Most of our workouts can be scored based on some metric. Some workouts are time priority in which you are given a task to try to complete as fast as possible, for example, 4 rounds for time of 10 deadlifts, 20 push-ups, and a 400m run. Other workouts are task priority, in which the time is fixed and your score is the total number of rounds and reps completed in the given time. An example would be a 20-minute AMRAP of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats. While other workouts are scored by load lifted, like a 5RM bench press. But why is it important for you to record your workouts and times, rounds and reps, and lifts associated with each workout?
- People who record their workouts get better results. If this doesn’t convince you of the need to record your workouts then I’m not sure any of my other arguments will. It is a proven fact that people who regularly track their workouts reach their goals faster than those who don’t. This applies to nearly every other area of life where you have a goal. What you don’t track, you won’t improve. Simply look at the results in SugarWOD and you’ll notice a trend between those who regularly log workouts and members who are seeing the best results (simply showing up has a lot to do with this as well).
- Recording your workouts keeps you motivated. Since we are training and not just exercising, we regularly repeat workouts and lifts to see if we have improved our strength and conditioning through our efforts in the gym. This enables us to set goals and work towards them in our training and then be able to accurately assess how close we are to reaching our goals, or set a new goal if we check one off the list. Success breeds motivation, not the other way around, so if we are accurately tracking our workouts then we can see how far we have come which will only fuel motivation to keep working even harder.
- Recording workouts also adds a healthy dose of accountability, camaraderie, and competition. Your coaches and gym buddies from other classes can see the results of your hard work and consistency in the gym and also encourage and hold you accountable when all of a sudden your name goes missing for a few weeks. Training is hard and we all need the accountability and support that a friendly fist bump or meme of encouragement can provide on SugarWOD. Posting your scores also helps motivate you and your training buddies to push a little harder and try to get the best out of each other. It doesn’t matter if it’s your first day in the gym or you’ve been training for 10 years, our goal is to always push each other to give our best effort both in the gym and outside the gym.
Get to logging your workouts folks, and if you need help with how to accurately track your workouts, just ask a coach. See you in the gym!
- Coach Jonathan
