I know what you’re thinking. She’s going to talk about New Year’s resolutions, accountability and goals because it’s the new year.
Fooled you! While all that stuff is great, I’m sure you’ll be hearing and seeing a lot of it as we roll through January.
What I’d like to focus on is the importance of documenting your training and your goals so you can make adjustments to your programming, learn what works best for you, and learn what factors affect your training and goals, so you can see measurable results.
It is important to document your training so you can know where to adjust your program; that means journaling is your friend.
You’ll most likely have made some goals, written them down, and made a plan to get there. Now you’ll need to document the activities you’re doing.
For workouts, this includes the amount of weight you’re lifting on each exercise you do, the number of repetitions you are doing, how long and intense your cardio sessions are, the kind of cardio activities you’re doing, what stretches you are doing, for how long, and pretty much everything about your sessions when you’re working out.
By knowing where you are, you’ll be able to progressively overload to achieve stronger muscles, more muscle mass, better cardiovascular performance, more range of motion, or whatever it is you’ve set as your goal. A personal trainer or other fitness professional would be an excellent resource in this regard.
Journaling is still your friend when it comes to what works and what doesn’t. Although it might be a bit of a pain, it’s worth it to write down what you ate and when, when you worked out, how much rest you took, how your sleep was, and how you were feeling mentally. All these factors affect your performance.
Perhaps you need nine hours of sleep to be at your best. Maybe eating lunch an hour later helped to carry your energy into the afternoon, and it could be that taking an extra rest day was what you needed to perform better. All these things will be specific to you and may change week by week depending on your schedule and mental well-being.
After you’ve been journaling for awhile, you’ll be able to observe measurable results. Being able to see the numbers can help you determine what worked, where to make changes, and give you reason to celebrate your successes, which you really should do. Every milestone or goal achieved should be celebrated.
I don’t think we give this kind of metric the importance it deserves. When you start a new program, it can take up to nine weeks to start seeing results, and so many of us get discouraged before then and give up. Tracking the data is a way for us to follow our progress, in black and white, so we can see our successful results, make new goals and keep going.
Do what you can with what you have where you are, and always prioritize the positive.
Melissa Sloos is a certified group fitness instructor, spin instructor and co-owner at Coast Fitness.
