What does the big number on the workout summary mean?

Total volume load for the session — every working set's weight multiplied by its reps, summed. Tapping it switches between pounds and tons. Underneath is the percentage change against the last time you did that same workout, which is the number that actually says whether the session was better.

What do the up, held and down tallies count?

Lifts, not sets. Each lift is compared against your last session of the same workout on its own headline metric, and lands in one of four buckets: improved, held, regressed, or new. A lift being trained for the first time is counted as new rather than being compared against nothing.

Why does the summary show calories from my watch separately?

Because they measure different things. The volume figure is the work you did; the watch's calories and heart rate are what it cost you. They are joined by overlapping clock time rather than being assumed to belong together, and a session your watch never saw says so rather than showing a zero.

What is the 'where the work went' section?

Per-muscle-group bars showing sets and volume for the session. It answers whether the session actually trained what it was meant to, which a list of exercises does not — several lifts can share a primary mover and produce far more of one thing than the plan implied.

Can I take progress photos from the summary?

Yes. The summary offers a progress photo action, and once photos exist for that session it shows them as thumbnails with the poses still missing named. Attaching photos to a session is the easiest way to build a series, because the moment after training is the one you reliably remember.

Read Your Workout Summary After a Session

The headline

Total volume load — every working set's weight times its reps, summed.

3 × 225 × 5   = 3,375
3 × 185 × 8   = 4,440
4 × 60 × 12   = 2,880
                10,695 lb moved

Tapping the number switches to tons, because ten thousand and something pounds stops meaning anything after the second session and 5.35 tons does not.

Under it is the comparison against your last session of the same workout. If there is no previous session it says so — "First time logging this workout — everything after today gets measured against it" — rather than inventing a baseline.

Then four tallies: up, held, down, new. Those count lifts, not sets. Each lift is compared on its own headline metric and bucketed. A lift trained for the first time is new rather than being scored against nothing.

What the watch saw

Calories, duration and heart rate from your health store, joined to the session by overlapping clock time.

This is deliberately kept separate from the volume figure, because they answer different questions. Volume is the work you did. The watch is what it cost you. Two sessions with identical volume and forty beats per minute of difference in average heart rate are not the same session.

A session your watch never recorded says so and shows nothing, rather than rendering zeros.

Lift by lift

One collapsible row per exercise, each showing its top set and the single number that decides whether it moved, with then-versus-now comparison bars.

Expanded, it shows every set. The reason to expand is always the same: "why is this down" is answered by the set list, not by the summary number.

Where the work went

Per-muscle-group bars, showing sets and volume for the session.

This is the section people skip and should not. A list of exercises tells you what you did; this tells you what you trained, and the two diverge more than expected because several lifts share a primary mover. A push day that reads as balanced across five exercises can put two-thirds of its volume into front delts.

Over a week this rolls up into the weekly volume screen, where it is held against the 12–20 set band.

This workout over time

A bar per past session of the same workout, with today marked.

Volume load is a noisy measure session to session — it moves with how you felt, whether you added a set, and whether a lift was deloading. The bar chart is there so you read the trend rather than treating one session's percentage as a verdict.

For the actual signal on whether you are getting stronger, the strength trend is the better instrument. Estimated one-rep max per lift is far less noisy than tonnage, because it does not move when you add a set.

Progress photos

The summary offers a progress-photo action, and once photos exist for that session it shows them as thumbnails with any missing poses named.

The reason it lives here is timing. A photo series is only worth anything if it is a series, and the moment after training is the one you reliably remember. See taking progress photos.

Common mistakes

Reading the volume percentage as a verdict. It moves for reasons unrelated to progress — an added set, a deload week, a lift swapped out.

Chasing tonnage. It is trivially inflated by doing more sets of a lighter weight, which is not the same as getting stronger. Volume is a dose measure, not a performance measure.

Ignoring the down tally. One lift down in an otherwise good session is usually noise. The same lift down three sessions running is a specific, fixable problem — and it is exactly what a pooled score would hide.

Assuming the watch figure is precise. Wrist-based active energy carries real error. It is useful as a relative measure across your own sessions, not as an absolute.

Skipping the muscle breakdown. It is the only per-session view of what was actually trained rather than what was performed.

Treating a first-time lift as a bad session. New lifts have nothing to beat, and the summary says so rather than scoring them as regressions.

What to do next

Open your last summary and expand the lift with the largest drop. The set list underneath almost always explains it — a missed rep on the top set, or a set logged at the wrong weight.