You walk in the gym and notice we’re going for a 1 rep max today. Wait…. did you snatch 110 last month? Or was it 120? You build up through the warm up, and you’re kind of worn out once you get to the heavier weights. You think you hit a PR. Or did you? If you had this number recorded somewhere you could easily check ahead of the workout, your time at the barbell would be spent more efficiently, and you’d likely have more gas in the tank towards the end.
Tracking your workouts isn’t required when you start a training program. But is it important? Absolutely. There are so many benefits to tracking your times, reps, and weights. First and foremost, it’s motivating. It gives you something to strive towards. You know your personal best, you know you’ve put in the work, you know what to push yourself towards next time. If you know you did a sumo deadlift at 215 last month; you’re much more apt to push for 220 next time.
Tracking also keeps you accountable. You can easily see whether you’ve pushed yourself or you’ve avoided the the work. While working out in general should be fun, if you don’t have a goal in mind, you may spend months or years spinning your wheels and not getting to the point you hope to. You have to challenge your body constantly to make yourself stronger. If you do 2 sets of 10 push-ups every single day for 6 months, guess what? You’ll only be really good at doing 2 sets of 10 push-ups, and nothing else. You have to challenge yourself to get results, and you can only do that by increasing the difficulty.
Tracking isn’t difficult. There are multiple apps you can use on your smart phone, or you can even go a bit more on the “old school” side and keep a notebook in your gym bag to track with. But be diligent. You are doing yourself a disservice if you aren’t progressing in your time with us.
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