Do You Track Your Workouts? Here’s Why You Should

You’ve embarked on a diet and exercise journey that’s designed to take you places. You want to be faster, stronger, in better shape. As long as you’re making it to the gym, you’re doing better than people who are still sitting on the couch, right? While simply getting moving is the most important thing you can do for your exercise routine, there are several key reasons why going a step further and keeping track of workouts can be beneficial!

Tracking your workouts will let you follow your progress. In the middle of a progress slump, when it feels as though you’re never going to make it over that next hump (lose that next five pounds, decrease your mile speed by that extra fifteen seconds, or lift that next ten pounds), you may feel as though you aren’t accomplishing anything. All this time, all this effort, and yet it’s doing nothing for you! When you track your workouts, however, you’ll be able to more easily view your improvement over time, and stay motivated when you feel like you’re plateauing.

You’ll notice more quickly when you start slacking off. Everyone has those stretches of time when the last thing they want to do is go to the gym. You’ll catch yourself making excuses: “Well, it’s just one day.” “I have a lot to do this morning.” “I just want to sleep in for once!” The more often you make those excuses, however, the longer it will take you to reach your goals. While one day slacking off won’t make or break your workout, falling into the habit of exercising only 2–3 days per week instead of 4–5 can make a big difference! Tracking your workouts gives you the extra reminder of when you need to get it back in gear and get back on schedule.

It will keep you honest with yourself. On Monday, your child ended up underfoot in the middle of your workout, and you cut it short. On Tuesday, you only had time for twenty minutes of cardio instead of thirty. Sound familiar? Life has a way of getting between you and your best intentions and goals when it comes to fitness. Unfortunately, those interruptions often don’t make it into your mental accounting of what you’re doing. You expect to see progress. After all, you’ve been putting in your time, right? A quick look back at your fitness notes, however, will let you know that you haven’t really put in your time all week.

It lets you know exactly what you’ve done. Do you try to shake up your workout routine on a regular basis, or do you have a specific day for everything? If you don’t have a hard and fast routine in place, it won’t take you long to lose track of what you’ve done and what you haven’t. When you track your workouts, however, you can clearly see what you’ve done already for the week — and that means you’ll know what needs to come next.

You can track more than just your workout. In addition to celebrating your highs and lows, keeping you accountable, and letting you know what’s next, your fitness tracking can serve a number of other purposes. For example, if you’re struggling to keep on track with a diet, you might discover that a look back at your workout routine for the day coupled with a glance over your meal planning will let you know that you failed to consume enough protein. Using exercise to boost your mood or ward off depression? A simple note of your mood throughout the day will let you know what workouts are best helping you achieve those goals.

Keeping track of your fitness routine might seem daunting at first. A few seconds taken to record that valuable data, however, can have a huge effect on your fitness goals. Start tracking your workouts today and see where it takes you! You might be surprised by what you learn. Sworkit is a great way to see progress of workouts over a day, weeks, months, and overall! Not only will you see the progress, you will see the workouts you have done so not to repeat the same one over and over!