I never used to work out in public gyms until recently. The last year to become exact.?There’s something that is amazing to me about the people who exercise there, at least 95% of them: they keep no records of the workouts. Nothing.
I can’t comprehend that. How can they remember just how much weight they lifted for every exercise plus the number of reps they’ve done when they don’t keep records?
Here are my workout records for yesterday:
Bent Over Dumbbell Row, 50 pound dumbbells, 3 sets of 10 Chin-Ups: 10x, 8x, 7x
Seated Cable Row: 105 pounds, 1st set 10, second set 10, third set 9.
This is all down on paper in my little exercise notebook
Every workout. Every weight. Every set. Every rep. Now, I’ll stop right there and so i won’t bore you. Let’s consider the Chin ups and Seated Cable Row as examples. I’ll be carrying this out workout again probably within a week. Basically didn’t jot it down, would I recall that I got10 chin ups on my small 1st set, 8x on my small 2nd set and 7x on my small 3rd set? Definitely not. My memory is not that good. I would have thought I acquired 10x, 8x, and 6x.
Guess what happens when I visit do this workout again next week? I’ll try and beat my numbers from yesterday. Naturally we all need and use our workouts. Since i have couldn’t remember exactly and that i may have thought Used to do 10x, 7x and 6x… I’ll?now aim for 10x, 8x, and 7x. Basically get those numbers, then I’ve made no progress. Because that’s what I did yesterday.
Same for that Seated Cable Row. Maybe I figured I got 10x, 10x, and 8x reps respectively on my 3 sets. So I then shoot for 10x, 10x, and 9x.
Same as the previous workout, no progress has been made
Or worse yet, let’s say I figured I did the seated cable row with 100 pounds, but in reality it had been 105 pounds. Now I’m actually?regressing by using a lighter in weight than a week ago, which is just a couple exercises of 1 workout…
I know you may be busy just like me and you have a million and something other things to “keep track” of and remember. How can you possibly remember how much weight you’re using, how many sets you’ve done and particularly, the number of reps you’ve accomplished for each exercise for each set! But yet I see so many people just winging it!
I can honestly count on one hand the number of people I’ve observed in the gym over the last year with a notebook, keeping records of their workout. What about you? Are you currently monitoring what you’re doing? Are you currently monitoring your weights, sets, reps, etc.?
Like I said earlier, I write everything down. Then, I check out it before every workout. I’m lost if I go to the gym without my notebook. I really am!
Next week, I will look at yesterdays workout and see that I did the Bent Over Dumbbell Row with
50 pounds and I did 3 sets of 10. Since my range is 8-10 reps, and I was able to get 10 reps on all 3 sets, I’ll make use of the 55 pound dumbbells next?week… And that’s the way we make progress.
If I didn’t jot it down maybe I don’t remember basically used the 50’s or not. Or possibly I don’t remember how many reps I did. It doesn’t take very long to write down and may be easily done in between sets or exercises.
It can make an enormous improvement in?your training. Believe me. If you’re not doing the work now, I highly suggest you start.
Kevin