30 things you can do right now to get stronger in a month! #5

Posted on February 9th, 2010 by Sean

Keep A Training Log

What the hell does writing stuff down have to do with getting stronger unless of course you are writing it on big stone tablets?

Jack Hughes coaching in the old days of Weightlifting

Most things we write down are reminders of what we did in the past so we can figure out what to do or not to do in the future. The beauty of training for a sport like Weightlifting, is we have a general idea how things will turn out. If you start at the right age, show good physical attributes, have a good coach, and don’t beat up five security guards, get your ribs broken by the cops, get locked up for three days, lift with broken ribs until you piss blood and have to take a month off, you will likely be able to at least reach the qualifying totals for Nationals in a predictable time period. The qualifying totals are well known so the planning of training has a definitive end point. A coach can work backwards from that point and based on the athletes’ ability, can determine roughly what and how long it will take to meet the desired goal.

Now I know this is a very simplistic overview of periodization however, this exactly how it works. In between your first day in the gym and the day you actually qualify for what ever it is you are training for (macrocycle), there will be a series of sequential plans (mesocycles). The planning of these mesocycles will be determined by the results of subsequent mesocycles. All the alterations made will be done so with one eye on the desired end result and the other on the past results. In other words if you don’t know what worked or didn’t work to get you to where you are, then how are you going to know what to do or not to do to get you to where you want to be?

Is thirty days of keeping a training log enough information to make you stronger in thirty days, perhaps not however, you have to start somewhere. And eventually those first 30 days turn into 330 days and now you have what to work with.

Some sample training logs:

Olympic Volleyball Player