Which lifting app tracks running best?

Most record a run as an activity with a duration and change nothing because of it. The useful test is whether the running affects anything downstream — the volume recommendation, the fatigue read, or a calorie target. If nothing changes, the app is storing the run rather than tracking it.

Can Hevy or Strong track cardio?

Both can record that a cardio session happened. Neither models endurance load, prescribes sessions against a threshold, or alters any lifting recommendation because of your running volume — they are resistance training logs and do not claim otherwise.

Do I need two apps for lifting and running?

Most people end up with two or three and then reconcile them by hand. That works until the reconciliation stops happening, which is usually around week six. The alternative is a tool that computes the numbers requiring both halves rather than storing each half well.

Does Fitbod account for cardio?

Its muscle-recovery model is built from logged resistance training. Endurance work is not an input that changes the generated session, so a week with four hard runs produces the same leg-day recommendation as a week with none.

What is the best free option?

A free lifting log plus Intervals.icu for the endurance side is the strongest free stack available. What it will not do is compute anything that needs both, which is the trade you are making for the price.

The Best Lifting App That Also Tracks Running

The test

Three questions, and they cut through every feature list in this category:

Does my lifting volume recommendation change when my running volume changes? It should — the productive range falls from 14–20 fractional sets per muscle per week with no endurance work to 12–15 at four to six hours a week.
Does the fatigue or deload signal read both loads? A lifting-only fatigue model misses the athlete whose problem is a spiked endurance week, which for a hybrid athlete is frequently the case.
Does anything know what I ate? Because a trained lifter's usable surplus is about 179 kcal a day and a 40-minute run costs 400 to 500. If your calorie target does not move with your mileage, the surplus is gone.

Almost every app in this category answers no to all three.

What each option actually gives you

Hevy

Best-in-class set logging, comprehensive exercise library, active social layer. Genuinely one of the best lifting apps available.

Cardio: records the activity. Nothing changes because of it — not the volume, not the fatigue read, not any calorie figure, because there is no calorie figure. Full comparison.

Strong

Minimal by conviction, fast, long established. The philosophy is that a lifting log should do one thing.

Cardio: same. Records it, changes nothing. Full comparison.

Fitbod

Generates your session from a muscle-recovery model, which is a genuinely good idea.

Cardio: the recovery model is built from logged resistance training. A week with four hard runs and a week with none produce the same recommendation — which is worse than a fixed programme, because at least a fixed programme is predictable. Full comparison.

Garmin Connect

Free with the watch, excellent endurance metrics, and it will record a strength activity with automatic rep detection on some models.

The gap runs the other way. Its load model is built on cardiovascular data, so a heavy lower-body session that costs you two days of running quality barely registers. Training readiness reads green after the session that wrecked you. Full comparison.

Base

Built for the intersection specifically: volume bands that move with your endurance hours, a deload trigger reading both loads, endurance sessions prescribed from your own threshold and graded on time-in-zone, and a maintenance figure measured from your own weight trend so it already contains the running.

Where it is weaker: it is in beta, swimming is not supported, the food database is smaller than a dedicated nutrition app's, and it will not run your session — that is deliberate, but it means you still need a watch.

The comparison

	Hevy	Strong	Fitbod	Garmin	Base
Set logging	Excellent	Excellent	Good	Basic	Good
RIR drives progression	RPE stored	RPE stored	Effort estimated	No	Yes
Records cardio	Yes	Yes	Yes	Excellent	Yes
Models endurance load	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Prescribes endurance sessions	No	No	No	Structured workouts	Yes, from your threshold
Grades the session	No	No	No	Compliance	Time-in-zone or per rep
Nutrition	No	No	No	Imported totals	Full, measured
Volume band moves with endurance	No	No	No	No	Yes
Deload reads both loads	No	No	No	No	Yes
Price	Freemium	Freemium	Subscription	Free with device	Beta

The honest recommendation

If running is incidental — two easy sessions a week, no goal attached — use Hevy or Strong and stop reading. A specialist beats a generalist at the specialist's job, and the gap described here does not exist for you.

If running is a real goal, the thing you need is not a lifting app with a cardio tab. It is something that computes the numbers requiring both, because those are the only numbers a two-app stack cannot produce.

If free matters most, a free lifting log plus Intervals.icu for the endurance side is the strongest free stack there is. You will be doing the reconciliation yourself, and that is the price.

The failure this is all about

Worth stating concretely, because it is the reason the question gets asked.

An athlete lifts four times a week and adds three runs. Their maintenance figure came from a calculator with an activity dropdown, so it never contained the running. Three runs a week adds 300 to 500 kcal a day of expenditure. Intake does not move.

Six weeks later: the scale has not moved, the squat has stalled, and the conclusion is that interference is real or that their metabolism is broken. Neither is true. A number in one app never learned about a number in another, and no amount of better set logging would have caught it. The arithmetic.

What to do next

Before switching anything, test whether you have this problem: log your food anywhere for fourteen days, weigh most mornings, and run the maintenance calculation by hand. If the number is several hundred calories above what you have been eating against, you have found it.