subject: The Importance of recording your Progress [print this page] The Importance of recording your Progress
I'd like to talk with you, about the importance of recording your progress when exercising and training. I see too many people wander into the gym or circuit room, scratching at their heads while they try and decide which exercise they're going to do. The next thing you know it, they're scratching their heads again trying to remember what weight they completed during their last session and how many reps they should be doing.
If you're one of these people, you'll probably find that your Weights, Repetitions or Cardio sessions probably haven't increased dramatically since you first started.
This is where the importance of a training journal or log really shines. You can practically use anything to record your progress; a notebook, a small pad, even a scrap piece of paper. You might like to record this information and import it into an excel sheet when you get home so you have a nice tidy, organized history of your exercise and the progress you're making. Heck! Nowadays, the iPhone allows you to import your workout results directly into some specialized Apps!
What should you include in your fitness journal or log?
This is the beauty of logging your workouts. You can be as precise and detailed as you want, or you can leave it to the bare basics. When providing fitness journals, I always like to include the following;
Day
Date
Time
Weight
Mood
(Mood can really affect the way you workout. Tiredness, Stress, and all other emotions can affect you both physically and mentally which can have both positive and negative impacts on your session).
Length of Workout
What Supplements were used for this particular session
And, most important of all - Your exercises.
When recording your exercises, you can use the following method to keep your sheet clean - yet still very easy to understand and read. Record the name of the exercise you completed; ie. Bench Press, and then under each 'Set' column, fill in how many repetitions you did X how much weight you lifted.
For example, an entry in your log may look like this;
Bench Press 8x60 8x70 6x90 6x85
or if you're doing a Cardio routine, you might record something like this;
Stationary Bike L2x30mins L4x10mins L1x30mins L1x30mins (L* being the level of intensity you can set on the machine).
Having this record of your training and exercises with you each workout will allow you to quickly see exactly what weight you're up to, where you're getting stuck, how much you need to lift and the previous reps/sets that you've completed. This means you'll never be stuck trying to remember these different parameters. As each week progresses, you can add another rep, or some weight onto each exercise which will contribute to progressive overload (http://progressfit.com/stories/4-bodybuilding/21-progressive-overload) rewarding you with increases in both lean muscle, strength, endurance and stamina and size.
Workout Logs can also be used in conjunction with your diet! You can use it to monitor weight and body fat percentages. This will allow you to adjust your diet accordingly to suit whichever goal you are wanting to achieve.
A workout journal should be one of the fundamentals in any persons routine. Without it, you're simply walking in the dark and often left taking wild guesses which will really hinder the quest to achieving your overall goals.
