How to Track Your Progress as Part of Your Fitness Plan
There are few things that you can do as beneficial to your health as starting a fitness plan. Regular, focused exercise has hundreds of benefits for your physical and mental health and can help support your long-term health throughout your life. One of the key elements of a successful fitness plan is tracking your progress, so you can see how far you have come and adjust and adapt as you grow. But knowing how to track progress isn’t always easy. Here are ways to help you track your progress as part of your fitness plan.
Set Goals for the Gym
The first thing that you need to do to effectively track your progress in your fitness plan is to set a few goals for the gym. Without a goal that you are actively striving towards, you will have far less focus and aim in the gym. But having a goal to work towards helps you have something concrete to be working towards every time you step in the gym. The keys to proper goal setting are to make them specific, concrete, and measurable. This means that the goal: to have more energy day to day, is not a great goal, since it is difficult to measure, and is a little vague. The goal: to add 15 pounds to my squat, is concrete, specific, and measurable.
Focus on Your Macronutrients
Another way that you can help track your progress at the gym is to focus on your macronutrients and tracking what you eat. While it would be great to just put in time in the gym, the reality is that a lot of your health is determined by diet. A good diet not only helps your physical health, it also helps you stay mentally healthy. A great way to start thinking about your diet is with macronutrient goals – specific goals for how much protein, carbohydrates, and fat to eat in a day.
Write Everything Down
The final tip that can help you track your progress in your fitness plan is to write everything down you can keep track of. Your progress if you don’t keep notes of where you are and where you were. This will help you see if you are making progress toward your goals or not, and if you have plateaued, you know that you need to try a different approach towards progress. The most important part of tracking your progress is writing down what you are doing so you can see if you are truly getting better.
Starting a fitness plan is wonderful for your health. But a fitness plan is only truly useful if it helps you make progress towards your health-related goals. Give these three tips on How to Track Your Progress as Part of Your Fitness Plan a try to help you track your fitness progress.
Check out this article on mental challenges that exercise can help with!