TLDR
- Record your sets; you will hit a wall without doing so
- Keep a logbook on your top sets – load times reps
- Consider tracking bodyweight, heart rate, step count, body part measurements and full body photos
Inside the gym
There are two fundamental building blocks we have to record and review over time. These are both crucial to long-term success. A third piece of the puzzle is a smaller series of checks and balances, grouped below.
- Filming your sets
- Logbooking your sets
Filming your sets
I would go so far as to say this is the number one key we have to pay attention to. Yes, even more so than the logbook.
As a thought experiment, you can review all your key sets without a logbook and almost always make some progress. On the other hand, you can logbook religiously without reviewing any video footage and be stalled in progress.
Even if you’re ‘only’ training for health and longevity, you will still need to record some sets.
Reviewing your own training is crucial to spot little things you may miss, as well as fairly major factors such as how hard you’re actually training. You’ll be surprised how often a set feels like the weight of the world is crushing you, and you play back a video and it was just a two second grinder.
No less important are a variety of form and cues; such as those outlined in the movement pattern and muscle group sections. Checking your video is especially good to see slight misalignments of hands or feet.
No amount of glancing at a mirror (and it’s doubtful every single exercise will be situated next to one) replaces filming your sets.
Even if you have a coach or an experienced friend to observe, filming your sets still has additional value.
Generally speaking:
- There’s no specific number here and of course you can’t record the entire workout indefinitely.
- Record a top set of each muscle group at least once every 3 months
- Try to rotate through so that all your exercises are filmed
- Do it whenever it’s convenient, if the gym is busy it might need to wait till another day
- The more advanced you are, the more frequently you’ll need to record sets
Logbooking your sets
The logbook, or likely the electronic logbook these days, is the second key data point we should monitor.
This could be a training app, a spreadsheet on your phone, or indeed a physical notebook. Recorded should be at least your list of exercises, sets, load, and reps.
The data is crucial as it allows us to observe if progressive overload is occurring or not. If it’s not for a sufficiently long period of time, this may mean we need to adjust some training variables.
The crux of the logbook is exercise based, determined by your top set.
Load * reps of the top set
To call out specifically, intensifiers should be treated separately, and multiple sets should be treated separately. Those are useful data for sure, but the key is load for reps per exercise.
For example:
You perform a smith machine BTN press of 50kg for 12, then 60kg for a set of 9, then add a cluster set to get 4 reps and then 2 reps.
- The key piece of data is 60kg for 9
- If you can add in 9 + 4 (20s rest) + 2 (20s rest), that’s great. If not, don’t add this up for 15
- If you can add in 2 sets, where the first set is 50kg for 12, that’s great. If not, don’t conflate it with the main information
The full checklist
The two major pieces are filming and logbooking. On top of that, there’s a mental checklist we can run through to comprehensively review the qualitative aspects of our lifts.
The 6 item checklist:
Exercise prep
- Before a set, are you visualising the reps?
- During a set, are you focusing on one cue?
- After a set, did you reach a true failure point?
Body awareness
- During each rep, did you have a mind muscle connection?
- After the set, did you feel a pump in the muscle?
- After the session, did you feel some soreness in the muscle?
Outside the gym
For everybody spanning beginners to advanced, there are several key variables that should be tracked:
- Bodyweight
- Resting heart rate
- Step count
Not only are these general health metrics, but if any of these are off, there’ll likely be impacts on our performance down the line.
Ideally your resting heart rate and average step count is recorded by your favourite smart watch, simply for ease of use.
Your bodyweight should be measured on a scale at the same time of day a couple of times a week, and averaged out.
Beyond this, there are two key metrics that should be recorded over time. It’s fair to say these are for folks who want to take it a little more seriously, it will require a tad more effort but well worth it to understand your progress.
Measurements
Body part measurements are easiest done with a tape measure. These should be done at the peak of a muscle.
Generally the best standardised areas are:
- Chest circumference
- Torso circumference
- Arm circumference
- Leg circumference
This should be done on a regular basis, every 6-7 weeks is a great timeframe.
Photos
These are full body photos from a front, side, and back view. Each time pose the same way, with the same lighting, ideally around the same time of day (or at least after the same number of meals eaten).
Take these with minimal clothing, ideally shirtless for guys, tank tops or sport bras for girls, but ultimately whatever you’re comfortable with.
This should be done on a regular basis, every 12-13 weeks is a great timeframe.
Limitations of tracking
Tracking pointless data
I suggest if there’s little to no benefit to tracking variables, we shouldn’t do it.
For instance, you’ll notice calorie tracking isn’t emphasised here. Sure, this isn’t a nutrition specialised guide as much as a training one, but it’s also because for a large proportion of folks simply tracking bodyweight, your training details, and applying mindful eating will be more productive than calorie tracking. There are certainly instances where calorie tracking is required, but it’s generally for more specific populations.
Misinterpreting data
There’s nothing inherently wrong with tracking as much data as you want, both quantitative and qualitative. The problem arises when you use data to make incorrect decisions.
A classic scenario is if you logbook your sets, and jump ship on exercises once you stall out. This is actually a very nuanced decision.
On the one hand, it’s undeniably true progress will slow down over time. Therefore it makes sense to be patient and repeat an exercise with good form the following session. Let’s say you’re doing dumbbell lateral raises; there’s simply no way you can be linearly adding reps or load each session indefinitely. So perhaps you repeat the same tonnage two or three times, and find you can continue progressing.
On the other hand, there’s a lot of benefits to movement variability. We stress different parts of the issue, we minimise joint stress, and gives us a chance to naturally break past plateaus.
In other words, you need context and experience.
There are some methodologies out there that suggest if you get stuck with no progressive overload x number of times (usually one or two) you have to immediately reset with a new exercise.
Another contrasting opinion is since the logbook can mess with your head, you should simply not track any numbers.
I disagree with both of these; data is just data and it’s always useful, just be sure not to over extrapolate from it.
Cheating the KPI
The age old adage you can’t manage (or progress) what you can’t measure holds true to a degree. Indeed that’s why this chapter exists.
The flip side though is when we obsess about the measurement too much, leading to all sorts of faulty reasoning. Here we should keep in mind Goodhart’s law; ‘when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure’.
For example, most folks want to progress their pull-ups at some point. It’s so easy to over fixate on the number of reps you can hit, before you know it there’s a slight kip of the legs, a strain of the neck to reach the end of the rep, and so on. Make sure not to lose sight of quality movement and quality processes; the results will come from that.