Whether you’re seeking to maximize your lifting gains, searching for a way to stay motivated to exercise, or curious how your performance changes from month to month, consider keeping a training journal. Creating a record of your exercise and fitness habits is a great way to assess what you’re doing and determine if your approach is helping you reach your goals. It is also a reminder to stay focused and consistent in completing your workouts.

I’ve recently started keeping a training journal in order to track my progress on a gymnastics rings training program from GMB Fitness. I like using old-fashioned pen and paper so I printed out the program, inserted it into a spiral notebook, and left plenty of free space on which I could write some notes. After using this method for several weeks, I’ve noticed a few things that have helped me stay on track and that made me aware of what was working and what was not. Based on these observations, here’s a list of reasons why you might want to start your own training journal.

Benefits of using a training journal

Keep an objective measure of your progress. You can write down exactly what your routine was each day, what weight you used, how many reps, etc. This makes it easy to set goals and incrementally work towards your goals.

Keep subjective observations of your progress. This one is really valuable for me. I take notes about how challenging or how easy something felt, as well as other observations I make about the movements or the sequence of movements. You can also write down those aha! moments when you play around with variables (foot placement, hand position, etc.) and notice something that helps you do something better. Or, you can make a note if you’re feeling sick, squeezing a training session in on a tight schedule, or experiencing any other environmental factor that might influence your performance.

Write down questions to look up later. “Are my arms supposed to be straight here?” A few movements in my new program were unfamiliar to me. I’d watch the instructional video before going to the gym and tried to replicate the movements to the best of my ability and my memory. But sometimes questions came up during training. With a journal right there, I could jot down a quick question and find the answer once I got home.

Stick to a pre-planned schedule. If you’re working on a specific skill or PR in a lift, you might want to create a concrete plan to follow day-by-day. The journal lays the whole plan out in advance so there’s no wasting time at the gym. You know exactly what to do. This is one thing I appreciate about the rings program. I warm up, I do the workout, then I can add supplemental movement practice if I want to and if I have time.

Make data-driven decisions. This keeps your training more efficient. Look for patterns in the objective and subjective data that can help you predict future performance. Then adjust your plan, if necessary, to reflect the data that you’ve collected.

Help you deal with “bad days.” Finally, it’s important to recognize that you’re going to have bad workouts. And, a lot of mediocre workouts. Dan John calls these “punch the clock” workouts. You show up, you get it done, you don’t set any records or amaze your friends, you just put the work in. And that’s okay. But what I also notice is that the expectations we set for ourselves are sometimes unrealistic. On one of those “bad days,” it can be informative to flip back a month or so in your journals and see how far you’ve come. We’re all too hard on ourselves. Use your notes to help bring your brain back to reality when you’re feeling kinda lousy about training.

Types of training journals

There are a few ways to get started. I prefer cheap and easy, so I go for…

Notebooks. These suckers go on sale every back-to-school season, so I have a stack in my office. GMB provided a printable training plan, so I printed them, cut them out, and taped them into my notebook. Each “page” then has the training plan plus a sheet of lined paper, so I can take both objective and subjective notes.

Books. If you want sprinkles of inspirational quotes, photos, and a general structure for your individual plan, then buy a book. Runner’s World recommends the Believe Training Log. Inspirational quotes usually make me throw up a little so this one’s not for me. But if you dig that kind of thing, scan the shelves at your local bookstore or browse the 153 options at Amazon.com.

Apps. Finally, for the tech-lover personality, there are a myriad fitness log apps to choose from for Android or iOs. Popular choices for Android include Fitocracy, FitNotes, and JEFIT. For iPhone users, try Fitlist, Strong, or GymBook. They range from being really simple and easy to use to very complex with tons of features. If you’re doing traditional weighlifting or CrossFit-style workouts, these apps can be really beneficial since most are set up to track barbell and dumbbell training exercises. If you’re doing MovNat, pilates, parkour or something a little more outside the box, you might find these apps don’t work well for that.

Honestly, I want to spend less time on my phone, not more time, so this option doesn’t work well for me. It’s all about figuring out what suits your personality the best. If you’re not sure, give all three strategies a try!

Tracking your workouts helps you stay accountable, provides you with good information to make training decisions, and shows you how much you’ve accomplished over time. Do you use a training journal? How has it helped you? If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a shot and let us know how it goes.