Tracking Fitness Goals Is Worth the Effort! Here Is the How!

Goal setting is always a good idea when you are looking to improve yourself. I encourage everyone to practice using this method, in fitness as well as other areas of life! Brainstorming these goals and writing them down is only a small part of working towards achieving them, though.

It’s important to make sure these goals are well-defined (see more on defining your goals in this article) but once you have some well-established goals, there’s another hurdle that quite a few of us struggle with: tracking information.

Recording the information that matters is a vital part of making the path to your goals a clear one. Tracking your progress in an organized manner makes your steps purposeful and calculated, as opposed to the guessing-game of feeling your progression out with intuition. It’s extremely helpful in the way that it clearly shows the direction your progress is going.

This is why I want to discuss the basics of how to track workout progress and establish a fitness training log tailored specifically to your fitness training goals!

Once you establish a consistent way to log this information, you will have all the power to press on towards your goals. With a fitness training log, you will have the ability to celebrate when you are doing well, or critique yourself when your progress plateaus or moves in the wrong direction.

Here are a few examples of what you may be tracking based off a goal you have:

The point of the table above is to show that depending on the goal, there may be multiple factors that weigh heavily on what you are working towards. The more information you can manage, the better you can understand your trajectory forward and adjust it accordingly.

QUICK NOTE!

Before I get into the different fitness training logs out there, I want to make sure to get one point across: Don’t get too over-involved in the numbers.

Numbers are an indicator of how you are doing long-term, so one bad day doesn’t mean that you are not improving.

The important thing is to work towards your goals at a realistic and healthy pace so that we see an overall consistent trend in the direction you want to go.

SOME WAYS TO ESTABLISH A FITNESS LOG

I’ll list a couple of ways you can create a fitness log for yourself.

Keep in mind, there is really no right or wrong way to do so, as long as you make sure you are:

1. Keeping track of the relevant data pertaining to your goal.
2. You are consistent with log entries.
3. The system feels right for you.

That means using a hybrid approach may be great for you too!

NOTEBOOK

Using a notebook is always a decent option. It can be difficult to easily navigate and update, especially while working out, but it will do the job.

There are notebooks designed to help you keep track of information in support of your specific goals.

Here are two examples of the more-popular fitness notebooks/journals sold on amazon:

• - Fitness
• - Nutrition

If you are planning to go the notebook route, I recommend using something similar to these notebooks if you don’t already have a particular organizational preference.

Of course, make sure you do a bit of research on the notebook you're purchasing to make sure it is the best one for you.

DIGITAL SPREADSHEET

This is a good option for those who are already familiar with using excel, Google Sheets, or any other spreadsheet program.

It’s a great paperless option that allows for plenty of ways to customize your fitness log and make it your own.

If you are already familiar with how to manipulate data on these programs, you can utilize them to get a better visual representation of your data by exploring their various graphing options.

Also, using formulas can automate otherwise-tedious calculations.

This is an example of a Google Sheets log entry for someone that may be working to increase the weight of their lifts.

Google Sheets can be accessed on the computer as well as most smart phones by downloading the application Google Sheets.

PHONE APPLICATIONS

More and more fitness apps are coming out that are designed to assist us with developing our fitness while bringing an improved level of efficiency and convenience to how we do it.

There are apps that can assist you with tracking all your key fitness data related to anything you might be trying to improve (running, weight management, weight lifting, etc).

Some things that people may struggle with when using an app for their fitness log is that many of these apps are one-dimensional when it comes to supporting a fitness goal. That means you may find yourself with six different apps to encompass all of your fitness needs.

This can make reviewing where you are with these goals difficult since you’ll have to check all the apps to figure out how you’re doing, compared to having all the information consolidated to one location like in the previous two fitness log suggestions.

I’ve found the more apps you juggle around, the easier it is to forget about the ones you visit the least. This can be an issue if you rely heavily on apps to maintain momentum towards your goals.

That being said, if you can find a few apps that save you time, eliminate excessive thinking, and have other features you find helpful, try them out! It’s possible you may find an app that changes the game for you!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Experiment with these methods and find what's right for you, but don’t let establishing your best fitness log method take away from the most important thing…

PUTTING IN

Last Updated:  11/09/2021