Know Thyself: Becoming a Skilled Fitness Tracker
Being able to track animals in the wild takes knowing the environment as well as the animal itself. The skilled tracker can gain an advantage in finding its prey. This goes for the man hunter as well. The skills of tracking is important in another arena as well – fitness.
Back in my early days of fitness I used to keep track of my workouts. This was to see what worked and what didn’t work. I’d use a journal in that way. For example, whenever I’d train for swimming competitions, I would keep track of my time, the type of workouts I did and at times, what I ate.
Speaking of eating, I’ll never forget my first swim training for a team. I went to train after eating a spaghetti meal. I was full and paid for it at practice. Needless to say, I ran to the restroom and barfed my guts out. ‘Nuff said on that. Though, it was my first tracking of what not to eat so close to training. Ha ha!
Many athletes would keep a journal of their training. I still see that today. It’s important to know what works and what doesn’t work. That includes how you feel from day-to-day regarding training. Keeping close track of your training, what you eat, your mental state and so forth will enable to you to be your best. Today, we have a variety of computerized fitness tracking devices, such as the ones by Fitbit. While I haven’t used any of them, Fitbit is among the best and most trusted. Though, the Fitbit Force was recently recalled due to skin irritation by its users. Their Fitbit One has been highly recommended by many reviewers. In the future I’ll do a review of many of the different fitness trackers.
In the past we had the mechanical pedometers and the computerized fitness trackers will do that much more. Still, my recommendation is to keep track of all areas of your fitness. That includes keeping a detailed journal. If you’re good at using a spreadsheet program, such as Excel, then you can add that to your tracking.
The cool thing about keeping a journal is that you can take the information you learned about how you respond and teach it to others. Heck, you might even create a course around it. The most important thing is that you’ll get to know yourself much better. In a sense, that journal will become an operator’s manual for your body and physical fitness. You’ll be able to look back see what worked in a given training session and use it again.
You can use any notebook to track yourself in fitness. Composition books are low cost and effective. I use them all the time. Put down all you do into it. That includes exercises you do, any other physical activity, diet, mindset, emotions and so forth. Again, you’ll really learn about yourself, even beyond the realm of fitness. I wish you much success as you become your most fit and best version of you.
“Transformational Master Black Belt” America’s #1 Mind-Body Transformation Expert and author of Mind Your Own Fitness
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