“What gets measured gets managed” – Peter Drucker
If you have fitness goals, it is critical that you are monitoring your progress. If you do not know where you are at right now, it is impossible to know what you need to do to move toward your goals.
Here are five ways to monitor your fitness goals:
1. Photos – If you’re trying to change how your body looks, the best way to see the progress is through photos. You often miss changes in the mirror because they happen slowly, on a daily basis. When you look back on photos a month, or couple of months apart, they show vast changes you have made, and this is great for increasing motivation.
2. Strength on key exercises – Getting stronger in the gym shows you are making progress. You don’t need to measure everything, but having a few key exercises where you track weights and reps is a good idea. If you’re using 10kg more than you were last month, you cannot argue that you are stronger than you were before.
3. Bodyweight – A simple measurement you can take on a regular basis is your bodyweight. Be aware that it doesn’t tell you everything. For example, you can build muscle and lean tissue, while losing fat and not see your weight change. That said, it’s still important to track your bodyweight to see general trends over time.
4. MyZone belt – A MyZone belt is a wearable device that tracks your heart rate during workouts and allows you to compare your average working heart rate against other people. This shows how hard you are working, and gives you data to compare against. For example, if the same workout can be completed in the future at a lower average heart rate, you are fitter than you were when you first measured it. MyZone belts are used in Coaching Zone sessions at Genesis Fitness, click here to find a club near you.
5. Desire to go to the gym – This is an uncommon one, but in my experience people who enjoy working out tend to do it more permanently, work harder, and see better results. This is a self-perpetuating cycle in that people who see good results tend to enjoy their workouts more, and feel more motivation to go to the gym. If you make it your goal to enjoy your workout, you will have a much easier time making it sustainable over the long term.