How to Create an Exercise Log to Track Physical Activities

How to Create an Exercise Log to Track Physical Activities

Creating an exercise log of your daily physical activities is an outstanding method to plan your daily exercise sessions as well as track your progress. Presently there are a vast assortment of exercise programs available. The American Heart Association suggests at least 30 to 60 minutes a day of moderate physical activity for a healthy lifestyle. They also suggest resistance training at least two days per week and flexibility stretching on a daily basis. It is best to check with your doctor to make a decision on the best routine for you based on your current health, schedule and personal preferences.

Creating your Initial Exercise Log

Once you have decided upon a good physical exercise routine, it is time to develop your initial exercise log and start monitoring your progress. At a minimum, your very first workout log should include columns for the date, the kind of workout routines executed and any notes you want to record regarding the workout. This "beginner's" log can very easily be stored in a notebook or journal. The main purpose of this initial log is to help you plan your workouts and get accustomed to entering data from your workouts into a log book.

Expanding your Workout Log

After about 2 or three weeks of actively logging your workouts you can start expanding your exercise log to include additional information and facts. One particular addition should be a list of desired goals. Goals should consist of the date each goal is entered, the anticipated completion date for each goal and a description of each goal. Setting goals is a great way to motivate yourself and stay committed to your exercise routine for the long term. In addition to goals, you may wish to start tracking elements unique to the exercises in your workouts. For example, if running is part of your workout routine, you may want to begin tracking the distance ran, your half mile pace, your one mile pace, etc. With most types of exercises, you should be capable to monitor a assortment of items such as repetitions, length of time, and pace. This information is valuable not only for tracking your progress, but the information can also assist you in setting obtainable fitness goals.

Advanced Exercise Logs

Over time, you may find that your initial exercise notebook is no longer adequate to keep track of your increasing number of workout entries or the growing number of exercises that make up your exercise routine. One option available for creating a more advanced exercise log is exercise log software. This software differs from smaller freeware applications with simple features to larger commercial software programs that have built in logging for nearly each and every type of exercise imaginable. As an substitute to specialty software, you can also use a spread sheet application like Microsoft Excel to generate your advanced exercise log. The drawback is that you will have to generate the exercise groups, formulas, etc. on your own.

Beyond the Exercise Log

Exercise is only one component of a healthy life style. Diet is yet another. Similar to a exercise log that documents fitness workouts, you can also create a nutrition log to track your food intake. The nutrition log can be used to set dietary objectives and instead of tracking things such as exercise reps and duration it is used to track items such as food calorie consumption and saturated fat.

Used together, the physical exercise and nutrition log supply you with two excellent tools to assist you in setting and acquiring your overall fitness goals.

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