The Log Book: Another Secret to Successful Training
The key to successfull training is setting personal records and breaking them. If you never set and achieve goals, you'll never progress. And the best way to set goals is through logging. By logging your workout, you create a crecord to gauge and measure your progress. You can easily set new goals for each workout based on your previous workout/training. In your log book, you want to enter the date of your workout/training, the exercises performed, and the amount of sets and reps. If it's an activity such as sprints, jogging, or something that would be logged with time, then you enter the precise duration of the acitvity in your book.
Ideally, if possible, you should take an exercise one rep short of failure in whatever routine you do-it makes logging easier, besides offering other benefits. Let's say today you done 3 (sets)x 10(reps) of squats at 135lbs. The next time you workout, you want to try and either get more reps, or put more weight on the bar. If you can do either one of them, then you have progressed from the last time you worked out. If you jumped rope for let's say 5 minutes, you want to try and beat this time next time you jump rope, and so forth.
By setting personal records (PR's) each time you workout, you have a new goal to chase each time you begin. And by beating your PR's each workout, you are, without a doubt, making continual progress. So if you're serious about making progress, grab some paper, or an ecercise jounal and log your progress. It's a guaranteed way to make progress, and it's a great source of motivation when you look back and see how much stronger you have become, both mentally and physically.
-Feint