How everything works.

What Swan HQ is

Swan HQ is the app you train in. You log your workouts against a structured plan and watch your progress build week over week. It works right in your web browser, and it installs to your phone like a native app (a PWA) so it opens from your home screen and keeps working even without a signal.

A few words show up all over the app, so it helps to know them from the start:

• A Program is a coach-authored, multi-day plan — a structured block of training laid out across several days.
• A Routine is your own single-day plan that you build for yourself.
• A Workout is one training session — the thing you actually log when you sit down and train.

The rest of this guide walks the app in the order you'll actually meet it: get set up, find something to train, log it, watch your progress, and — if you have one — work with your coach. Use the menu on the left to jump anywhere.

Getting started

Head to app.trainwithswan.com, create an account (or log in if you already have one), and you're in. A couple of things worth doing on day one:

Install it to your phone

Swan HQ installs to your home screen like a regular app. Once it's there it opens full-screen, launches instantly, and can keep logging even when you have no signal (more on that under Offline logging).

The orientation

The first time you open the app, a short one-time orientation names the areas you'll move between: Home, Workout, Coach, and Profile. It's a quick tour so nothing feels unfamiliar.

The "How logging works" demo

There's also a guided "How logging works" demo — an interactive walkthrough that lets you try logging on a throwaway practice sandbox. Nothing you do in it touches your real history: the practice data is deleted when you leave. If you ever want to run through it again, you can replay it from Settings.

Finding workouts

There are four places a workout can come from, depending on your plan and whether you have a coach:

Explore

Explore is a collection of single-day programs, free to everyone. You can filter it by category — gym, dumbbells-only, at-home, travel, bodyweight, and kettlebell — and by skill level, so you can find something that fits the equipment and experience you've actually got today.

The Program Library Swan HQ

The Program Library is the multi-week Swan program catalogue — full structured training blocks. It's available to Swan HQ members (see Plans).

Your own Routines

You can build your own Routines — your own single-day plans — and organize them into folders so your go-to sessions are always a tap away.

Programs your coach assigned

If you have a coach, the programs they've built and assigned to you show up ready to train. (See Your coach.)

Logging a workout

The heart of the app is the live logger — where you record each set as you do it. You can start a workout three ways:

• From a Program day — follow the plan your coach or Swan laid out.
• From a Routine — run one of your own single-day plans.
• As a Quick Workout — a freeform session where you add exercises as you go, no plan required.

Logging sets

For each set you can record weight, reps, RPE, duration, and distance. What you track per set is flexible:

• Set measure — a set can track reps, time, or distance, with load / weight alongside any of them. So a weighted carry, a plank, and a run all log cleanly.
• Personal Records (PRs) are detected live as you log, so a new best is caught the moment you hit it.
• One-rep max (1RM) turns a %1RM target into a real weight: when your coach sets a lift at, say, 80% of your max, the app works out and shows you the actual weight to lift from your own 1RM — so you're never doing the math mid-set. That same target also appears in your Week Briefing and your Weekly Intensity view (both under Tracking your progress).

Your suggested RPE With a coach

On a coached program that builds intensity week to week, each working set shows the week's suggested RPE right inside the RPE box, written as an @ value — like @8.5 — so you know how hard the set is meant to feel. It's only a suggestion: it never logs itself, it disappears the moment you type your own number, and a set you don't touch still logs blank. Tap it to accept it, or just type what you actually did.

Timers

Two timers help you keep pace, and both keep running even if the app is backgrounded or your screen locks:

• The rest timer counts your rest between sets, with an optional chime and a background banner so you know when it's time to go again.
• The set timer handles timed exercises — holds, carries, intervals — counting the work itself.

Pausing

Need to step away mid-workout? You can pause. Your workout duration is counted honestly — minus the paused time — so the length reflects the training you actually did, not the phone call in the middle of it.

Offline logging

Basements, dead zones, planes — you can keep training with no signal. You can log your sets and even finish a whole workout while offline. Everything is saved on your device and syncs automatically the moment you reconnect — or the next time you open the app — so you never lose a workout to a bad connection. A workout you finish offline keeps its real finish time, not the time it happened to sync.

Tracking your progress

Everything you log feeds a picture of how your training is actually going. The headline number you see depends on whether you have a coach.

Momentum No coach

If you don't have a coach, you see Momentum — this week's workouts compared to your own recent average. It's a "vs. your normal" read, so you can tell whether you're ahead of your usual pace or slipping behind it, on your own terms.

Adherence With a coach

If you do have a coach, you see Adherence instead — your workouts this week divided by your program's target days per week. If no target has been set, it honestly reads "no target set" rather than inventing a number.

You're not stuck on the current week, either. Pick a custom date range on your progress screen and your adherence recalculates over that span — measured against the weekly target that was actually set at the time, not today's — so you can look back at how a past week or a whole training block really went.

Charts

Your progress screens include a set of charts to see the shape of your training:

• Volume by body region — where your work is going.
• Muscle distribution — where your work spreads across muscle groups, shown as an interactive body map: a front-and-back figure you can flip to see exactly where your training volume is landing, lit up by how much each muscle has done (a classic radar view is a tap away too).
• Exercise trends — how individual lifts are moving over time.
• A week pace-climb chart — your progress through the current week.

The RPE arc With a coach

On a coached program you get a read-only RPE arc, shown in your Weekly Intensity view — a color-coded picture of how intensity is meant to build across the program, with your current week highlighted, so you know how hard this week should feel before you start. Where a week is set by % of your 1-rep max instead of RPE, that target shows here too.

The Week Briefing With a coach

At the start of each new week of a coached program, a short Week Briefing pops up when you open that week's first workout. It sums up what the week is for in a line or two — say, "Week 3 — your heaviest week" — including the week's target, whether that's an RPE or a % of your 1-rep max. You can skip it, and if you'd rather not see it at all you can turn it off in settings.

The 1RM checkpoint

When a program leans on %1RM targets, the app prompts you to refresh your 1RM every few weeks — a checkpoint that keeps the math honest as you get stronger, so the weights it prescribes stay accurate.

Body measurements & history

You can log your bodyweight over time under body measurements, and your full history & stats keep the record of everything you've trained.

Your coach

The Coach tab is your window into your coaching relationship and the programs your coach has assigned you. It's where the back-and-forth of being coached lives.

Chat

Chat lets you message your coach right inside the app. It's available in exactly two situations:

• You're a client a coach invited, and they've turned chat on for you; or
• You're on Swan HQ+ — the coaching layer that includes messaging with a Swan coach.

Form check

Form check is how your coach reviews your technique on video:

1. You film a short clip of a lift and submit it.
2. Your coach records a voiceover over your own video — talking through exactly what they're seeing.
3. They send it back, and you watch your own set with your coach's voice coaching you through it.

Workout comments

Your coach can leave a note and a thumbs-up on a finished workout — the quick "nice work on those squats" that lands right on the session you did, so you feel seen without needing a whole conversation.

Sessions

If you train in person with Swan, the app keeps track of your appointments. You can see your session balance and a dated history of the sessions you've used, and you can buy session packs — in packs of 4, 10, or 20 — right in the app. Your balance moves in whole or half steps — a 30-minute session counts as a half — and your coach can post a correction (with a note) if a balance ever needs fixing.

Exercise library

The exercise library is the full catalogue of movements you can drop into your workouts. You can filter it by Stock vs Custom to see the built-in demonstrations or just your own.

Your own custom exercises

You can film and upload your own custom exercises — a video, a thumbnail, and your own cues — so movements that aren't in the stock catalogue still play right inside your workouts. How many you can hold depends on your tier's limit. When you create one you can also tag which muscles it trains, so it feeds your muscle-distribution view just like the built-in movements do.

Your language & read-back

The app in your language

Swan HQ speaks your language. The whole app — menus, buttons, and even the exercise names and cues — appears in your device's language automatically, and you can override it any time in Settings. Your choice is yours alone and syncs across your devices, exactly like the light / dark theme.

Available today: English, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Portuguese, German, French, Japanese, Korean, and Italian.

Hear your exercises — read-back

Tap the speaker button on an exercise card and the app reads that movement's instructions aloud, in your language, so you can check your setup without looking at the screen mid-set. It's off by default — switch it on in Settings, where you can also pick which voice your device uses (the voice is a per-device choice).

Your account

Your account settings hold everything about you and how the app behaves:

• Profile & avatar — your name and picture.
• Appearance — choose System, Light, or Dark, and your choice is synced across your devices.
• Language — the app's language (see Your language & read-back), overriding your device default.
• Units — set weight (kg or lbs) and distance (km or miles) independently, or leave either on Automatic to follow your phone's region. This only changes what you see and type — never your saved data.
• Notifications — control what you're pinged about: re-engagement reminders, program-reset and 1RM-checkpoint reminders, and the rest timer.
• Data export — download a CSV of your history any time.
• Hevy import — bring your training history in from a Hevy CSV export.
• Deactivation — closing your account is a one-way door: only support can reopen it.

Plans

Here's how the consumer tiers compare. You only pay for what you want — and if a coach invited you, you may not need to pay at all (see the note below the table).

Common questions