If you’re serious about finally shedding those extra pounds, building up a killer body and increasing your strength and endurance, there are a few things you are going to want to know about building the perfect exercise routine to get you there. You’ve probably already heard the most common tips, but one thing you might not know is that one of the most important aspects of your workout is tracking your progress.
Why?
Well, there are several reasons. First off, if you want to actually make any progress, you have to adjust your routine accordingly as you get better. After a few weeks in the gym you will get considerably stronger and you will be ready to lift more weight, stay on the treadmill for longer periods of time at higher speeds, etc. By documenting your workouts properly you’ll know exactly how to change up your routine in order to keep challenging yourself. And second, after a while it can be really motivating to see how much you’ve improved in terms of weight loss, strength and endurance, making you work even harder in the future.
There are a couple of points that you need to touch on when it comes to tracking your progress in the gym, and today I’m going to be talking about some of them.
Use a Fitness App
We’ve all got an awesome smartphone that does all sorts of crazy stuff nowadays, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use it to make your workouts easier as well. You can do this by downloading one of the many fantastic fitness apps that can help you track your workouts, supply you with workout routines or even help you build your own and some even come bundled with information about diet and nutrition, which is always useful. It’s a great deal easier than lugging around a big impractical notebook at the gym and writing down how many reps you did after each exercise. Just note that if you tend to connect to public Wi-Fi at the gym, you had better set up your phone with Purevpn, since these kinds of apps tend to have quite a bit of security issues.
Don’t Trust Your Scales
One of the most popular ways to track weight loss progress has long been the old fashioned scales. The point is to lose weight and if those numbers are dropping you’ve got to be on the right track, right? Well…not really. It turns out that scales aren’t actually a very accurate method when it comes to losing fat and slimming down to a more comfortable weight.
If this sounds a little crazy, just bear with me for now. Note that I used the term “slimming down” instead of “lose weight” here, because weight loss doesn’t necessarily have to be a good thing. The point is to burn excess fat and get those muscles to show, but what if I told you that you can do this while simultaneously gaining weight? By doing a lot of weight training combined with cardio, all the weight that you lose from burning fat you’ll often gain back in muscle, but the scale won’t tell you that. Instead, they’ll tell you that you didn’t lose any weight and therefore didn’t get any slimmer, when you actually lost a bunch of fat. Also, people often get rid of a lot of the liquids in their body when they first start dieting and lose a lot of weight in a very short time, after which their weight loss stops almost entirely. This can be really discouraging in the beginning when it’s hard to see any noticeable difference in the mirror, so you can’t really convince yourself that you’re making progress.
For this reason, the scales really shouldn’t be the first thing you reach for when you want to monitor your weight loss. Instead, reach for the measuring tape and start gauging the areas where you want to burn fat – your stomach, your thighs, your behind etc. The tape will tell you immediately when you start to lose fat, which is kind of the whole point anyway.
Don’t Measure Yourself Too Often
One of the most common ways that people kill their motivation for exercise in the beginning is constantly stepping on the scales or measuring their BMI. These things aren’t going to change overnight, it takes some time to burn fat and get into shape.
I highly suggest you stick to measuring yourself once or, at the most, twice a month. This way you’ll be able to see some tangible results and actually motivate yourself to keep working out. If you check for weight loss every day, you’ll end up with a nasty case of “watched pot syndrome” and it will feel like your journey of weight loss is taking forever. Just be patient and consistent and you’re bound to get results sooner or later.
Though Adam Ferraresi really loves his job of web developer, he’s also quite passionate about his writing, which is always gladly accepted at wefollowtech.com. As every Texan, he loves spending time outside playing sports with his friends. He may have graduated from college a couple of years ago, but he’s already working on his dream job and couldn’t be happier about it, as well as his new life in Dallas.
