Everybody wants to stay fit. However, life can be hectic, and you can easily lose sight of fitness goals and progress. The estimated 90% of people quitting the gym or fitness program after three months is proof of this. Although you can simply pick up from where you left off, not properly tracking your fitness progress can negatively affect your health journey. Here are a few reasons why you should track your fitness progress.
Defines your starting point
Setting a workout goal is excellent for keeping yourself motivated to start your fitness journey. Yet, it can be hard to measure what you have achieved so far and whether you are making any meaningful progress if you don’t record your starting point. Appreciating your starting point also helps you set more realistic growth expectations. For instance, it may seem challenging to complete a set of pushups, yet it may feel much easier after a week or two. That sense of progress can inspire you to keep going and become more eager to know how further you can go with your fitness schedule.
Planning and motivation
Individuals who keep track of their progress are less sluggish about their workouts and don’t regard them as boring or stressful. Keeping track of your fitness helps you focus on your weak areas and strategically plan to tackle them. It’s fine to exercise based on how you’re feeling at the time, but it shouldn’t be your primary training strategy. It’s possible to overtrain the same muscles simply because you enjoy regularly performing some particular workout or routine. By adjusting the timing and order of workouts, you can avoid training the same muscle or area with a diverse schedule.
Ensure accountability
Tracking your workout progress can serve as a reality check. For instance, you can determine how often you go to the gym by tracking your progress. Additionally, you can discover if you are not working out as often as you should, especially when you don’t seem to be making any gains per the current number of times you go to the gym. All this brings about accountability.
Accountability will also ensure you take responsibility for what you eat, how often you exercise, and how far you are going with your fitness goals. You can achieve this by setting realistic targets and monitoring them to boost the odds of achieving your fitness goals.
Ensure discipline and focus
Pauses are just as important as the time spent exercising. You want to make sure you don’t miss any workout benefits because you took a too long or too short break. Since it can be hard to remember the repetitions, you may want to take note of your routine time and breaks. You can only do this by tracking your progress. This can also help you create a realistic routine you can stick to.
Fortunately, there are fitness apps and plans to track your workout and know how many repetitions you need to complete in a workout. This would help you eradicate distractions to keep you focused on achieving your fitness goals.
To make appropriate modifications and adjustments
If you are reading this article, then the chances are that you have heard about the dreaded plateau – the point where your body stops gaining strength or losing fat after it has adapted to your workout. While adaptation is good, it increases your chances of hitting a plateau, so regularly changing your workouts is advised. Tracking your fitness can help you mix things up, try a split routine or go for a complete body plan. While switching or modifying your routines can help avoid the plateau, you want to make sure you understand your body and what you can take to avoid any injuries or putting your body under excessive pressure.
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Summarize your progress
You may need to work out for at least two weeks to notice changes in your body and eight weeks for others to notice the changes. But why do you have to wait that long when you can notice your progress each day and keep yourself motivated? More regularly tracking and checking your progress and identifying any form of stagnation. Understanding your stagnation is essential for not giving up, especially when you don’t seem to be making any gains. Although it is normal to hit a plateau, tracking your progress can help you break your limits.
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