How to Enhance Your Progress Using Workout Sheets

Are you one of those people who go to the gym and know your entire workout by heart, right down to the exact weight and precise number of reps for every move?  Maybe you even use the same weight for everything.  Then you step over to the treadmill and set it on 5 mph and jog for exactly 30 minutes, every time?  If you are, then I bet you’re also wondering why you’re not seeing the results you expect for all the time (and money) you are investing in your gym membership. 

You have reached the proverbial plateau, where your body has grown accustomed to the routine workout you put it through.  If you don’t constantly challenge your body every time you exercise, you will stop growing and will not receive the benefits that you deserve.  There is one simple change you can make to jump-start your progress:  Write Everything Down!

“How do you know what to do if you don’t know what you did?”–Tony Horton on using workout sheets

This is one of my favorite lines from Tony Horton, the P90X trainer.  What it means is you should be using the record of your last workout to tell you what to do in your next workout.  “Why”, you ask, “if I do the same thing every time?”  That’s the whole point:  you shouldn’t be doing the same thing every time, and your workout notes will tell you what to change for next time.

First Thing’s First:  How Much Weight?

Do you know how many reps and what weight you should be using in the first place?  Here’s the first secret right out of P90X:

• For lean, tone muscles, target 12-15 reps.  Choose the weight that gets you in that range but not more.  If you can do 16 or 17 reps with your weight, it’s time to put it down and move up to the next weight.  Even if you can only do 8-10 reps with the  new weight, that will give you better results while your muscles grow back into the 12-15 rep range.  Don’t worry, you will not “get bulky” spending some time in the 8-10 range.  (Related blog post:  Why Women Need to Lift Weights)
• For faster muscle growth or bulk, target 8-10 (or even 8-12) reps.  Choose the weight that gets you in that range but not much more.  If you can do more than 12 reps with your weight, put it down, get a heavier weight, and get back down in the 8-10 rep range.
• The last 3 reps in your set need to be difficult, muscle-ripping, lactic acid-burning hard.  Tearing muscle is what you are there for; that’s what makes muscle grow.  If you don’t reach this intensity level then you are not getting the most out of your workout.

And I have one more Golden Rule that I follow when I use my sheets:

• Increase your weight or reps in something, ANYTHING, every single workout.  You can’t go up in everything, but you need to go up in something every single day.  You need to do more work as measured by reps or weight this week than you did the last week.  That’s how you push your body to maximum gain, and your workout sheets are your guide.

What to Write Down

A good 1 hour resistance training workout might include 30 or more different exercises or sets.  Multiply that by 3 or 4 different workouts in a week and it would be almost impossible to remember each individual rep/weight combination.  So the first things to write down are the moves in the order you perform them, how many reps you did, and what weight you used.  Arrange them in a column so you can record successive workouts right next to each other.  After that it’s all about your personal shorthand notes to remind you what you did last time and what to do next time.

Here are some examples of how I use the P90X Workout Sheets.  I have recorded all the resistance workouts since Day 1 of my first round over a year ago (you can see all my complete P90X Workout Sheets here, as well as download blank ones).

Each column represents a different workout separated by one or more weeks.  Figure 1 shows some examples of how I increased either reps or weights in something every week.  Wide Fly Push Ups increased from 25 to 30 in Week 4, Decline Push Ups increased in both Weeks 3 & 4.  Notice the Heavy Pants line:  I increased my weight from Week 1 to Week 2 but I was on the borderline of doing too many reps (I generally target 8-10).  In Week 3 I moved up in weight to 40 lbs which put me back in my desired 8-10 rep range.  The process starts all over in Week 4 when I increase reps again.  Too bad the heaviest weight I have is 40 lbs because it’s time to go up in weight and down in reps again.

On the Close Grip Overhand Pull Ups my personal shorthand is to write down unassisted pull ups / assisted pull ups with  the letter “a” after the assisted ones.  My goal is to bump up the unassisted pull ups while eventually weaning myself off the Chin-Up Max assist device.  Although I dropped the number of unassisted pull ups in Week 2 I kept the total at 12, and then slowly worked my way up until Week 5 when I was back to 7 unassisted and more total than in Week 1. (I described the Chin-Up Max in  What’s In My Home Gym.)

In Figure 2 the Lying Down Triceps Extensions shows how to leave yourself a note on what to change next time.  I use “Up Arrows” to tell me when to use a heavier weight next time, and “Down Arrows” to tell me when I bit off too much and need to go back down.  In Week 1 I recorded a Down Arrow after 8 reps and 30 lbs because my form was bad by the 8th rep and it was just too much weight (proper form is as important as reps and weights BTW).  The next week I dropped weight to 25 but increased reps.  In Week 3 I managed to do 15 reps with the 25 lb weights so I recorded an Up Arrow indicating it was time to try the next weight again.  In Weeks 4 and 5 I was able to successfully move back to the 30’s and hit my target 8-10 rep range.  (Notice how I crossed out moves 20 and 23, the Crouching Cohen Curls; this is one of the moves I don’t do for risk of injury that I covered in P90X Moves I Don’t Do.)  

There are two ways to bridge a big gap between two weights.  In Figure 3 for both Exercises 19 and 20 I tried to go up from 25 to 30 lbs in Weeks 4 and 5 but couldn’t do 8-10 reps at the new weight.  I split the set and did as many reps as I could at the heavier weight (4 or 5), and then finished the set at the lighter weight.  This allowed me to increase my work rather than just remain at the lower weight.  I would never remember this without writing it down. 

The second way I bridge the 5 lb gap between weights is with 2.5 lb ankle or wrist weights.  In Figure 4 I added 2.5 lb ankle weights to my wrists for Heavy Pants in Week 2, and in Week 3 I was able to complete the jump from 35 to 40 lb weights.

What About Cardio Workouts

It’s easy to record your numbers when doing weights because you can pause between each move to write things down.  But what if you are on a treadmill or doing a non-stop Insanity workout?  You can still keep a journal, you just have to write things down when you’re done.  Here are some things you can record for cardio:

• Time, speed, and distance on a treadmill, bike or similar cardio machine.  Create an interval workout with bursts of short duration-high speed cycles.  Try to increase the duration of the high-speed cycles or increase the number of intervals week to week.
• Count reps for a few key moves during a non-stop workout like Insanity.  For example if Shaun T is doing 8 Level One Drills but you can only do 4, write it down at the end and go for 5 next time.
• Percent complete.  The first day I did an Insanity workout I could barely complete 50% of the work.  As each day went by I mentally kept track of how many minutes I could go non-stop before taking a break, and I would write down what percent of the workout I completed.  By the end I was up to 90%.

Be creative, challenge yourself every single workout.  Make a game out of trying to beat your best.  But the best way to chart a course for improvement is to keep a written record of what you did, and use it to push yourself next time.

Does anyone else out there use Workout Sheets or keep a journal?  Leave a comment and let me know.