A training log: what belongs in it and what doesn't
4 minutes
Most training logs don't fail because too little goes in them. They fail because too much is supposed to.
The whole list
Five entries. Nothing more is needed, and nothing more should go in:
What belongs in it
- Machine or exercise — which box, which movement.
- Weight — kilos, or the number on the pin.
- Reps — per set, not as a total.
- Sets — which you get for free if you write each one down.
- Machine setting — seat, back pad, roller. The most commonly forgotten one.
Why the seat height counts
Because it is part of the weight. The same 40 kilos on a chest press is a different exercise with the seat two holes higher — different angle, different muscles, different path. Writing down only “40 kg” means that next time you are comparing two things that aren't the same thing.
Then there is the practical side: the two minutes you spend adjusting every machine disappear. Written down once, never hunted for again.
What stays out
Mood, hours of sleep, calories, heart rate, water, body weight. Not because none of that matters — because you won't keep it up.
For the first two weeks you fill everything in. In week three the mood column is empty, in week four sleep is too. What you are left with is a log where some fields are filled and some aren't, and it is no longer clear whether a gap means “it was bad” or “couldn't be bothered”.
A log with gaps is one you stop believing yourself after four weeks.
The harder reason: most of those numbers can't be acted on. Say you slept badly on Tuesday and managed less. What follows for Thursday? Nothing you didn't already know. A number that changes no decision is ballast.
The date is trimming
Surprising, but: for the actual work you don't need a date, you need an order. The question is “what was last time”, not “what happened on 12 March”.
For exactly one decision the date does count — whether a longer break happened in between. After two or three weeks away you come back in below where you left off, and to know that, you need to know how long it has been. For everything else, the order is enough.
The mistake almost everybody makes
Writing down one set. Usually the first, sometimes the best.
The first set is the one with the most left in the tank, and it tells you the least about whether the weight was right. The third one tells you: if it still goes through cleanly, it was too light. If it ends at the sixth rep, it was too heavy. Record only the first and precisely that information is missing — so you either add weight too early or never.
40 kg × 12
40 kg × 11
40 kg × 11 ← still fine. Next time 42.5.
Where paper stops
Paper works. It doesn't run out of battery, it needs no account, and nobody else reads it. For the first weeks a notebook in your gym bag is completely fine, and if you are happy with that, you need nothing else.
Three things get annoying over time:
- Leafing. After two months the last leg press is somewhere on page eleven, and you are standing in front of the machine while somebody waits.
- Arithmetic. “What's the smallest thing I can add?” is a sum you do thirty times a week, and get wrong.
- Comparing. Whether eight weeks went upwards is not visible in a column of numbers. In a row of bars it is immediate.
That is the whole difference. No log in the world trains for you — it just makes sure you know the right number next time.
In the app: machine settings sit as chips right above the entry screen (“Seat 4 · Back 2”), because you read them twenty times before changing them once. Every set is entered individually.