Hevy Custom Exercise Limit (2026): What It Means and Free Alternatives

You have been logging your training consistently on Hevy for four months. You run an upper/lower split, your numbers are climbing, and you decide to add a Swiss bar bench press, a deficit trap-bar deadlift, and a couple of specific cable cuff lateral raise angles.

You tap Create Custom Exercise.

Hevy blocks you with an upgrade modal: You have reached your limit of 7 custom exercises.

Just like Strong's infamous 3-routine limit, Hevy's 7-custom-exercise wall is not a technical glitch. It is the primary conversion funnel built into the app's freemium model.

How the 7 custom exercise limit works on Hevy

Hevy provides a built-in library of common exercises. For standard movements like the barbell back squat, flat bench press, or conventional deadlift, you can log without hitting this specific barrier.

The friction occurs the moment your training becomes personalized. On the free tier:

• You can create up to 7 custom exercises.
• Once you reach 7, you cannot create movement #8 without deleting an existing custom exercise or upgrading to Hevy PRO.
• Hevy PRO pricing (as of August 2026): $2.99 to $9.99/month, $23.99/year, or $74.99 lifetime.

Why 7 custom exercises runs out faster than you think

When beginners start lifting, 7 custom exercises sounds generous. The default catalog seems to cover everything.

However, anyone training with specific intent hits seven exercises surprisingly fast:

1. Home gym and apartment setups

If you train with adjustable dumbbells, non-standard weight plates, or resistance bands, standard commercial gym exercise names do not describe your actual setup.

2. Physical therapy, prehab, and mobility

External shoulder rotations, Tibialis raises, Copenhagen planks, and Spanish squats rarely exist in standard databases. Burning three slots on prehab leaves only four slots for your main lifts.

3. Specialty attachments and bar variants

Football bars, safety squat bars (SSB), neutral grip pulldowns, and dual-pulley cable setups require distinct tracking because the strength curves and loading differ completely from standard barbells.

4. Grip and stance variations

Close-grip incline bench press, deficit Romanian deadlifts, pause squats, and tempo movements produce different progressive overload curves than their vanilla counterparts.

Once your training evolves beyond basic beginner routines, the 7-exercise cap becomes a daily annoyance.

Workarounds on Hevy (and why they break your training log)

Lifters trapped at the 7-exercise cap usually resort to three frustrating workarounds:

Workaround 1: Hijacking unrelated default exercises

A common tactic is picking an obscure default exercise (like "Behind-the-Neck Press") and using it to log your incline neutral dumbbell press, while writing a note in the set field.

Why it fails: Your long-term volume reports and personal record (PR) analytics become completely corrupted. You can never accurately filter your actual shoulder press progress from your chest work.

Workaround 2: Deleting and cycling custom slots

When starting a new mesocycle, lifters delete old custom exercises to free up slots for new movements.

Why it fails: Deleting a custom movement detaches it from previous session comparisons. When you cycle back to that exercise six months later, your baseline weight and rep history are gone.

Workaround 3: Renting the notebook with Hevy PRO

Paying $23.99 a year or $74.99 upfront removes the cap. If you love Hevy's social feed and web interface, this may be worth it for you. But if you simply want a clean, distraction-free training log, paying an annual subscription just to name your exercises is steep.

What to use instead: True free alternatives with unlimited exercises

If you want to train and log progressive overload without counting your remaining exercise slots, several Android tools offer unlimited custom exercises for free:

1. Stay Fit (gostay.fit)

Stay Fit is a free, offline-first Android workout tracker designed specifically for lifters who refuse to rent their gym notebook.

• Unlimited custom exercises and routines: Create as many custom variations, specialty bar lifts, and accessory movements as you need.
• No subscription, no paywalls: All core logging, rest timers, progress reports, body measurements, and streaks are free forever.
• No account required: Your training data stays on your device in local storage. No email signups, no social feed clutter, and no cloud outages.
• Smart progression suggestions: Built-in previous-session hints and automatic increment suggestions without paying for AI features.

2. FitNotes

A classic Android workhorse. FitNotes has been free and offline for over a decade. It does not limit custom exercises or routines, though its interface is spreadsheet-like and lacks guided workout flows.

3. Iron Log & Plates

Minimalist offline loggers that let you log freeform sets without subscription tiers.

How to switch from Hevy to Stay Fit

Leaving Hevy does not mean abandoning your hard-earned workout data:

1. Export your Hevy data: Open Hevy → Settings → Account → Export Data. Download your workout history as a CSV file.
2. Install Stay Fit: Download Stay Fit on Android without creating an account.
3. Set up your program: Build your weekly split with custom exercises for every specialty bar, attachment, and angle you train.
4. Log your session: Experience fast set-by-set logging, automatic rest timers, and zero upgrade banners between sets.

Training consistency is hard enough. Your workout logger should record your progress, not ration how many exercises you are allowed to perform.