How to Track My Fitness Progress
You Can’t Improve What You Don’t Measure
Tracking your fitness progress is crucial to improving it. Unless you know how far you are progressing toward your fitness goals, how do you know what is working and what isn’t?
In today’s digital age, wearable devices that track your performance and progress are common. However, while such devices are easy to use and provide information immediately, are they right for you? As an approximate guide, they have their uses, but:
The data they provide may not be what you need to measure
You may be sharing data with people or businesses you don’t know, or your data may be hackable
Overall, a wearable device is not the best way to track fitness progress. The question is, what should you do instead?
Here are seven common ways to track fitness progress to keep you motivated and on course to your goals.
1. Body composition measurement
Body composition is the measure of how much fat, muscle, and bone you have in your body. It is a good indicator of overall health and can help you track your fitness progress. There are two types of measurement:
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measure of weight in relation to height. It does not take into account the fat on your body, so it may overestimate muscle weight and underestimate fat weight.
Body Fat Percentage (BF%) is the percentage of total body weight that comes from fat tissue, which is more accurate than BMI when assessing obesity levels. A healthy range for BF% for adults is 20-30.
2. Workout journal
Keeping a workout journal is an excellent way to track your fitness progress. It helps you stay motivated, accountable, and on track with your fitness goals.
When writing down the exercises that you do in your workout journal, be sure to include the date of the exercise, how many rounds or reps of the exercise you did, the weights you used, and how long it took for you to complete the exercise. Include your weight and measurements, too.
This will help you identify what exercises work best for you, as well as what time of day works best for your schedule. It can also be a terrific way to keep track of how many calories are burned during each workout session.
3. Progression photos
You’ve seen those before and after photos. Why not keep your own photo diary of your progress?
They show you the difference between where you are now and where you were before. They can be anything from a side-by-side comparison of your weight or a before and after photo of your body or diet. A tip here is to use a tripod, stand in front of the same background, and make sure that photos are taken at the same time of day (preferably with natural light).
4. Rep max test
A rep max test is a test of how many reps of an exercise you can do at a given weight. This test is used to measure gains in muscle strength and endurance.
The rep max test is done by selecting a challenging weight and doing as many reps as possible with that weight, and before your technique starts to falter. Usually, the rep max test is for two to six reps, though it can be for as many as 12 reps.
The rep max test is a common tool used by personal trainers to help their clients set realistic goals and track their progress over time.
5. Body weight measure
It may seem like a simple metric, but body weight can be particularly useful in determining what kind of diet and exercise routine you should follow. It is also one of the most accurate ways to measure fitness progress. Weigh yourself on a regular basis (once a week) so that you can track any changes in your weight over time. It’s not necessary to weigh yourself daily as it can be discouraging if the scales don’t move every day.
A word of warning: when you first start a workout regime, your body weight will decrease. As you continue to lose fat and gain muscle, your body weight will increase. Therefore, it is always best to combine body weight measurement with body composition measurement and progression photos.
6. Workout volume measure
Workout volume is a measure of how much work you do in a workout. It’s calculated by multiplying the number of sets, reps, and weight (workout volume = set x reps x weight). It’s a good indicator of how hard you’re working out and how much progress you have made, and it will help you figure out what needs to be changed to see better results.
7. Consistency measure (number of workout days/weeks)
Another common measure of fitness progress is how often you work out. The consistency measure is the number of days that you exercise in a week and should be calculated over time. This indicates how frequently you can maintain your workout routine. Watch your progress as you improve from one or two workouts per week to five or six.
How to track your fitness progress the Reload way
In our human-centered approach to fitness and health, we start to track your progress from the first minute we meet in your first assessment.
“Everything starts with an assessment, based on where the person is coming from,” says Joe Lipsky, PT at Reload. “If someone has pain and injury, they’re going to start with a physical therapy evaluation. If someone is coming in for training ─ perhaps they have hot training plateaus ─ they will start with a fitness assessment.”
It doesn’t matter where you start, we will be taking a huge amount of baseline measurements to get an accurate read of your general physical preparedness. This includes assessments of:
Strength (lower body and upper body) ─ we’ll be looking at your ability to bench press, run, squat, and perform press-ups as a few examples
Balance ─ for example, testing balance on one leg for 30 seconds
Mobility
Flexibility
Endurance
From here, we treat each appointment and workout session as an opportunity to assess progress. This continuous tracking allows us to be hyper-flexible with your program, and change something up if we’re not seeing the progress we expect. And there will be difficulties. Like Mike Tyson said, “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Sometimes, that punch in the face is self-inflicted. Not purposely, of course, but because ‘life gets in the way’. You get busy. Your work wants a little more of your time. You’re running late because of traffic on your commute. Whatever the reason, your workout is missed. One missed session may be recoverable. But when missing your exercise becomes a regular occurrence, you could put your progress back months, or not progress as fast as expected. Consistency is a key to improving your fitness and physical health. Don’t let life get in the way of your fitness - because not being fit will get in the way of life.
The goal is to get you progressing like a blue-chip stock. Look at the chart of any of the top-quality stock prices, and you’ll see that they ebb and flow. Over time, though, they move up steadily, despite short-term volatility.
We want you to improve a little bit each day. We know that aiming for a 100% improvement can be demoralizing if you make it a short-term goal. Who goes from 100 press-ups to 200 overnight? But can you do one more tomorrow than you did today? Sure. And here’s the thing: if you could improve by just 1% each day, after around 72 days, you’d have hit that 100% improvement.
So, we must be prepared for short-term ups and downs, over, say, one week or six months. Our goal is to take a two-, three-, or five-year view. You will be a blue chip in the long run.
One more reason this long game is so important. If you’ve ever been on a crash diet, you’ll know that rapid weight loss usually leads to at least as rapid weight gain. It’s the same with exercise. The slow and steady tortoise wins the race.
How about getting a taste of the Reload advantage?
Right now, you can sign up for a complimentary fitness assessment. The perfect way to learn more about your current state of fitness, and to ask any questions you may have.
