Exercise Planning and Programing: Planning and Logging Your Fitness

Exercise Planning and Programing: Planning and Logging Your Fitness

In the first article of this series, titled “Exercise Planning and Programming,” I discussed the driving forces that help us initiate and maintain an exercise habit. I also shared some specific experiences, such as backpacking across the Grand Canyon and how they have inspired me in setting goals. In this article, I will briefly talk about planning and tracking your fitness activities and the simple tool and approach that I use. I have found that planning out and logging my daily fitness activities helps me stay on track with working towards my fitness goals.

There are numerous options for planning and logging your exercise regimen. From pencil-and-paper flow sheets to smartphone apps and various electronic tools, the choices are plentiful. My approach, which I’ve been using for a few years, is quite straightforward. I maintain a Google Drive document where each day is listed, with the most recent date at the top. I often plan a week in advance, logging what I intend to do and keeping a record of my completed workouts. I’ve created a shortcut to this document on my phone, making it easily accessible at the gym and I have a shortcut on my laptop.

For my resistance training, I like incorporating what are known as supersets. I will delve deeper into supersets in a future article, but in essence, it involves connecting two or more lifts with minimal rest in between for two or more sets. In practice this works best if you are working out with someone else. For the last several years I have been doing supersets with my son. Zachary is now in his first year of college so I have now started doing them with my wife. When my son comes home for spring break in a few weeks (and for the summer) I intend to have supersets developed that all 3 of us can do together.

Each week, I input my work schedule. When my son was home, I also included his work and school timetable. I’ve begun applying a similar strategy with my wife, who travels frequently for work. When our schedules align, I plan a superset for that day. I then organize my cardio workouts and any additional resistance training needed. On each day, I prefix the planned workout session with the word “Plan.” Once I complete that session, I simply remove “Plan,” and it becomes part of my log. Naturally, not every day unfolds as intended, so I sometimes have to adjust my entries, which may involve modifying the plan for the following days.

This system works well for me, given that my schedule fluctuates weekly. Many people I know adhere to a fixed weekly routine; for example, Tuesdays and Fridays are “leg days,” while Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays they focus on chest and back workouts. A set routine like this can be beneficial and works well for some, though it may lack flexibility. In future articles I will discuss some of the different strategies a person can use for splitting up their exercise programing.

There are a variety of methods for planning and tracking fitness. Some of the smartphone apps also can help people plan out and keep track of what they are eating. In future articles in this series I will talk about some of these apps as well as go into more depth about how to plan out your fitness plan.

Thanks for reading. Please share.

Russ

See also my latest article in the Training 4 Life series “9 Adaptations : Resistance Training for Muscle Mass, Function AND Quality of Life” and my latest article in the series on protein “ What is a Limiting Amino Acid of a Food?”.