At the risk of sounding perhaps a little too obsessive, and before you ridicule my analogue handwritten tracking forms, hear me out.
For friends, family, and clients who have a long path to travel to restore their health and fitness, just as I personally have done, I consistently suggest they keep a fitness journal of some sort to track their progress along the way.
There are host of great digital tools available today, and being somewhat of a techie myself, I’ve played with a bunch of them, though I still track my weekly overall fitness plan by hand, as well as almost all of my resistance workouts in a fairly detailed manner. Personally, I hate jumping on and off my phone in the gym when lifting – it’s damned distracting – and I like seeing the readily-tangible record of week to week and month to month progress laid out before me when heading into my next resistance session.
For what it’s worth, I set out one year and nine months ago to seriously rebuild my overall muscle mass and strength; back then a purely wild-assed guess was that it would take two years of consistent, diligent resistance work to rebuild a meaningful strength base. The first few cycles (basically 13 weeks or a quarter year each) didn’t seem to yield much in terms of body composition results, though my written record documents consistent and notable progress in my training routine.
The last three cycles have yielded consistent, and notable, results, and I’m genuinely looking forward to starting my eighth and final 13-week cycle of this particular routine next week before moving on to something else mid-fall.
Of course it’s not an absolute essential you track your fitness routine (digitally or in whatever manner floats your boat), though it can be a wonderful source of encouragement, reinforcement, and guide you as you get stronger, faster, leaner, and sharper along the way.
