The Power of Recording Your Workouts
Recording your workouts can be a super helpful tool for a multitude of reasons. While it might seem like just another step in your workout, you will be happy that you started this important habit.
How to track your workouts
Tracking your workouts can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. On the simple side: you can keep a notebook and write down your workout for that day, followed by the weights you used/how long it took you.
To get into a bit more detail, you can start recording which movements you feel are the hardest, how you were feeling that day during training, and just your overall thoughts on the workout.
There are lots of apps that you can record your workouts in if the pen and paper route isn’t for you. This will also help you reference previous numbers at the gym easily. Apps like Strava, Apple Fitness+ and Nike Training can be helpful places to start!
If you have a wearable tracker, you can really get into the weeds with tracking your heart rate and your recovery. The more information you want to track, the more ways to measure progress.
Why you should record your workouts
To track your progress
If you don’t record your workouts, then you won’t be able to track your progress. No matter the goal, recording things will help you track how your fitness is progressing or if you need to make some changes in your fitness routine.
Endurance: retesting old workouts to see if you can go faster.
Strength: tracking how your weights increase over time.
Running: retesting your old times for specific distances to see how you’ve improved.
Accountability
Recording your workouts can help you stay accountable and disciplined. Seeing an empty page in your notebook or on your workout logs is just another way to force yourself to stay on track.
A sense of accomplishment
Recording workouts can give you a sense of accomplishment to write down all that you accomplished that day. It’s a gratification much like that of crossing something off of your checklist. Just the simple act of acknowledging your efforts is enough to feel accomplished.
Give it a try
Try recording your workouts for a week and see how you feel! Once it becomes a habit, you won’t think twice about it.
