I appreciate the suggestion of gmb.io from you and the parent. I had something more traditional in mind when I asked for suggestions (pushups, situps, squats, etc.) - but the intro on their website is intriguing enough that I think I will at least give the free session a try.

How do you track your reps and weight per exercise? My trainer wants me to use paper. There are too many apps for this, and most of them are adware or junk. A glorified spreadsheet is what I’m looking for (mobile).

An app called Fitnotes, which I've used for years, is a glorified spreadsheet in my opinion.

Also contrary to another poster who insists on not tracking your lifts, I find it essential both for making progress and maintaining interest, its somewhat comparable to levelling an RPG character. At the very least its useful for remembering what you've done recently so you know what to do next.

+1 for fitnotes, probably the best app out there for my needs. Very flexible, gets out of the way, and has some basic analytics like plotting graphs and calculating one rep max values (which I never use). The graphs I find very useful to see if how I'm trending over many months.

Confusingly the iOS App Store has FitNotes and FitNotes 2. Different authors. I’m guessing the latter hijacked the name?

I only know it on Android, looking at the iOS App Store it seems like they both hijacked the name from Android, yet that FitNotes 2 is marketed as a clone of the Android app. The other FitNotes in iOS looks totally different in function/UI

"insist" is a bit harsh; we're all trying to help here ;-) https://xkcd.com/386/

if you start tracking reps and weight, i guarantee you will loose interest fast. while tracking might certainly be useful for muscle building, gmb.io has a different approach and focuses on movements that are safe and help you in real life (mobilise wrist / shoulders, prevent back pain improve posture etc). A lot can be done without fancy equipment.

I’ll try gmb.io. It looks great.

But when I go to the gym once per week, and do 10 different exercises with weights or machines, I want to know what weight I used last time so I can start there (or just above it) again. Maybe you have the memory of an elephant.

Or Maybe you don’t care if you spend 2 minutes at every machine first figuring out what weight feels like just enough, not too much or too little, before doing 3 sets? Enjoy that. But I don’t want to do that. Every. Single. Time i go to the gym. And there’s no way to see my progress?

Not the parent, but I don’t think they are arguing against tracking weights when weight lifting so much as they are arguing against “traditional” weight lifting routines in general.

I have not tried gmb.io, but looks like progression in that program involves moving onto more difficult movements rather than increasing weight.

You'll remember the numbers after the first 2-3 gym sessions without any kind of apps or paper tracking. It's not a problem at all.

I speak this as someone who has terrible memory.

I use Stacked. But only because I enjoyed books & content written by the creator. It's not as easy to adjust as other apps, but it's totally free and I think it's visually pleasing.