’re looking for, given that there is no other option to sort plans in folders.
Clicking on an existing plan opens the program builder, where you can:
- Add weeks, including pre-made weeks from the templates section
- Remove or rearrange weeks
- Duplicate days
- Drag and drop workouts around
- Create workouts from scratch
- Import existing workouts from your templates
You can also navigate to the Reminders section to assign tasks (such as uploading progress photos) or set nutrition targets.
Hevy Coach takes a slightly different approach with its program library and builder. Like WeStrive, you can create, store, and duplicate unlimited training plans. But unlike WeStrive, you can organize your programs in folders (for example, based on experience), see what workouts are part of each plan, and even duplicate whole folders for more streamlined program building.
There’s also an existing library with more than a dozen training plans like WeStrive. However, the ones on Hevy Coach solely revolve around traditional strength training and are sorted by goals, experience, and available equipment.
You can import any of the programs to your library, edit any of the variables, and assign them to clients.
Clicking on a program opens the builder, where you can:
- Change the program’s title
- Add a description
- Select a duration
- Add or remove workouts
- Import workouts from other programs
- Drag and drop workouts to rearrange
- Copy workouts to other programs
- See a program summary on the right
Workout Builder
WeStrive’s workout builder is available when building or editing a training plan or creating a single workout (day) in the templates section.
Inside the builder, you can use a search bar to add movements from the library, add or remove sets and training variables, drag and drop movements to rearrange, and write a custom note to any exercise or the whole workout.
While functional in some ways, the builder is not without its drawbacks. Most notably, the way sets are displayed can make it frustrating to create and review workouts because you must scroll sideways to see all the sets on each exercise.
Another drawback is that adding exercises to a workout can be time-consuming because results can sometimes load slowly. Waiting for a few seconds here and there isn’t a big deal, but it can be frustrating when you need to bulk-create a dozen workouts, each with several movements.
In contrast, Hevy Coach’s workout builder is leaner, more streamlined, and just as functional.
First, as you start editing a workout or building one from scratch, you can add a routine note and enable RPE.
Second, you can find and add the correct movements from the library with basic search terms like bench or barbell row and use the filters for muscle groups and equipment needed to narrow the results.
You can write a custom note, adjust the rest timer for each movement, and assign load, rep or rep range, and RPE targets for the individual sets.
You can also easily add or remove sets to any exercise with the click of a button and mark each set as normal, drop set, to failure, or warm-up set.
The builder’s drag-and-drop functionality allows you to rearrange exercises easily. Clicking on the three dots icon on any exercise reveals additional options: add exercise to superset, swap movement, remove, or edit the movement’s information.
“The best coaching app I’ve used (and I’ve used a few!). The ability to write up client workouts so that all they have to do is hit “start routine” is such a time saver on their side! It’s just super easy to use and intuitive.”
-Dan I. (Source: Capterra)
Exercise Library
WeStrive’s exercise library has 1,500+ entries, each with a short and informative instructional video. You can search for movements by name and use the filters for muscle target, type, and equipment.
While there are plenty of entries and numerous exercise variations, the library has some drawbacks:
- The entries don’t come with any helpful information, such as how-to instructions, muscle targets, or equipment needed; only a short YouTube video
- You cannot edit the existing entries to add any information or change the instructional video
- Given its large size, the library results may take some time to fully load
You can fix the first two problems with the custom exercises you’re allowed to upload, along with:
- Video link to the exercise
- Preview image
- Alternative exercise(s)
- Measurement type (e.g., weight + reps)
- Free text section of up to 2,500 characters (for how-to instructions, tips, or other)
However, this means you must do a lot of work upfront to create an exercise library tailored to your clients’ needs. Even though there are 1,500+ entries, you can only use them if your clients don’t need anything other than a brief demonstrational video.
In contrast, the Hevy Coach exercise library is smaller, with around 450 entries, but they are more relevant, and each is of higher quality.
Each movement includes step-by-step instructions on proper setup and execution, as well as information on target muscles, equipment needed, and type (e.g., weight/reps). Most entries also come with a demonstrational animation.
You can edit the how-to instructions and attach or upload a video to each entry.
Given its compact size and greater relevance to personal trainers and strength coaches, Hevy Coach’s library has the advantage of bringing up the most relevant results, even with basic search terms like row or bench press.
That said, you can always add custom exercises to continue expanding your library. You can upload entries with:
- Name
- Image
- Type
- Equipment needed
- Primary and secondary muscle targets
- How-to instructions
- Video (link attachment or file upload)
Client List and Client Profile
WeStrive’s client list displays people with their name, email address, invoice status, program status, date of joining, and date of their most recent activity.
You can mouse over to the right of each client for additional options: add/remove a tag, go to their calendar, assign a program, open the chat, navigate to your notes, or archive the client.
Opening a client’s profile reveals multiple subsections, including:
- Calendar – see your client’s assigned training plan and tasks (e.g., drink five glasses of water)
- Dashboard – see your client’s latest logged activities, review your notes and write new ones, see their compliance rate, access and edit personal information (name, height, weight, goals, limitations, and available equipment), and assign documents
- Program – see your client’s past, current, and future assigned programs and click on any of them to edit
- Progress – track your client’s progress on individual exercises, cardio performance, body measurements, heart rate, blood pressure, nutrition, and progress photos
Client profiles are relatively easy to navigate, given how in-depth and informative they are.
Hevy Coach also shines with an excellent client list and profile section. First, the client list displays your clients by name, along with the program they are running, their progress (e.g., Week 6 of 8), activity in the last seven days, status, and coach (in case it’s someone from your team).
Inside clients’ profiles, you can navigate several informative tabs:
- Overview – see your clients’ recent logged activities on a feed (click on any of them for details), write notes (such as goals, preferences, limitations, previous injuries, and other helpful information; only visible to you), current coach (with an option to reassign), and basic statistics like weekly time spent working out, training volume, sets completed, and monthly activity displayed on a calendar
- Workout Program – see a summary of the client’s training program and click to edit, remove, or replace it; a feed displays all of your clients’ completed workouts, and you can scroll through to review each session
- Exercise Statistics – examine your client’s performance on any exercise (same as on WeStrive)
- Advanced Statistics – examine your clients’ set count per muscle group (on a graph) and monitor their time spent training, volume load, and number of sets completed on a week-to-week basis
- Body Measurements – monitor your client’s body weight, body fat, and circumference measurements on individual graphs
- Progress Pictures – access all progress photos uploaded by your client and compare them in pairs
WeStrive and Hevy Coach are almost evenly matched in this category. However, Hevy Coach is slightly more relevant to personal trainers and strength coaches because it displays all the relevant information without fluff.
You can examine your clients’ performance on individual lifts and gain more in-depth insight, such as training volume completed, muscle group distribution, and the number of weekly sets done.
Client App
WeStrive’s client app has several tabs and multiple features:
Home
It displays the assigned training plan, the workout they must do today, and their stats: weight, calories eaten, energy expenditure, steps taken, and water intake. Clicking on today’s workout allows clients to log it. They can mark sets as complete one by one, add or remove sets, and input training variables, such as weight lifted or reps done.
A stopwatch allows them to track the duration of their session and monitor their rest periods between sets. Before marking a set as complete, they can rate it from one to five and write up to 200 characters of feedback for you.
The + icon on the bottom right opens a menu to log eaten calories, upload progress photos, log body weight, add a cardio activity, or use the app’s built-in timer.
Calendar
The client can see their scheduled workouts and tasks by day and click on each for more details.
Train
The client can see who their coach is, examine the training program assigned by them, and browse through shared resources.
The final section is your client’s profile, where they can upload progress photos, review documents, and edit some personal information.
Hevy Client App
While WeStrive’s app is impressive in some ways, the Hevy client app is more refined and offers more useful features to your clients while being simple to figure out.
First, workout logging is more flexible and intuitive. Your client must navigate to Coach and select the workout they must do that day. An automatic stopwatch begins tracking the session’s duration. Clicking on the stopwatch reveals additional options:
- Pause the workout timer in case they want to stop and finish the session later
- Change the start date and time to log a previously completed workout
As a quick side note, your client can access their chat with you in the Coach section.
While logging a workout, your client can add, remove, and rearrange exercises, add and remove sets, mark sets by type (normal, drop set, to failure, and warm-up), log RPE per set (if you’ve enabled it), and write a custom note for any exercise.
Before marking a workout as complete, your client can select a different date and time (in case it’s a workout completed previously), upload a video and images, and write a private note as feedback.
Your client can also use the app to create and log custom workouts, review their performance on individual exercises, upload progress photos, and add body measurements.
The app’s built-in analytics also allow your client to monitor their set count per muscle group, muscle distribution, the main exercises they do and how often they log them, their active streak, and monthly activity displayed on a calendar.
When monitoring performance on a specific lift, your client gains access to helpful information:
- Personal records (heaviest weight lifted, 1RM, and best set and session volume)
- List of previous best records on the exercise
- Performance history from session to session
- Demonstration animation along with step-by-step instructions on proper form
Aside from in-depth workout analytics and workout logging, those interested can enjoy the app’s social aspect by following others, building a following, and showing support by leaving likes and commenting on other people’s updates.
Of course, those uninterested can set their profiles to private and only use the app to log workouts, chat with you, and track their performance.
“My clients love using the app, from simple tracking and social sharing to more advanced features like 1rm predictions and workout muscle usage charts.”
-Pete S. (Source: G2)
Coach App
WeStrive’s coach app is similar to what your clients get to use. There are three primary sections:
Home
It displays the number of clients, compliance rate, recent logged activities, and feedback/rating. You can click to see the entire workout and reply to your client’s session or feedback.
The + icon on the bottom right reveals additional options to upload nutrition, compare progress photos, assign an existing training plan, set a reminder (for weigh-in and a few other things), write a note, or invite a new client.
Clients
See your list of clients, along with an overview of invoice status, assigned training and nutrition plan, and compliance percentage.
Click on each client to visit their profiles for an overview of their training, body weight, nutrition, and calendar. You also gain access to the notes you’ve written in relation to that client, along with their progress photos, measurements, goals, limitations, and available equipment, with an option to edit each.
You can also select a scheduled workout and log it for your clients while working with them in person. The interface is the same as in the client app.
Chat
Access your chats with all clients. The app is functional enough and offers many of the features found on desktop.
However, apart from sheer convenience and the ability to check up on clients multiple times per day, the only handy features of the app are the ability to invite new clients, log workouts for them, and chat. The experience for everything else would be better on a bigger screen.
Hevy Coach App
In contrast, the Hevy Coach app is more limited but arguably just as functional because it has the most important options:
- Access your client list and invite new clients
- Review each client’s assigned training plan
- Chat with clients
Log workouts for clients while coaching them in person
Unlike WeStrive, the Hevy Coach app offers a couple of additional options. First, it shows your client’s previous performance on any movement you’re logging to help guide your coaching decisions for the current session.
Second, you have greater flexibility to adjust training variables during a workout. You can add or remove sets like on WeStrive, but also:
- Adjust rest timers
- Mark sets by type
- Reorder, replace and remove exercises
- Pair activities into supersets
This gives you more freedom to change training details when necessary, such as if the client can’t do a specific exercise or doesn’t have as much time and needs to leave sooner.
Additionally, you can change the start date and time to log a previously completed workout and pause the workout timer if the client needs to stop and complete the session later.
Lastly, before marking a workout as complete, you can upload videos and images and write a note for the session as feedback for future reference.
Coaching Team
WeStrive allows you to team up with other fitness professionals. You can invite other members, assign a role (Admin, Lead Coach, or Coach), and adjust the permissions of each role.
You can access the client lists of all team members. Team admins can access all client profiles and edit information by default, even if a given client is assigned to another trainer. You can see all clients assigned to the team and change their trainer through the client list.
The Permissions tab allows you to edit each role’s authority level.
One advantage of the team feature is that you can share resources like programs and exercises. To do so, navigate to the Programs tab and select Teams to open the sub-menu:
As long as you have permission, you can access and contribute to the programs and custom exercises created by other coaches on your team.
You can edit the program’s details in the team library, assign it directly to one of your clients, and duplicate it to your personal library (drafts or templates section).
The Hevy Coach team feature is similar and just as functional, though more streamlined.
You can create or join a team of coaches. As a member, you can visit all other coaches’ profiles to see their latest activities, weekly active clients graph, list of active and inactive clients, and training programs, which you can import to your library.
Under the Clients tab, you can see what program each client is running, their progress (e.g., Week 6 of 8), and their status. Click on any client to visit their profile, see their latest activities and the program they are running, and examine their progress.
As an admin or the team’s owner, you can write notes for clients (only visible to you), edit or change their training plan, and even reassign them to another trainer or to yourself. You can also invite or remove coaches and change their roles.
Like on WeStrive, training programs and custom exercises are shared. However, the difference is that both are automatically shared and accessible. If one trainer creates a custom exercise, it automatically appears in the library of all team members.
Similarly, a workout plan created by any coach appears under a tab within the Program Library section, where any member can click to see it, edit it (if they are an admin), and import it to their personal library.
Overall, Hevy Coach’s team feature is more streamlined and provides all the options you need to manage a team of professionals and their clients. As an added benefit, the feature is available with unlimited coaches during your free trial and on the most basic subscription option.
In contrast, WeStrive’s Team feature is only available with a Gyms/Clubs subscription, which starts from $99 a month.
Grow: Generating New Leads
Grow is a Hevy Coach feature that allows you to create a lead generation form with a cover image, message, and a unique invite link. You can share your link on your website, social media, and elsewhere.
Anyone who clicks on your link can apply for coaching with their name, email address, and a brief message of who they are and why they want to work with you.
Applications appear under the Leads section within the Grow tab. You can look through them and accept or decline any.
WeStrive has a feature that works a bit differently. You can select a form for future clients to fill out and generate a unique link. Prospects who click on your link are prompted to register with WeStrive and fill out the form.
The downside is that you can’t freely share your link to generate leads and sift through them to decide who to work with. Instead, this works like an invite link for prospects you’ve already spoken with.
Pricing
WeStrive offers a 14-day free trial (no credit card required). The platform also has a free plan with basic options that is limited to a single client.
The Personal Training plan starts from $5 monthly and is limited to two clients. It comes with all the features besides the team options. Gyms/Clubs is the second paid plan option that includes team functions, starting from $99 monthly for up to 25 clients.
Hevy Coach offers a 30-day free trial (no credit card required). The most affordable plan after that is $25 monthly for up to ten clients. All plans include access to every feature, including the team functions and Grow.
All your clients get a free Hevy app Pro subscription as a bonus. Visit our pricing page for all the details.
| Table Comparison | ||
| Hevy Coach | WeStrive | |
| UI and Navigation | It has a clean and sleek interface with multiple menu options. | It has a clean interface with multiple menus for easy navigation. |
| Dashboard | It displays active and inactive clients, recently logged activities, and a graph of weekly active clients. | It displays the number of clients, compliance rate, recently logged activities, and clients needing attention. |
| Program Library | Organize all plans in folders, duplicate them, see the workouts in each, and import existing strength plans from the library. | Create and store unlimited programs. Easily duplicate or delete plans without opening them. |
| Workout Builder | Add movements from the library, add/remove sets, assign training variables, write custom notes, and create supersets. | Add movements through a search field, add or remove sets, add multiple variables to each activity, and write custom notes. |
| Exercise Library | It has 400+ high-quality entries with how-to instructions and other info. You can edit the instructions, attach videos, and add custom exercises. | It has 1,500+ entries with attached YouTube videos but no other information. You cannot edit the existing entries, but you can add custom exercises. |
| Client Profile | See your clients’ activities, write notes, examine their workouts, and access advanced workout stats, body metrics, and progress photos. | Access your client’s calendars, see their activities, write notes, monitor performance, and track body metrics and progress photos. |
| Client App | Clients can log workouts, add body metrics and progress photos, monitor performance, engage with other app users, and chat with you. | Clients can upload body metrics and progress photos, see their training plan, log workouts, see their scheduled activities, and chat with you. |
| Coach App | Access your client list and assigned workout plans, invite new clients, chat with them, and log workouts for clients. | Access your client list, see each client’s training plan, log workouts for them, track progress metrics, write notes, and chat with them. |
| Teams | Create or join a team of coaches. As an admin, you can invite and remove coaches, change their roles, and reassign clients. Custom exercises and workout plans are shared among all team members. | Create or join a team, invite members, assign roles and permissions, make changes (as an admin or lead coach), and contribute to a shared library of custom exercises and training plans. |
| Lead Generation | Create a lead generation form with a cover image, custom message, and invite link. Prospects can apply for coaching through the link. | No |
| Pricing | The most affordable plan is $25 monthly for up to ten clients. It provides access to all Hevy Coach features, including Team. | The most affordable plan is $5 monthly for up to two clients. Gyms/Clubs plans with the team feature start from $99 monthly. |
| Free Trial | 30-day free trial (no credit card required) | 14-day free trial (no credit card required) |
To Conclude
WeStrive is a good online platform for coaches and other fitness professionals. It has multiple valuable features, including a dashboard for at-a-glance client tracking, a program library that stores unlimited plans, a flexible workout builder, and informative client profiles for in-depth progress tracking.
However, you can’t edit the existing exercise library, the program library doesn’t allow you to organize training plans in folders, and the workout builder lacks some crucial features.
Additionally, the coach and client apps don’t offer anything special, and workout logging feels rigid because clients can’t change training details or upload images and videos. Also, while WeStrive has team functionalities, the feature is tied to a $99+ monthly subscription.
This makes Hevy Coach the better option, especially for personal trainers and strength coaches.
The dashboard is more straightforward and just as informative, the program library allows you to organize plans in folders and see the workouts in each one at a glance, and the workout builder offers greater customizability.
Additionally, the exercise library is customizable and curated, client lists present more relevant information, the team feature is available on any subscription plan, and you can create lead generation forms.
So, sign up for your free 30-day trial today and see what Hevy Coach is all about.
