WarriorFX

No great battle was ever won without a plan. Small victories are possible but overall achievements on a large scale must be accompanied by a documented plan of attack, as well as an accurate archive of progression and trends.

Strength athletes and bodybuilders commonly call this piece of their gear a training journal, record, diary or log. Success in muscle growth and strength development occurs by pushing past sluggish training periods to avoid months - or years - of futility. Journals allow a trainee, or the coach, to identifying stagnant periods early on, so a timely plan can be constructed for new-found demands promoting adaptation and growth.

The goal for increased strength and musculature is to train with progressive overloads. Sometimes small jumps of one or two pounds are all that are needed for marked progression; such as training small muscle groups or stabilizers. Without writing the training results on a permanent record, recollecting all of a previous workout’s numbers by memory is unreasonable and unsystematic for an athlete trying to maximize training periods. Hard training can improve attentiveness in an environment stimulated by adrenal output, but after a warm shower the information is quickly forgotten.

Many times over, new athletes tend to swarm supplement retailers looking for a magic pill to mystically pull them from a training rut. The real disgrace is many of these amateur trainees have never used a way to document their hard work. How can they expect to routinely progress if they can not recall what has already been accomplished?

So, it’s understood why a good training manual is needed but what should be documented?

First, find a good ledger or use blank paper and grid it with a pen and ruler. The media you choose must be durable; since it will likely fall victim to crushing 45-pound plates or collisions between two 100-pound dumbbells, as well as the frequent drizzle of sweat from exhaustive training.

A general maintenance log can easily fit within the columns established within a universally sold, hard cover money ledger.

A strength athlete should align the amount of columns they use with the intentions of the current training cycle. A maintenance strength routine may only need to record loads, sets, reps and dates. These numbers help to provide a preservation guide - or inadvertent progression - for each training day. A basic log can also provide a straightforward format to increase loads, reps, sets or training frequently.

An advance maintenance log may document more accurate training variables to assure proper assessment of training success, or digress.

Advanced training documentation builds on simpler reports to include specific elements; such as: time of day, time to completion, changes in bodyweight or general disposition and advanced training protocols. Further information can accurately gauge the amount of work being performed within the same unit of time, or perhaps serve to indicate a change in perceived effort after performing an identical routine.

Some information is better than none. Plotting a few details explaining the labors of a training day is more important than scores of information. If an athlete has it in their mind to reach a radical change in performance, merely implementing the use of a journal is a step in the right direction.