This Is Your Missing “Fitness” Ingredient

Do you keep a fitness journal?

Are you serious about your fitness goals? If you are and are maintaining some kind of journaling then keep it up! If not, what are you thinking? Seriously, let me ask you this. Within your occupation if you have an important deadline for a specific task you would formulate a plan of action and track progress wouldn’t you? Because if you didn’t you’d probably be in a world of hurt from your superiors and you can say goodbye to that possible promotion.

Over the years I’ve noticed that 8 maybe 9 out of 10 people maintain a fitness journal successfully. I’ll admit it’s hard, but when it comes to your health and fitness it’s going to be your secret weapon to finally achieving your goals. Most of my clients respond with, “How can a fitness journal be my secret weapon?”  Here are my reasons,

• Accountability
• Tracking and monitoring nutrition and how certain foods make you feel
• Tracking milestones such as measurements, weight lost, muscle gained, etc.
• Monitoring workouts that actually deliver results
• Monitoring recovery

As you take notes and monitor everything you will find that you will reach your goals in an efficient manner, which translates into achieving results without having to spend too much time on your fitness regimen.  No matter what the goal you should never be without a fitness journal.  Here are five tips to doing it right.

1. KEEP IT PORTABLE & SIMPLE – I keep a small spiral notepad in my gym bag at all times.  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy like the ones you buy at the bookstores.  Stick with a simple notepad and don’t try to overanalyze it.
2. RECORD EVERYTHING – I like to record all of my nutrition on the left or front side of the sheet, and my workouts on the right or back side of the sheet.  I also record how I felt after each workout, and sometimes on specific sets that just seemed harder that day.  Tracking the details allows you to monitor the need to change your routine, stress and the possibility of overtraining, or undertraining (which is the unfortunate reality of most gym goers, not enough intensity).
3. PSYCHE YOURSELF UP – It’s always good practice to look at your accomplishments from the previous week to decide how much more you’re going to try to do this week.  Maybe it’s increasing your weights by 5-10lbs or using the same weight as last week, but doing more reps.  Just as long as it still fits within the overall goal of the program.
4. YOUR WORKOUT ENCYCLOPEDIA – Using previous journals as workout encyclopedia’s in order to study which workouts produced certain results is key in maintaining a “fitness lifestyle”.  The human body typically adapts within 3-4 weeks to most workout routines (some more, some less) so referencing previous journals, and then planning out which workouts to use over then next 3-6 months is a great way to accomplish new goals.
5. KEEP IT GOING – If you’re serious about achieving your fitness goals then this should be easy.  Especially, when six months from now you read it and notice how much you’ve improved.  Keeping it going won’t seem like such a hassle anymore.

So again I ask, “Do you keep a workout journal?”

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