Why keep an Online Fitness Training Diary?
By keeping a training diary you can review the progress you are making as well as the areas that you may be lacking in or excelling in.
This includes the ratio of strength and cardio you are doing weekly and the type of cardio.
You will also notice exercises you may be over using or neglecting.
A diary also helps a trainer review and plan your training if you ever need help.
Google Documents
I suggest using Google documents to keep your records in as it can be shared with a trainer by simply inviting their email to review or edit the document.
Watch this tutorial to learn all about Google Drive Tutorial
Instructions
I developed a system that you may use for recording your training. If you learn it it would make keeping a diary clean and simple.
Start entries with
A) Date & Month – you may abbreviate to the first 3 letters of month
B) How intense the session was on your body – Low, Mod, High, Max
C) Duration – In mins, don’t write mins though… and this excludes warm up time
D) Your weight if you weighed yourself
E) Change the font colour of Strength activities to Red (including circuits and core workouts)
Example Diary
23 April: Mod/45/80.7kg AM
Swings (20kg, 120): 3min 30sec
Means… you did 120 reps of 20kg swings and completed it in 3min 30sec
24 April: Low/30/80.9kg
Run 5km, 30min
Means… you ran 5km in 30min, but because you wrote Low it was an easy workout for you.
25 April: Mod/60
Boxing Bag work (30min) | Sparring 4 hard rounds & 2 light.
27 April: High/45
DB Bench (2*20kg, 12) & Row (26kg, 12ea)
If you follow this system you don’t need to add extra words such as ‘superset’ as it goes without saying. The ‘&’ sign indicates it was a superset.
Key
‘ea’ = per side e.g. Lunge, 12ea*4 but ea is not necessary for DB Row. Alternatively note the distance you lunged instead of rep count.
BB = Barbell
DB = Dumbbell
KB = Kettlebell
BW = Bodyweight e.g. BW Row or BW Lunges
BB Press and DB Press means just that
Side L = Side Lunge
Hip Ext = Hip Extensions
SDL = Sumo Deadlift
Use ‘-‘ to split the sets e.g. 12-11-9-8
If performing a regression exercise such as knee pushups instead of normal pushups for example, then note it as: Pushups (bent, 15*3) or BW Row (bent, 12*3) bent means bent knee @ 90 degrees.
For circuits list in brackets the regression options used, followed by your time score
e.g. DB Complex (2*20kg, BW): 18min 23sec >>> means you used 20kg instead of 22kg, and BW instead of 10kgs. If there are no brackets it means you performed the workouts as required in the OpSTR pdf.
HC,S,PP = Hang Clean, Squat, Push Press
C,S,PP = Clean, Squat, Push Press
C,S,PP 10 to 1 = the 10 to 1 circuit workout