Information is king. The more the merrier, if it’s relevant. And with your fitness journey it’s no different.
That stage body?
Run longer?
Not forget what resistance to start with next week !?!
Keep a fitness journal.
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What Is A Fitness Journal
So what is a fitness journal? It’s not a notepad that you add a padlock to along with your deepest inner secrets, never mind it kind of is; for fitness.
An exercise or fitness journal is a log detailing what occurred pertaining to and around a given workout session. The more depth you supply the better, but there is a point of shooting past your mark. No need to wax on about your wardrobe.. That’s a little too much detail. A gym journal can help you comply with the fitness plan, save time, and most importantly harvest motivation for better sessions.
I always recommend you write down or somehow document what you do in the gym IE amount lifted for however many reps on whatever exercise, for what number of sets, and how long you rested.. A few reasons why.
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Why You Should Keep A Fitness Journal
I can go longer than a soap opera series on reasons to keep a fitness planner handy, but here are 8 compelling incentives to create a fitness diary and continue making updates to your fitness diary.
Avoid or beat a plateau: the overload principle (progressive overload) is when you continuously raise the bar on your training to extend progress. Frequently you can avoid a plateau (no longer making progress) by adding enhanced “stress” to the previous version of “today’s” workout.
That way your body is continuously adapting to more stimuli. By knowing what was done through and through you can handily enrich the proceedings. If you do hit a plateau, this knowledge can be used to see what areas could benefit from a remix.
Motivation: you should compete against yourself, beat the old you.. safely. Let's say you’re working on push-ups. Last Sunday you knocked out 17 straight.. It was a struggle, but you managed. Now you have a mark; you have a bar. You know what you want to beat this Sunday. Little nuggets as such can fire you up for the next session.
Then you can look back and see how far you’ve come. Also a reminder to never return to your previous condition! And can’t leave out the shame factor, shame is a motivator.
If you write a workout and decide to skip for no valid reason you’ll feel worse than if you weren’t logging at all. This increases the likelihood of returning to action rather than quitting altogether.
Reference: I have the option to pull out a notebook from 2012 and see what I was lifting. It’s an encyclopedia. Information is king. I can refer to techniques in the past I implemented and reuse them, never use them again because I know they weren’t to my benefit, or retry a method with my new level of experience and see if there’s a difference. I know what I did to a T so I know what adjustments I can try. How can you reconfigure if you don’t quite remember what took place?
Note: you can cross reference what workouts you conducted with your diet at the time if you keep a nutritional log. I use an app for my food, but you can see how your performance and diet correlated. Did those eating habits provide more fuel?
Incentive: you have to earn the right to fill out that journal. It’s like doing a scratch-off, you get satisfaction via the process. Knowing you put in work and that’s why you get to fill in that sheet of paper is something to enjoy.
Reminder: when the workouts are planned you won’t miss a beat. Won’t accidentally forget to work calves or rotator cuffs. It’s all set up ready to be knocked down.
Schedule: like I mentioned in the “don’t change too many things at once” tip: planning who, what, when, where, why, and how increases the likelihood of compliance. Writing it all out holds you accountable. You can’t play the player when you’re the player.
Transparency: feeling and knowing are separate animals. Seeing what happened on paper can help you glean what could use improvement and what’s working. Keeps you authentic. It’s numbers, statistics.. All real information. Facts no feelings.
Realistic projections: you can infer obtainable projections from your starting point. Your goal may be to bench 225 pounds and you’re at 155. Next week you won’t be able to hit 225, but maybe you can get 160. Small steps inside a big journey.
If you know what you were able to, or not able to handle you can adjust for the next session. Without tracking results you’ll limit the progress you’d make if you logged it. You might tread water when you should be moving ahead otherwise.
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How To Make A Fitness Journal
I’m a pen and paper guy so I get to jotting it all down, yet there are apps you can use as well. You can probably even do something with your phone assistant IE Siri or Alexa. I’m too much of a dinosaur for that. Without regard to your vehicle used to collect your fitness journal’s information the mandatory basics are:
The day, month, and year
What exercises
How many sets of each exercise
Number of repetitions for each set
How long of a rest period between sets
What tempo (concentric:isometric:eccentric) for each exercise
The amount of resistance used for each set
Note: I add my first thing in the morning weight and body fat percentage with each bout. I use a handheld bio-electrical impedance monitor to track my body fat.
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A fitness journal can be used to put you in position for success. Motivation, accountability, and measurability are the names of the game. You can look back and recreate a whole workout to the letter or know your starting point for next week’s leg day. Use every tactic it takes to effectively put those muscles to use. Be Great.