For nearly past 40 years, I’ve been tracking my workouts on paper. I’ve gone through various iterations ranging from binders full of detailed sheets specifying reps, sets and rest times to simple lists of core exercises and workout duration.
For my current routine, I use a simple spreadsheet to note the duration of each segment (strength, movement, yoga), my overall performance and brief notes on injuries, sleep, temps, focus, etc that affected my performance. Each sheet covers 12 workouts so I can spot any trends from the previous 2 weeks.
I have saved these sheets in a stack for the past 4 years but have never looked at them. Not even once. So I’m tossing them out. Today I was thinking – why not just add a few notes in the Journal App on my phone instead? After all, once I move to a new sheet, I never even look at the old tracking sheets.
I occasionally refer to my journal app for information like injury recovery time from previous injuries, digestive issues, allergies etc. This is actual useful since I can quickly search by date. It helps me gain perspective on recovery time when I tweak my knee or when I wake up dizzy and wonder if it is from allergies (it always is – and usually happens within days of when it did the prior year).
I remember hearing Tim Ferris say he kept all of his workout logs for his entire life so he could refer back to them and use them to guide his current workouts. I did that when I was younger and thought detailed tracking and incremental progress was so critical. After many years, I realized it was a waste of time and effort.
Now that I think of it, so are the simple tracking log sheets I use today. I can make a few simple notes on my phone in the journal to track workout times instead.
Done.
I love it – simple, efficient, and easy.