There’s an old saying, “unless it’s written down, it didn’t happen.” Now combine that with an even older saying, “you won’t know when you get to where you’re going, unless you know where you’ve been.” Even though it sounds like it came from the great mind of Yogi Berra, there’s a lot of truth to both these quips.

Applied to our area of physical fitness training, this means charting various muscle groups, individual muscles, diagrams, do’s and don’ts, and above all--charting goals, and establishing what you are doing in order to reach them.  Charting physical fitness progress is a must. The less you rely on your memory to remember these details, the more you can apply this mental effort into what you’re doing.

When you see progress happening right in front of you in black and white, it tells you it’s working! And when something’s working, you’re not going to quit, you’re going to stay with it. Which, by the way, is the number one reason why health club members just stop going and do not renew their memberships. They don’t see change happening or they don’t see it happening fast enough. Well, without charts, they couldn’t see change if it hit them on the head.

Let’s say you’re charting the growth of your biceps muscles. Soaking wet, they tape up to 11”.  After a little homework, you find three good dumbbell exercises that work the biceps. You list them by name in your chart. (let’s say, curl, press and reverse curl) Next, you want to find the starting dumbbell weights, numbers of reps and sets. There are several formulas for determining these starting numbers, but for demonstration purposes, let’s say you’re starting with 10 lbs., 7 repetitions, 3 sets, with two minutes between sets.

List your starting date, and which days per week to exercise (every other day or every two days is normal). Leave an area for notes that may have an influence on your entries. For instance, one day you may have worked out too soon after a big pasta meal, just gotten over a cold or didn’t get enough sleep the night before. Items like this should be noted as they would normally prevent you from achieving normal results.

Next, determine how often you’re going to measure those biceps. Keep in mind that during exercise, first muscle cells pump up, but then during the exercise sessions, they break down and lose mass. Remember, muscle growth occurs only during rest days. So, for more accurate results, take these measurements on days when no exercises are scheduled.

Don’t expect to grow mountains out of molehills overnight. This kind of muscle growth takes time. All you want to see with these fitness charts is progress! A 1/8” at a time is big progress. Put enough of those 1/8” gains together and you’ll be able to make those 11” molehills into 15” or 16” mountainous biceps before you know it, and you’ll have the records to prove it!

by Bruce Heath, DnC.