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Kingtide vs Hevy: which to use when you’re lifting around an injury.
By Kayiita Johansson, founder. Last updated .
Hevy is a polished, social workout tracker, and its paid Trainer can now adjust a generated program for injuries you select. It's also cheap to upgrade. Kingtide is built around pain from the start: tell it what's sore and it rebuilds the session you already run, explains each change, walks you back to full load, and folds in the exercise sheet your physio gave you.
Pick Hevy for the community, Wear OS and the price. Pick Kingtide if training around pain is the main job. Kingtide reads Hevy screenshots or a CSV export, so your routine comes with you.
Side by side
| Hevy | Kingtide | |
|---|---|---|
| Logging | Warm-up, drop, failure and superset sets, per-exercise rest timers, one-rep max, graphs, and exercise videos. | Logs every set, what you actually lifted rather than what was planned. Progress is read back off sessions you really did. |
| Routines | Your own routines and folders, a routine library, and other athletes' routines. Hevy Trainer (Pro) generates programs that adjust weight to your performance. | Brings in your routine, or builds a week from your goals and equipment. A check-in before each session reshapes it for soreness, energy and time. |
| Injury handling | In Hevy Trainer (Pro): add injuries in program settings, and it replaces high-risk exercises or adds a warning. | Mark the area on a body map. It swaps the movements that aggravate it in the routine you run, keeps the rest, gives a reason for each change, then walks you back: protect, reintroduce, full load. |
| Rehab or PT exercises | None that we found. | Photograph the exercise sheet from your physio, PT, chiro or doctor, and those exercises go into your week. |
| Import | One import of a Strong CSV export. | Screenshots from Strong or Hevy, a CSV export, a whiteboard or a photo of paper. |
| Social | Follow friends, like and comment on workouts, copy routines, leaderboards. | No social feed. |
| Watch | Apple Watch and Wear OS. Track workouts from the watch and sync routines. | Apple Watch companion: tap Start on the iPhone and the workout starts on the Watch. Sets are logged on the phone. No Wear OS. |
| Account and privacy | Uses an account. App Store label: purchases, usage data and contact info, including email and name, linked to you. | No account. Body map, pain notes and routine stay on your phone. App Store label: no data linked to you. |
| Price (US) | Free. Hevy Pro $2.99 a month, $23.99 a year, or $74.99 once, for unlimited routines, graph history, custom exercises and Trainer. | Fourteen full workouts free. Pro $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year. |
Hevy figures are from its US App Store listing, hevyapp.com and its help center on 1 October 2026. Kingtide's are from its own listing.
What Hevy does well
Hevy is rated 4.9 from about 95,000 ratings on the US App Store. Logging is quick, the graphs are good, the exercise videos help, and following friends keeps a lot of people consistent. It works on Apple Watch and Wear OS. Pro is a fraction of Kingtide Pro's price, with a one-time option. Its Trainer also takes injuries into account, which is worth trying if you want a generated program. Kingtide is new, on the App Store since August 2026.
Where they differ on injuries
Hevy's injury setting lives inside Trainer, its program generator, and works by replacing high-risk exercises or warning you. Kingtide works on whatever routine you bring, including one you've run for years. You say how the area feels before each session, every change comes with its reason, you can accept it, keep the lift or swap it, and the plan steps you back to full load as it settles. Kingtide also takes the sheet your physio gave you. Hevy's own page says its injury feature is not medical advice, and neither is Kingtide.
Pick Hevy if
- you train with friends and like the social feed
- you wear a Wear OS watch
- you want the lowest price, or to pay once
- you want a generated program and an occasional injury is one setting in it
Pick Kingtide if
- something hurts and you want to keep the routine you already run
- you want each change explained, and a path back to full load
- a physio gave you an exercise sheet and you want it in your week
- you'd rather your injury notes stayed on your phone, with no account
Switching from Hevy
Take screenshots of your Hevy routines, or export your workouts from Hevy's settings. Kingtide reads it on your phone, keeps your days, sets, reps and weights, and shows you what it read so you can fix anything before it becomes your week.
Comparing more apps? See Kingtide vs Strong and workout trackers for training around an injury. Training around something now? Start with knee, lower back or shoulder pain, or get the app.
Sources
- Hevy on the US App Store: description, in-app purchases, privacy label and rating. apps.apple.com/us/app/id1458862350
- Hevy website: platforms and social features. www.hevyapp.com/
- Hevy features list: routine library, folders and social features. www.hevyapp.com/features/
- Hevy Trainer: injuries, pricing and Pro. www.hevyapp.com/features/workout-plan-generator/
- Hevy help center: importing Strong CSV files and exporting your data. help.hevyapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/38001424401943-How-to-Import-Strong-App-CSV-Files-and-Export-Your-Data-in-Hevy
- Kingtide on the US App Store. apps.apple.com/us/app/id6798413652
No account, no sign-up, no email address. On iPhone and Android.
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