Fitness Journals

By on December 1st, 2008

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Fitness journals are a valuable workout companion. If you keep a journal, it will coax you into keeping track of your workout lapses and shortcuts and cheats, and confess all. It’s also a great way to stick to a diet—you just record what you eat and track calories and nutrition in your journal. A journal isn’t necessarily anything fancy. It’s just a place to track your workout sessions, eating habits, and progress.

Examples of the kind of stuff you would record in your journal include the exercises you performed, the level you performed at, how many sets and reps of each exercise you do if you do weight training, how long it took you to perform each exercise, and how you felt afterwards.

Its’ a good idea to leave some space underneath your standard journal entries, for information such how much sleep you got, the time of day you worked out, how much weight you lost or how much muscle you gained, whether you are noticing an increase in your total energy, whether you feel like you could have worked harder, and whether you are experiencing aches and pains (and also where they occur, their nature and intensity). Journals are also a good place to plan your workouts and meals for the near future, based on your experience with your past workouts.

You don’t need anything fancy. You can use a simple notebook or sketchpad for your fitness journal. You can also put pictures of your ideal body in them to motivate you to stay with the plan and keep pursuing your workout goals.

For a more high tech approach, consider an online fitness journal. They work the same way as paper, for the most part, but have some additional, enhanced features. For example, they can perform calculations for you. Another big advantage—especially for typists—is that it is easier than writing in a book, and may be faster than writing by hand.

An online journal may also be able to perform calculations for you. Then there’s the legibility issue. How’s your handwriting? Many people have handwriting they can barely read themselves, especially when writing fast. If you log your workouts, weight, body fat percentage, sleeping patterns and diet online you’ll find it is much more legible than if you write it all out by hand.

If you are committed to getting fit and staying fit, you don’ need a fancy workout journal, but a workout journal would be a great accessory that can keep you motivated and keep you on track. It isn’t strictly essential, but one of the best ways to keep your fitness program on track is to track progress. Progress is a key motivator for workouts. Working out is all about making progress, and workout journals are one of the many fitness accessories that are made to track progress. While you can work out without a fitness journal, they make your workout more enjoyable and your results more tangible. Let’s face it; anything that keeps you on track is a good thing, especially something as inexpensive and convenient as a workout journal.