What to actually write down after a workout

The four fields

For each working set, record the exercise, the weight, the reps completed, and how hard the set felt on a one-to-ten scale. That last field is the one people skip and the one that makes the rest interpretable.

• Exercise — use the same name every time so your history groups correctly.
• Weight — the actual load on the bar, including the bar itself.
• Reps — what you completed, not what was prescribed.
• Effort — 7 means three reps left, 9 means one, 10 means failure.

Reading it back

Total weekly volume — sets times reps times load — tells you whether the block is progressing. A rising volume line with steady effort ratings means you are adapting. A flat volume line with climbing effort ratings means fatigue is accumulating and a lighter week is due.

Bodyweight is worth logging too, but weekly rather than daily. Day-to-day swings are mostly water and food, so a seven-day average is the honest number.

Notes are for context, not novels

One line is enough: slept badly, shoulder tight on the second set, new shoes. Six weeks later those fragments explain the dip in your chart far better than the numbers alone.

In FitnessGoals the workout notes field is a rich text editor, so bullet a couple of observations and move on.

Keep reading

• Progressive overload, explained without the jargon

  Progressive overload means asking your body to do slightly more over time. Here are the five levers you can pull and how FitnessGoals sequences them across a four-week block.

• Rest days are part of the programme, not a break from it

  Training is the stimulus; recovery is where the adaptation happens. How to plan rest, sleep and easy days so your hard sessions stay hard.