Electronic training diary

Training diary

A training diary is a record of an athlete’s training program, which is conducted in order to compile the most effective methodology, taking into account your own physiological characteristics. The main tasks of the diary include: tracking progress in the loads, muscle growth, adaptation (speed, endurance and other qualities), body shaping, fitness models, etc.

Types of diaries:

Paper personal diary – entries are made in a standard / student notebook or a special training diary with the appropriate design. Many believe that in the 21st century a paper diary is an old school, and prefer its electronic counterpart;

An electronic diary – is a diary whose entries are recorded and stored on electronic storage media. Depending on the latter, diaries are divided into:

• Online;
• Software for computers;
• Mobile versions.

Progress Tracking

It may turn out that the details of your workouts will increase your motivation and help you continue your planned training program. Try recording your workouts in a notebook or training diary to see how this method suits you.

Recording information in the training diary

Some people benefit from recording their strength (and cardiovascular) complexes so much that they take up a pen daily. Others find paperwork boring and uninteresting, preferring to keep a diary for good verification, say, for one week every couple of months. Meanwhile, no matter how often you make your notes, it’s a great idea to capture many or all of the points below.

Your goals. At the beginning of each week, write down specific training goals, for example: “Increase the load on the back and biceps” or “do eight push-ups per training”.

The name of each exercise. It’s about the specifics. Write not just an “exercise for the chest”, but “dumbbells-fly on an incline bench” or “vertical bench-press”. This way you will know if you are using enough variations. Plus, you perforce remember the name of each exercise. We know people who have been training for many years, but still call “the dumbbell bench press” – “well, where you push the dumbbells up”.

Approaches, sets and weight. Be sure to note how many repetitions you do for each set and how much weight you use. Suppose you are doing three sets to bending your legs — the first of 12 repetitions of 14 kg each, then 10 repetitions of 18 kg each and 7 repetitions of 22 kg each. Then you can note this by writing “3” in the sets column, “12, 10, 7” in the repetition column, and “14, 18, 22” in the weight column.

What do you feel when workout. We do not ask you to pour out emotions. Just write a few words about whether you feel energy, fatigue, motivation, etc. Are you given training easily or are exhausting, as if you started training recently?

Heart and vascular training. Record how much exercise you do to help your heart and blood vessels develop. And no matter, it will be a half-hour walk on a treadmill at a speed of 6.5 km/h or 15 minutes at level 6 of the simulator of climbing stairs. Also note when exactly you are doing this complex: before or after weight lifting.

Stretch exercise. You must to record the duration of the stretching exercises and the sensations after them. If you are ambitious, you can also mark the names of these exercises or give a name to your standard complex of stretch exercise.

Training Diary Analysis

Your diary or journal will become positive reinforcement even if records in it do not appear often. In addition, tracking progress over time will give you a great boost of inspiration and self-confidence. Suppose you find that two months ago you could barely squeeze 10 reps of 14 kg on the leg extension machine, and now easily do 10 reps of 22 kg. In this case, you will clearly know that you have achieved some success.

Keeping a training diary will not only allow you to maintain motivation, but also help to achieve better results. Suppose that you devote a lot of time to strength exercises, but your muscles do not want to become stronger or more drying in any way. In this case, the notes will tell you the reasons why the desired effect is not achieved. So, from time to time, carefully study your journal and ask yourself the following questions.

Am I resting enough? Perhaps you want to lift weights every day, while your body needs two days of rest between workouts. A longer rest at the same time will give you additional energy for the next classes.

Do I work hard enough on every muscle group? Your diary may suggest that you are neglecting certain muscles. Suppose you only do four sets of leg development over a workout, compared to six or seven sets for other parts of the body. Then, probably, this is the reason for the slow growth of the strength of your lower limbs.

Am I varying my workouts enough? Looking through your diary, you can see a biceps exercise record three times a week for the last three months, and almost no other hand exercises. This means that you are too fixated. Add new exercises to your complex or change the number of sets and repetitions that you do. You can also change the execute order of the exercises.

Am I lifting enough weight? Suppose you never meet the words “hard training” in your notes. Then it is likely that classes with 15-pound dumbbells became so familiar that you forgot to increase the weight used in time.

Do I do my cardiovascular exercises before weight lifting or after? Maybe you are engaged in a simulator of climbing stairs for 30 minutes before the start of strength exercises? Then this is the reason why you feel tired without even lifting a light dumbbell.

We will not review all available applications in this article, we can only note that there are a great many of them, and everyone should choose for themselves what will suit him best. In any case, no matter what version your diary is in, you are already familiar with the principles and goals of its maintenance, as well as with the methods of analysis of the data you recorded.