Many people go to the gym and either do a random assortment
of exercises or perform the same workout every day. Neither of these methods is
very effective in the long run. A better approach is to have a plan laid out
and to track your training regimen.
It is important to have a laid-out program so you have a
general idea and plan when training. The plan can always be adjusted, if
needed, and keeps you on track for improving and working towards your goals.
This program will add structure to your training regimen, allowing you to track
where you’re going and what you’ve previously done. Plans follow a general
template that should be tailored to the goal you are trying to accomplish. As
you progress, you can input your weights/numbers/times into the template so you
have something to look back on. Typically a template is for a given amount of
time or number of training sessions. I personally like to keep my training
templates and plans between 4-8 weeks. Following the completion of the program,
you can look back at the numbers, weights, times, and lifts you performed and
reassess how the plan went. Depending on what it looks like, you can see whether
you’ve made progress and which lifts seemed to work best, and make any
modifications to improve the plan for the next training cycle. Here is an
example of how I track my training programs in an Excel file:
Tracking your program doesn’t necessarily need to be this
elaborate, and some just use a simple composition notebook. The overlying
principle here is to plan and track what you are doing.
Tracking and recording your training program is critical if
you are trying to continually make progress. This can hold true for other
things in life as well. As the saying goes, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t
manage it.” This is just another carryover from training to real life that you
can teach yourself through your training. Tracking your training plan will give
you this ability and allow you to make some tweaks and changes to the program
in order to give you better results.
Ryan Goodell, CSCS
For consultation/personal training/coaching inquiries email:
ryangoodell@weightsandstuff.com
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