10 Reasons Why You Should You Keep A Lifting Journal

Yes, you definitely should keep a lifting journal. I cannot say enough good things about logging your workouts in a journal.

1)      It’s fun picking out your journal. Your journal is going to be your lifting diary, your work outs, on pen and paper. Spend some time at the Walmart up the street, or a fancy book store and pick out the journal that speaks to you. It’s a super fun experience for some reason.

2)      If you’re like me and have a memory like a fish, your workout journal becomes a reference machine. You’ll never have to guess at, “How much weight did I do last week?” Or, “How many reps did I get last time?”

3)      Your journal inspires you to work harder and get PRs, especially rep prs. Your journal holds you accountable. When you are about to do an exercise and you see that last month you were about to get 6 reps and you are doing the same weight, you KNOW you should be able to do at least 6 reps this time. That knowledge of your previous abilities gives you confidence to beat your previous record.

4)      You look really professional when you have a journal…or kinda nerdy but, I’ll go with professional. 

5)      After an entire cycle, or a few cycles or even a few years it’s really awesome to look in your old journals and see how far you’ve come.

6)      Long term, you can easily compare your results after doing different kinds of programming/lifting cycles to see which ones yielded the best results.

7)      Having a journal keeps you on track with your programming. When you can easily refer to your past workouts, you know exactly where you are in your training program.

8)      Journals seem to keep you focused on a goal. Whenever I start a journal, I start it with a goal in mind. I will write down all my current lifts (ex. squat/bench/deadlift) and then my goal lifts for the end of my program.

9)      Journals are one of the most inexpensive ways to improve your training. Journals are anywhere from a dollar to 20 bucks (for a super fancy journal). That’s money well spent.

10)   You develop a friend in your journal. You get attached to it and it never lets you down, because it can’t, it’s a journal… your very special journal friend.

Now go out there and start journaling my lifting friends!