Weightlifting
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How to Monitor Your Weightlifting Progress Effectively
Anytime you undertake a fairly complex procedure or program with a long-term perspective, it is best to establish a monitoring system to determine whether you are making appropriate progress. Fortunately for those of us involved in this sport, weightlifting is well-suited to progress monitoring, though many might wonder about the best methods or procedures. That is what this blog and the subsequent posts aim to help accomplish.
The Importance of Working With a Dedicated Weightlifting Coach
A coach is especially helpful in monitoring those aspects that are not easily quantifiable. Improvements in technique that are not easily self-detectable are often accurately observed by a coach. A coach can also gauge whether sufficient effort is being put forth and whether specific training benchmarks are significant.
The Role of Training Partners and Teammates
Training partners or teammates can also provide feedback on work habits or non-quantifiable aspects of training. Teammates who are committed to the mission often become an additional set of eyes that supplements the coach's surveillance.
Using Competition Results to Track Progress
Of course, your competition results are an excellent way to monitor your progress. If you begin your competitive journey after achieving technical proficiency and train with a well-designed program, you should expect at least 5 years of steady improvement in your competitive results.
Your progress should reflect technical improvements, properly designed increased training loads, improved aptitude for competitive performance, and a better-adapted lifestyle.
Keeping a Detailed Weightlifting Training Journal
A training journal is invaluable when reviewed periodically. Non-training data, such as bodyweight, training venue, session start time, mood, sleep habits, ingestion data, and other non-lifting factors, can be recorded in a training journal. As far as pertinent lifting factors, the training journal should include exercises performed, exercise order, weight employed, percentage of max, reps, sets, and failed reps. A periodic review of training information can be beneficial when planning future training.
An actual training journal should be sturdy enough to withstand the jostling that can occur in a gym bag. Moisture and chalk dust should always be taken into consideration. It is easier to record formatted data quickly and easily in an actual journal. Although many of you may prefer keeping records on your phone, maintaining them in the ideal format can prove to be challenging. Whichever medium you select, make sure that you can record your data quickly and easily.
Using Spreadsheets to Analyze Training Data
If you genuinely want to get an analysis of your training data, you should transfer that information to a spreadsheet, which can perform a variety of calculations that can provide you with valuable insights. In future blogs, I’ll detail the best way to format a spreadsheet that will perform all the calculations that will give you the best information for evaluating your progress.
For those of you who would like to take a more serious approach to organizing and planning training, you might want to check out a book I wrote on the topic. Although the weight classes have been changed twice, the information is otherwise evergreen.
WEIGHTLIFTING PROGRAMMING The BOOK is available at the following link:
https://www.takanoweightlifting.com/new-products/weightlifting-programming-book
