Important Workout Data and Useless Information

Any athlete who is serious about improving their performance must track some key indicators of how they are doing.

The importance of the indicators is not always consistent with how easily they are measured. Some of the most important things to know are subjective and not easy to measure directly.

On the other hand, some of the more useless information is easy to measure.

The market for wearable fitness monitoring equipment relies heavily on collecting unimportant data because it can easily be gathered or calculated with simple sensors.

The trick is to convince the unwary that having your blood pressure or heart rate reading available at any moment is somehow important for getting fit.

 

Key Data for Weightlifters

It will surprise no one who has been weight training for more than a year that the list of important information is short but critical.

IMHO the following data should be collected by every strength athlete for every workout they perform:

1. Exercise: weight used for each set and number of reps

In addition, I strongly suggest that every athlete devise a personal system for evaluating the quality of each set performed. Use this as part of your feedback to improve.

The difficult subjective measures are ones that only you (or your coach) can make.

Part of evaluating quality is to be very specific about your lifting technique in every exercise.

This means writing down notes to yourself about how you are performing. Use these notes later to devise corrections.

Another of my suggestions is:

2. Create a monthly plan and goals for each exercise

This can include:

• Progression of weights used
• Total volume of each exercise: week and month
• Improvement in lifting technique if needed

At the end of the month:

• Evaluation of how well the plan matched performance for the month or cycle

The point is to be clear about what you are attempting to do and then use your personal analytic skills to see how closely your actual work tracked your plan.

By regularly reviewing your work in training you should begin to understand what works well for you and what does not.

This regular review can also help you become more skilled at troubleshooting your own unique problem areas. It can also highlight areas where you need outside help.

It is especially important to focus attention on proper exercise techniques and working on your unique problem areas.

 

Cheap and simple often beats complex and expensive

IMHO the best data set you can have is to keep a handwritten notebook that you carry in your gym bag to each workout.

I have used these for decades and have found them to be vastly superior to any app out there.

One way these records are infinitely superior is that they will always be easy to read and wont be lost if the app does a major version change or goes out of business.

My record keeping system is to use a cheap composition notebook, usually a couple bucks in an office supply store.

For each workout I write a vertical column of the data. I find that I can easily fit a full weeks workout information on two facing pages of the book.

 

Other simple hacks

If you are a runner (I am) an expensive distance tracker or step counter is of little value. IMHO you can measure the distance you run using a simple free program www.mapmyrun.com.

Keep track of your mileagenot steps.

I ask youwhats the conditioning difference between doing 9680 steps as opposed to 10,163? Counting steps is measuring mice nuts not significant information.

 

Coda,

Keep your eye on measures that actually mean something rather than a bunch of drivel that a wearable monitor can count.

If you need to constantly monitor your heart rate or blood pressure you should probably be in the Intensive Care Unit not the gym.

Lift Big!

Richard