If you want to improve, then you need to record what you are doing.

If you aren’t assessing, you’re just guessing.” This is a statement that can be applied right across the fitness spectrum, and I love it. I’m a fitness nerd. I enjoy playing with the numbers in both my training and diet.

The more you know, the more it eliminates the guess work. You can see, plain as day what direction you’re moving, and once you know if you’re progressing, regressing or staying still, what needs to be changed.

Take that mantra in to your training. Journal your sessions. Maybe even invest in some form of fitness tracker. FitBit, Jawbone and Garmin all have a range of wearable – usually in the form of a watch – fitness trackers that will give you numbers to help evaluate your training output.

Once you know your heart rate, your distance travelled, the calories turned over, etc etc, you’ll be able to build a big picture of where you currently sit in the path toward your goals.

If you’re on a muscle-building journey and you can see that you’re burning more calories than you’re consuming – tracking the calories going in can be done using Fitness Apps like MyFitnessPal and The Fat Secret – then you know something has to change.

By gaining that information you’re able to assess that you need to either

A) Increase your calorie uptake or

B) Reduce your calorie output.

Otherwise, you’d just be guessing. You aren’t seeing any muscle mass being added, often the first response is “I need to train more” when in reality, by training more you’re going to be further away from adding muscle mass as you’re creating an even bigger deficit when what you need is MORE calories for growth!

Taking that across in to the planning and progression of training sessions. Unless you’re charting how much you’re lifting, both weight and volume, on a regular basis then you’re blindly hoping for progress.

Whereas if you start your program, record what you’ve done and analyse how you’re improving then you can adjust your program to continue that progression.

I’ll say it again, just to let is sink in “If you aren’t assessing, you’re just guessing.”

Apply that mantra to your diet and training over the next few weeks and I’d be surprised if you don’t notice an upward curve in your performance.

The best thing about it is by recording everything, it’ll be as clear as day to you WHY you’ve got more energy, are feeling stronger and can perform better!

Don’t forget to book your spot on my GAA Pre-Season Workshop for more knowledge like today’s article! If you’ve any questions you can message me on social media @PGthePT on Twitter and Instagram, or www.facebook.com/PGthePT. If today’s article was up your street then log on to www.pgthept.com and sign up for the daily newsletter for a bullet of training advice every morning Monday to Friday!
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