Monitoring Your Progress Is The Secret To Success In Bodybuilding…
Keeping tabs on your progress is critical when following a muscle-building and / or fat loss program. What gets tracked gets improved. Just giving conscious focus to monitoring your results on a regular basis will inevitably help you to improve.
When you know exactly where you are in terms of your muscle-building progress you can adjust your approach accordingly. But if you don’t keep track of your progress you’ll just be spinning your wheels. Then a few months later you’ll look back and wonder why you never made any gains.
That’s what happens in most cases when people complain that their workout or diet plan isn’t working. Very often the root cause isn’t necessarily the program they are following, but rather they are not keeping accurate records of their results. Things happen so gradually on a day to day basis that if you don’t accurately measure your results you’ll never know if you are gaining muscle, losing fat, or just stuck in a plateau.
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Tracking Your Bodyweight…
With your Total Fitness Bodybuilding Program I want you to weigh yourself every single week at the same time every week. So for example, get on the scale first thing every Saturday morning after using the bathroom. The reason I want you to weigh yourself every week is because it will give you a more accurate view of your progress. Our bodyweight can easily fluctuate up and down 5 pounds per day. This is due to changes in food and water weight. So by weighing yourself at the same time each week, you’ll have a better idea of your actual bodyweight changes without the distractions of daily fluctuations. Each week write down your bodyweight in a journal. It’s critical to keep a journal for logging your results. This is so you can look back and review your results and see if your current workout and nutrition program is working for you, or if you need to make adjustments. |
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Testing Your Bodyfat Percentage… In addition to keeping track of your bodyweight you also need to keep track of your bodyfat percentage with a bodyfat tester. Ideally you should measure your bodyfat percentage every 2 weeks. Bodyfat percentage doesn’t change as quickly as bodyweight. So simply measuring it once every 2 weeks is plenty to give you an accurate view of your progress. I have a complete video tutorial showing how to measure your bodyfat percentage, along with an online bodyfat percentage calculator, this is posted in the video section of the members website. |
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Taking Your Measurements… When you measure your bodyfat percentage you should also take your body measurements such as your waist, hips, arms, thighs, etc. and write them down. Even write down how you measured yourself. For example, take measurements at:
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Note: You gotta measure arms flexed! It helps boost the ego LOL
Write down all of your body measurement numbers in your journal. This way you can refer back to them as you progress with your Total Fitness Bodybuilding Program.
Taking Progress Pictures…
In addition to taking your measurements, you also need to take progress pictures. Now I know some people are camera shy. But these are not pictures that you have to go posting all over Facebook (unless you want to). They are simply for your own personal records to ensure you are on the right track towards building the lean muscular body you want.
The idea is to keep a visual record of your progress. Trust me this can be one of the most motivating and inspiring things about your whole physique transformation. No doubt you’ve seen some very inspiring “before” and “after” pictures from others on my website. Now imagine how incredible it would feel to see your very own “before” and “after” physique transformation!
When you take progress pictures make sure to take them in the same place, with the same camera, and with the same lighting each time. Different cameras and lighting conditions can sometimes make you appear better or worse so try to be consistent with all your progress pictures.
To show you an example, just take a look at some of my progress pictures while training for the 2010 Atlantic Canadian Bodybuilding Championships. These were taken in 5-week increments, 10-weeks total time span from the “before” and the “after” picture.
The Next Step…
So now that we’ve covered all the things you need to be tracking:
– Bodyweight
– Bodyfat Percentage
– Body Measurements
– Progress Pictures
The next step is to actually take all this information and use it to make an educated decision on how to best adjust your training and nutrition program so you achieve your personal fitness goals. In the next section “Modifying Your Program” I’ll show you exactly how to do just that…
Click Here To Learn How To Modify Your Program.
If you have any questions or comments about how to monitor your progress,
please post them in the forum and we’ll chat there 🙂