The #1 Mistake YOU are Making in the Gym . . .which is why you never get any stronger.

Just last week I was in the gym and was asked a question by one of the members of the fitness facility.  He said to me, “Jeff, I have been working out fairly regularly for the past year, but it seems like I am not making any real progress.  Sure I feel better than I did and I know I am stronger than I was a year ago, but I just don’t feel like I am seeing any real changes.  It doesn’t seem fair.  I put in all of this time in the gym and I eat pretty well, but I don’t feel like I am getting anywhere.  What am I doing wrong?”

Does this sound familiar? 

I think we’ve all been there.  At least I know I have.  So what should we do?  What’s the secret?  Well of course there are going to be many answers to these questions and it’s going to vary from person to person.  But over the last week, I have made a conscious effort to watch what people are actually doing in the gym to try to figure out what might be the reason that we all tend to hit these slumps in our workouts.

Sure you need to switch your workout routines every now and then, and yes , you need to try to keep the intensity level a bit higher when you workout, but there is an even simpler issue at hand that only a small percentage of people seems to understand.  What is it?  You are not writing down what you are doing in the gym!  I could count on one hand how many people I see in a day that have some sort of documentation that they keep with them during their workouts.  Everyone else just shows up at the same time each day, puts in the same amount of time and does the same bunch of exercises, again and again and again.

How can you expect to really improve in any capacity if you randomly choose an exercise program and don’t know what you did the last time you were in the gym?  The only way you can know for certain that you are getting better/stronger is to have documented proof of what you did previously.  Just as in any other aspect of life, we need a baseline to go off of in order to assess our progress.

This is why you always see personal trainers, physical therapists, doctors, and anyone else in any type of healthcare setting carrying a chart or file.  It is simply to take note of what you have done so there is something to compare and contrast against tomorrow.  If the numbers are better the next day, it means you’ve improved, if they are the same, no real changes have been made.  You get the idea.

The best part about this is that it really isn’t hard to do.  All you need to do is to keep track of what exercises you are doing, how many reps you did (or length of time, distance, etc.), and what weight you used, if any.  The following format works very well.  In fact, you could copy and paste this directly into your own table if you should choose.  Just write down the exercise, and then keep track of your reps (“R”) and your weight (“W”).  This format only has space for 3 sets, but you can design it to fit your own needs.

It doesn’t even need to be this complicated.  Simply go to Walgreens, purchase a small pocket size memo pad and just throw it in your gym bag. Carry it around with you and write down what you do.  That’s the key, write it down.  Otherwise you are just going to continue to lift the same amount of weights for the same 3 sets of 10 that you always do because you can’t remember if you curled the 20lbs. or the 22.5lbs. last time.  “Did I do 10 or 15 reps?”  You’ll never know unless it’s in ink.

I guarantee that if you are not doing this yet, this will make a HUGE difference in the increase in strength, speed, weight loss, or whatever it is that you are trying to do.  It will have more impact than anything else you can do.  If you don’t believe me, talk to the tons of people out there that are claiming amazing results from workouts like P90X.  It’s not that the exercises on there are magical, or that there is some secret formula that they have come up with.  It’s simply the fact that they encourage you to work hard and they are emphatic about writing everything down so your next workout is just as hard, if not harder, than the previous one.  It’s about pushing yourself.   Without the accountability of the workout sheet, it’s easy to get complacent about your workouts and not feel guilty about putting in less than 100%.

So unless you want to be the guy or girl that shows up at the gym the same time every day and looks exactly the same from one year to the next with nothing to show for all those workouts, write it down.  It’s that simple.