The Gym Log, +2 Defender
Sunday, December 30th, 2007Some people have amazingly accurate memory, able to recall things from years ago with great clarity, never forgetting appointments or minor details. I am not one of those people. As busy as my life gets I sometimes have trouble remembering what day of the week it is, where I left the TV remote, or why I’m in the kitchen even though it’s not time to eat.
A key portion of training for hypertrophy (muscle growth) is progression in your power output as I discussed previously in Growth, Recovery, & Scheduling In order to ensure that you are actually progressing, you need to know what you did last time, so you know what to lift this time. Given that your progress isn’t going to be extremely fast over a single cycle of four days, you need a pretty fair amount of precision as well. It’s not enough to know that you lifted “about 215″ last time, for “maybe 4 or 5 sets of 6 reps I think?”.
The solution is to track each of your lifts in sets, reps, poundage, and some notes about what to do on the next attempt. Here is the log from my last cycle:
Pull G 2×8/2×8 w5
Press 87 XT
Dips P 4×8 H
DWS 4×8
—-
Bench 139 XT
Row 5×5x160
Shrug 148.5 T
Curl 83.25 ST
—-
Squat 135W/210 T
Calf 238.5 T
Dead 135W/215 T
Wrist 37.25 ST / 42.5 XT
I’m sure that all looks a bit cryptic, so lets break it down. The first part of any entry is the name of the lift, so that’s Pullups, Military Press, Dips, Decline Weighted Situps, Bench Press, Cable Row, Trap Bar Shrugs, Barbell Curls, Full Squats, Calf Raises, Stiff Legged Deadlifts, and Supported Wrist Roller. I usually shorten the names, since I’m doing the same thing on a regular basis and know what I mean. They key is to be able to read your own logs later, as long as you can do that it’s fine.
The second part of each entry is the warmup, if there is one denoted by a number with a W after it. So for example, on Full Squats I did five reps at 135lbs before doing my five sets of five reps of 210 lbs. My personal rule on warm-ups is that if you’re adding a second large plate (25lbs or larger) you need to do a warmup set before the work set. In addition, when you’re adding a third large plate you move to two warm-up sets and so on. For lifts with only one large plate on each side or less, I generally don’t bother, but this will depend on a number of factors including your age, overall health, prior injuries, etc.
The third part of each entry is the actual lift in terms of sets, reps, and poundage. We’ve discussed this previously and it’s pretty obvious so I’ll leave it at that.
The fourth part of each entry is the notes. This is a extremely important step. When you finish doing the sets and reps for one lift, you’re going to want to make a guess as to what you think you can do next time. Here are some of the standard notes I use:
Blank - Probably ready to progress in some way
R (ready) - Ready for a move up for sure, do more weight, reps or sets next time depending on the lift. Generally a big increase like five pounds.
L (Light) - Lift was way too easy, go up 10-20lbs, generally only happens if I try something new and guess too low as to what poundage to use.
H (Heavy) - Lift was pretty difficult, I had trouble finishing or just barely completed it, raising the weight would compromise correct form, stay at this weight next time.
TH (Too Heavy) - I got over-optimistic how much I could lift, and either couldn’t complete or had to cheat to do so, lift less weight next time.
T (Tiny) - Ready to go up, but less than five pounds. I generally go up 2lbs, 1.5 lbs, 1.5 lbs when this is marked.
XT (Extra Tiny) Ready to go up, but only half a pound.
ST (Super Tiny) Ready to go up, but only a quarter pound. Mostly used for smaller lifts like curls or forearm roller.
Anything not listed above I generally just write in. A few quick items to clear up, on pullups I have three different readings. The first is pullups, the second is chinups, and the last is wide grip pullups. I like to switch things around so that my arms aren’t the limiting factor and I’m hitting mostly my back. The G means I’m using the green stretch band to do assisted pullups, yeah I’m still weak for my weight and need a bit of help, but they’re still better than pulldowns. On dips the P means I’m using the purple stretch band for assistance. On the wrist roller, I’m doing two sets forward and two sets in reverse since it seems that my strength is quite different in each direction.
I’m never a big fan of paperwork, but this kind of recording really pays off in the long run. Tracking your gym progress assures that you know where you’re at and what you need to do to keep moving forward. Don’t be that person in the gym who does the same lifts and the same weights for years on end with no progress.
