The Workout Spreadsheet

Personal confession time, I’m a bit obsessive compulsive when it comes to keeping records and sorting things. I like it when everything neatly lines up or divides into well planned categories. I’m also a bit obsessive when it comes to tracking things. For the most part, this isn’t too bad. At least, my wife hasn’t complained too much yet

However, in some ways, this has proved to be very useful. I’ve already talked about FitDay and the benefits I’m seeing from keeping track of things. I’m probably going to do a follow up to that shortly since I’m finding FitDay to be more and more useful as time goes by. However, for today I wanted to talk about the benefits of keeping track of your workout.

Why keep track?

A few months ago , a coworker saw me updating my workout spreadsheet and asked me “why do you keep track of all these things? Seems like of time to spend on something so simple.” I didn’t provide much of an answer right then because I don’t really think he was looking for an answer, but I would like to provide a few right now. Why keep track of a workout?

First, because there’s a lot of information to remember. I do 24 different exercises in a workout these days. That’s 24 exercises to remember plus 24 weights or numbers of reps associated with them. 48 things to memorize in total, which I really don’t feel like doing. I don’t want to remember if I’m supposed to be doing 90lb deadlifts or 80lbs. I want to just look at a piece of paper and see what it says. I have better things to memorize and think about while I work out.

Second, because it helps show progress. When I first started working out, I would record each week separately. I would then graph the number of reps and the weight I used for each exercise. Sounds a bit tiresome, but it’s amazingly useful. Doing something like that can really help you see where you’re progressing and where you’re not. I could look at an exercise and see right away if I was improving or not.

Finally, because I actually found that it helped me focus. Having my workout written down on paper told me exactly what I needed to do that day. There was never a need to stop and think “well, what exercise should I do next?” I never had to try and remember if I had already done something or not, because I simply followed the order in which they were written down.

So What Do You Need?

I’ve tried a number of online sites and I’ve found them all lacking. There was too much data entry required for set up and not enough pay back in terms of useful reports. I’ve also tried a number of software packages, but again, I didn’t find the work involved to be worth the effort. So what I ended up with was a simple spreadsheet. I originally used Excel, but recently switched to Google Docs because I wanted my spreadsheet to be online and available from any location. I’m posted up a sample of what my workout spreadsheet looks like here, but you might need a Google account to view it. I’m also going to try and post a version of it in Excel, but that might take a bit longer. Feel free to copy this spreadsheet and make your own version. Also, you should make whatever modifications to it you think are appropriate. There’s really no right way to track your workout, it’s all about what works for you.
The Spreadsheet

As you can see, the first page is just my workout. It’s nothing fancy, it’s just a simple spreadsheet with all my exercises and associated reps/weights. The second page is where it gets interesting. This is just a sample of what you can do with a good spreadsheet, but it’s essentially a progress tracker for my legs workout. There’s even a handy little graph that shows how well I’ve been doing on leg lifts. You could easily create something like this for any workout and modify to your heart’s content. Then, just add in your numbers once a week and you have a great tool to measure progress with.

Personally, I don’t use the progress tracker aspect of this spreadsheet, but I do recommend that every beginner build something like this to their own liking. It’s very important in the beginning to keep track of what you’re doing and how well you’re doing it.

Print It Out

I’m a big fan of conserving paper, so I don’t print out too many versions of my spreadsheet. What I usually do is print out a version on the first week of the month and then use that sheet for the whole month. Just write on it if you need to note anything down like increased weights or reps. Then copy that information to your spreadsheet next time you’re near a computer, assuming you’re tracking progress. By the end of the month, your print out is likely to be some messy, sweaty and dirty that it’s probably not usable. Recycle it and make another.

Summary

There’s no need to spend a lot of time or money on tracking your workout, but you should put in a bit of effort to make sure you’re noting down the important numbers. That will keep you on track to a more efficient every time.

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