The Importance of Tracking Your Body Building Program
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The major reason why you should track your body building program is to avoid the prospect of failure. Not knowing why you are doing the exercises you are doing as well as not being aware of the physical activities you did in the past could negatively affect your current body building program. It is therefore very important to get a precise picture of your improvement – or the lack of it – early on in order for you to do the appropriate changes.
The following are the things you need to track when you are engaged in a body building program:
Body Composition
The measurements of your body composition aid in gauging how effective your body building program is. Contrary to popular belief, body builders must not live by weight alone. Solely depending on how much you have lost or gained is not an accurate picture of your improvement.
The result of your body composition measurements will eventually guide the decisions you will make as well as the necessary adjustments you need to take with regards to supplements, diet and weight training.
These measurements include your weight, body fat percentage and lean body mass.
Training and Nutrition Journal
While the purpose of body composition measurements is to inform you where you specifically are in your body building program, it is through fitness and nutrition journals where you know how it is you got to that stage.
Being able to track the activities you are doing in your bodybuilding program ensures that you are not wasting your time and energy.
Do note that it is natural to engage in some trial and error especially when you are in the process of getting your bodybuilding program right. Keeping a precise account of the activities you are doing helps you know where you are spending unnecessary effort on a specific area or facet of your training.
Believe it or not, you can be as detailed as you possibly can. Down to your nutritional intake or the number of fat, carbs and water you consume daily via a diet journal.
You can also record your weight at lease once every week. The idea is to acquire a measurement that is consistent in order for you to avoid worrying about the scale’s overall accuracy.
A good tip you could follow is by weighing yourself in the same area of your house (as floors have the tendency to provide various readings depending on the different rooms of your home). You should also weigh yourself early in the morning right after you woke up and have urinated and before you take your breakfast or showered.
If you are a beginner in a body building program, do not be afraid to train a lot more frequently compared to advanced or intermediate trainers. The key is for you to acquire more experience. When your muscles are pushed harder, the muscles of a beginner have the ability to repair and bounce back faster since the damage to the muscles are not as severe.
Basically, the body is nudged to overcompensate and prepare for future, if not more demanding, workouts.
All in all, a body building program is a never-ending cycle of repeated one-step back and two-steps forward activity which should be done on a weekly basis especially if you are targeting long term weight loss and muscle gain.
