By tracking your workouts in a workout log app, you can significantly improve your strength training results.
This is because a workout log helps you with the fundamental rule of strength training progress: lifting more than last time.
In this article, I’ll explain how our workout log app, StrengthLog, can help you accomplish this and also how you can use the benefits of a workout app to the fullest.
What Is a Workout Log App?
In short, a workout log app (also called a workout tracker) is an app in which you log your workouts.
You enter the time and date, the exercises you performed, how much weight you lifted, and the number of sets and reps you did.
Basically, it’s a journal, but by doing it digitally, you can get plenty of benefits that you don’t get from a paper workout log.
The Big, Juicy Benefit of Using a Workout Log
If there is one reason to track your strength training in a workout log, it is to be able to do this:
- Write down what you did in your workout.
- The next time you work out, look at what you did last time and do slightly more.
That is the secret.
Your body adapts to the stress you put it through. If you’ve lifted a certain weight a certain number of times, your body will have adapted by building slightly larger muscles and getting a little stronger. In order to keep getting bigger and stronger, you need to increase the stimulus.
If you squatted three sets of five reps with 50 kg (110 lb) in the last workout, you try to do three sets of five reps with 52.5 kg (115 lb) today.
The wonderful, magical thing that a workout log does is that it helps you remember what you lifted in an exercise the last time and do a bit more in your next workout.
How To Use Our Workout Log App To Lift More Than Last Time
Helping you lift more than last time is at the heart of our app StrengthLog, and there are many ways in which we help you do so.
Here are the two main ways to see and improve on what you did last time:
- Train a previous workout again. You can open your training log and tap your last workout (or whichever you want to copy). Then, you can choose “train again” and start a new, similar workout. You can choose if you want the weights and reps to be identical to last time or if they should increase by, for example, one rep or 2.5 kg (5 lb).
- Import from exercise history. Alternatively, you can start a brand new workout and add an exercise. Tap the “…” buttons next to the exercise name, and then tap “History”. Here, you can see all the previous times you performed this exercise, and you can copy the last (or any other) workout’s sets, reps, and weights into your current workout. Once again, you can choose to make an identical copy or modify the weights and reps.
If you don’t want to copy a specific workout, you can use your exercise statistics to make an informed choice about how to train.
StrengthLog keeps track of every set you’ve ever done in every exercise, and offer up statistics on, for example:
- Your average weight used,
- Your average number of reps,
- Your PRs and YRs (Personal Records and Yearly Records).
You can use all of these stats to progress or increase your training stimulus.
If your average training weight in the bench press is 80 kg and your average number of reps per set is four, then any training with more than this means that you are challenging your muscles more than before.
Alternatively, you can go record-hunting.
Pull up your list of PRs in a given exercise, and try to beat one of them. We track your records for every repetition number, meaning that you can try to beat your best 1RM (repetition maximum), 3RM, 5RM, 10RM, and so on.
If you’ve been training for a long time and your PRs seem out of reach, you can begin by going after your Yearly Records instead.
Not Enough? Follow a Program
If you really want to commit to gaining muscle or strength, you could choose to follow a program.
We’ve got over a hundred strength training programs available in the StrengthLog app for different goals, such as muscle growth or strength gain, and for different circumstances (time-constrained, at-home training, etc.).
By following a program, you can drastically improve your odds of sticking to your workout habit. You will also gain peace of mind by knowing that you’re following a thought-through program with adequate rest periods, training volume, and smart exercise selection.
Try Our Free Workout Log App
Ready to level up your strength training by tracking your workouts and regularly trying to beat them?
Download StrengthLog for free with the buttons below, and get started!
Click here to read more about our workout log app.
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