Taking a GLP-1? How to Track Your Strength-Training Progress

By Colin Raney, Co-Founder & CEO of Ray, NASM-CPT.

Training references and product information checked September 22, 2026.

Strength deserves a place in your weight-loss plan. If you’re taking a GLP-1, your goal can include getting lighter while keeping the ability to carry groceries, lift a suitcase and do the activities you enjoy. A falling number on the scale can’t tell you how those abilities are holding up.

Strength training gives you a way to work on them. A useful record of your workouts helps you see what you’re able to do and build on it over time. Ray brings the program, coaching and training history together, so you can concentrate on doing the workout and tell your trainer how it feels.

Direct answer: To track strength-training progress on a GLP-1, follow how familiar exercises change over several workouts. More controlled repetitions at the same weight, or a heavier weight for similar repetitions and effort, can show improving performance. Ray tracks your progress and uses your workout history and feedback to shape your program. You get guidance on what to do next as you train. This follows your performance, rather than measuring how much muscle you have.

Weight loss can include muscle loss. That’s why a joint advisory from four medical and nutrition organizations recommends strength training alongside adequate nutrition during GLP-1 treatment. Your workouts have a purpose beyond burning calories: help maintain the muscle and capability you want to keep using.

Lifting a weight makes your muscles work against resistance. Repeating that challenge gives them something to adapt to, and you can gradually increase the demand as you become stronger. The American College of Sports Medicine’s guidance describes how resistance training improves strength, muscle size and physical function in healthy adults.

That progression is part of a trainer’s job. Ray builds your strength program and adjusts the difficulty to your level, as described in its FAQ. You can begin learning the movements with guidance and have a program that develops with you.

It’s hard to judge progress from memory. An exercise that felt difficult a few weeks ago may now feel familiar, but you might not remember which weight you used or how many repetitions you completed. A record gives those impressions some context and helps inform the next training decision.

Ray tracks your progress and uses your workout history, preferences and feedback to evolve your training. The value is in putting that information to work: your previous sessions help inform the program you return to. You can see your workouts, plan and activity history together instead of having to reconstruct your routine each time.

Your workout, training plan and activity history stay together in Ray.

During a session, Ray explains the exercises and guides you by voice. Its optional camera feature counts repetitions on supported exercises, and Ray times your rests. That takes some of the counting and clock-watching out of the workout. You can give your attention to learning the movement and how the effort feels.

Understanding a few signs of progress helps you recognize what you’re working toward. Imagine you’re practicing a goblet squat, holding one dumbbell at your chest. In an earlier workout, you complete three sets of eight repetitions. Later, you manage three sets of ten with the same weight.

Here is that fictional comparison. A repetition is one complete movement, and a set is a group of repetitions before you rest. These numbers illustrate progress, not a starting weight or routine everyone should follow.

The later workout has six more repetitions. If your movement, rest and effort were comparable, you did more of the same task with control. Seeing that ability hold up across later workouts is more informative than one unusually good session. This table explains the comparison, rather than reproducing a Ray screen.

Progress can also mean the same work feels easier. That’s useful feedback for your trainer. Tell Ray something like, “That weight felt more manageable today.” Ray can use your performance and feedback to inform your training, so you don’t have to turn that observation into a new program yourself.

The direction over time is to keep challenging yourself while controlling the movement. Mayo Clinic recommends gradually increasing weight as you get stronger while maintaining proper technique. If you can’t maintain that technique, reduce the weight or repetitions. A higher number only helps when you’re still doing the exercise well.

Context still matters when you’re looking back. A dumbbell squat and a squat machine are different tasks, so their weight labels aren’t directly comparable. A session total can also hide what changed: heavier weights for fewer repetitions may produce the same total as lighter weights for more repetitions.

You don’t need to calculate that total to make progress. Pay attention to a familiar movement, the weight and repetitions, and how it feels. Those details make the record useful. Ray handles the programming, while your feedback helps it understand the experience behind the numbers.

Your trainer needs to know more than whether you finished. Perhaps the movement is becoming familiar and you’d like fewer explanations. Or the planned workout looks fine, but today you’re tired and need it adjusted. Both are useful things to say to Ray.

For example, imagine arriving with twenty minutes and a pair of dumbbells. You can give Ray that context and get a session that fits. As you exercise, spoken guidance helps you follow the plan. When you come back, your workout history remains part of the information Ray uses, along with what you tell it that day. These are examples of its documented coaching capabilities, not a promise of a particular exercise or weight change.

The guidance can change as you learn, too. Early on, you may want an explanation of each movement. As the routine becomes familiar, you can ask for less guidance and concentrate on the challenge. Ray is there to help you carry out the program as well as adapt it. Our guide to how AI personal training works explains that ongoing coaching relationship.

A better lift tells you that your performance improved. It doesn’t tell you how much muscle is in your body. Clinical guidance assesses muscle strength and muscle quantity separately. Tracking your workouts is useful for training, but it can’t establish that you’ve retained all your muscle during weight loss.

If you notice new weakness, a persistent decline in what you can do, or symptoms that interfere with eating and drinking, bring that concern to your prescribing clinician. Stop an exercise that causes pain. Ray can guide training, but it doesn’t diagnose symptoms or manage medication.

Tell Ray your goal, the equipment you have and the time available. Let your trainer put the session together and guide you through it. As you go, share what feels manageable, difficult or unfamiliar. Ray can use that feedback with your training history to keep developing your program.

You can learn what progress looks like while getting help with the work of making it happen. Try a guided strength workout with Ray. See the FAQ for current trial terms, pricing and iPhone support.

Colin Raney is a NASM-certified personal trainer and the co-founder and CEO of Ray. He writes about strength training and building a routine you can keep. Learn more about Colin and Ray.

Disclosure and method: I co-founded Ray, which publishes this guide. It draws on the linked GLP-1 clinical advisory, exercise guidance, muscle-assessment consensus and Ray product information, with AI-assisted research and editing. The workout comparison and coaching situations are teaching examples. This is general training education, not a medication or nutrition plan. It has not had a separate medical review and does not establish Ray-specific health outcomes.