Write about it...

I write stuff down.  I admit, I am better at writing stuff down about my clients than about myself, but I’m not horrible at keeping track of my own stuff either.  It is a useful tool.

 

Why?  Well, for one thing, we don’t remember things as well as we think we do.  How often was I lifting weights five years ago?  I have no idea, but I have my workout sheets from back then, so I can look it up.  What weight should my client choose for the next exercise?  Hmmm… let me see what I wrote down about last week’s workout.

 

For another thing, it helps us see patterns.  This is how I know not to start anything new on a Thursday and that Monday is my best workout day, followed by Saturday.

 

We can be as simple or as complicated as we like.  At the simple end, we want to write down the name of the exercise, the number of reps, and the weight (or the kind of cardio and the time).  At the complicated end, we can add food journaling and brief notes about what went well or poorly and how we felt.  We can also add instructions and cues about form if we like, so we remember to align our knees over our toes or keep our upper arms stable at appropriate times.

 

Even if we don’t do it every time, it can be useful as a snapshot.  We can look at that one time we recorded, six months ago, and see that we are lifting a lot more today, or that we were really burning up the cardio back then.

 

Try it and see what happens!