One of the first things my Dad taught me on the farm was to write down everything you do. After years on the farm its proved to be valuable advice and I have become a prudent record keeper. The reason it is so important is that as the years go by each growing season blurs together with the next, but each is slightly different. When something works really well or something fails you need to be able to look back on what you did that may have led to this result. If you are relying on memory or intuition to do this, then you are setting yourself up for failure. Fitness is no different.
Many people go into the gym and fly by the seat of their pants. They smash out a workout and get a good sweat up (which is fine), but then they wonder why they may not be getting the change they desire. To answer this we need to look at one of the fundamental principles of an effective fitness program and that is progressive overload. Progressive overload is simply doing a little bit more than you did last time, again and again over time. Fitness boils down to two things: stress and adaptation. You need to have the right dose of stress, then recover from that stress in order to facilitate adaptation. What do I mean by stress? When you think of stress you may think of the pressure you are under at work or financial or marriage troubles. These are definitely stressors on the body but they are just one type of stressor. When chronic stress levels get too high it also makes it very hard to achieve your fitness goals, because you are unable to properly recover from the total stress on the body. Chronic stress is a whole other issue on its own so will leave that for now. Aside from chronic stress there are also acute stress. Some forms of acute stress are "good" stressors, things like exercise, which we intentionally impose in order to facilitate the adaptation we are after.
Adaptations are simply the changes that our body makes due to the stimulus it receives, this is a great thing to keep in mind when you are planning your fitness journey. Start with the adaptation you are after and work backwards. What are some examples of common adaptations people are after? Muscle gain is and adaptation, fat loss is and adaptation, increased power or speed are adaptations, increased endurance is an adaptation. Once you work out the adaptation you are after, you look at what is the stimulus (stressor) that is going to facilitate that adaptation. For example getting stronger is an adaptation and resistance training is the stimulus (or stressor) that leads to that adaptations. Fat loss is an adaptation and an energy deficit (also known as a calorie deficit, a calorie is just a measure of energy) is the stimulus (or stressor) that leads to that adaptation.
As discussed above it is important to be able to recover from a stressor in order to facilitate adaptation. This is where dose becomes important. Progressive overload is all about applying the right dose of stress. If we don't apply enough of a stimulus (doing what you are already perfectly capable of doing) then you are not sending a signal to your body that it needs to adapt. On the contrary if you apply too much of a stimulus then we are unable to recover enough for our body to adapt. This is a case of sending too 'loud' of a signal and the body can only recover, not recover and adapt (this is like wanting someone listen to you so you yell at them through a megaphone, its too loud of a signal). This is why if you are starting out on a fitness journey, then doing a professional athletes workout that you saw on Instagram is a terrible idea. Their workout is the right dose of stress for them in their very advanced training journey, they have built up to that over many years of training. For you it is a far bigger stimulus than what you need to cause an adaptation. You are yelling through that megaphone. The right dose for you is slightly more than you are currently doing, not slightly more than someone else is doing.
In order to make sure you are applying the right dose it is helpful to measure what you do. As the title of the article suggests, what gets measured gets managed. If you look at some of the habits of fitness professionals and athletes they all measure their training. I do this in the form of a workout log (you can download a copy for free below). I write down what exercises I do, how much weight I use and how many sets and reps I did of each exercise. If you are a runner or a cyclist you might record distances and times. The important thing is that you can rock up to training and know exactly what you did in the gym last time, plus what you need to aim for this session to be doing slightly more. For example: one more repetition, slightly longer time under tension (slower reps), one more set, slightly better form, bigger range of motion or slightly more weight. Any one of those things on their own would be an example of progressive overload.
Side note, unless you are brand new to training you wont progress every session. You are looking for a general trend over time, there will be many small peaks and troughs along the way and good programming deals with these, if you stall out in your progress it could be a sign you are under recovered. Have a look at you sleep, nutrition, hydration etc. Females may also experience fluctuations in performance at different stages of your cycle. This is normal and you would compare performance from one stage of your cycle to the same stage next cycle, rather than looking for completely linear progression across each cycle. There are many other things that can effect your progress but this article is only intending to deal with tracking your training. Now you will have some data to spot trends in your training, you can make sure you are applying progressive overload. Now you are tracking your workouts, when you plateau you will be able to see it and therefor be able to work out why.
Best of luck with your training and I hope this helps you on your journey. If you found this helpful and would like to be the first to hear when I drop some new fitness info subscribe below.
Cheers Robbie
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