One of the best ways to judge your own gains is to use a log book. Its an obvious task yet one which many people manage to avoid. As you workout, you can enter symbols and scores into a pre-drawn out table which will kepp a log of how you have progressed. This can be a weekly or monthly job, or one which you complete during every workout session. A log should highlight your growing areas and the ones which need extra stimulation in order to grow.
Graphs can be made of the results and are best produced every month or so to show your achievements. Further information you could add includes you weekly calorie intake, your current weight, hours of sleep, rest period between workouts and your physical measurements. The log will also help you show your results to others; such as friends or a fitness instructor; who may be able to see how you could improve from the results. Two log book examples are printed below.
This is a very simple log book for a single days workout. In this case, the results could be taken in pencil and then updated every week. As you can see, the number of reps range across the top, and the exercises along the side. You can easily take down your totals, as well as any cheat reps, forced reps or drop sets acheived. You may wish to write the dates on each sheet to accurately maintain your record or average your results though the week and write these down as a log instead.
Example Log Book 2
This second log shows a much larger two-day-a-week routine. Here, there is less scope for writing any cheats or false sets, but instead only the completed reps listed: firstly from the left side, and then the results from the right side. (You can see in this instance, the right hand side of the body is stronger than the left.) At the bottom of the log are the weights used. After day seven the weight on the dumbbell goes up to 8kg, but the barbell has so far remained at 27kg.
