The majority of us have trained at some point in our lives. Odds are that if you have ever taken your training seriously you  may have used a training journal or a training log.  No matter if you are training casually for fitness and recreation or if you are earnestly involved in speed and agility training, you can benefit from maintaining a journal of this sort.

The major difference between training journals and training logs, is what you write down in them following each workout session. Training journals are just that. They are more of a journal rather than a log. They will typically consist of things like your mental outlook at the time and how you felt over the course of the day or during your workout. You may want to include information about climatic conditions, training location, workout partners, and things of that kind. They can reach a bit into some statistical information but this is normally kept for a training record.

Training logs are usually shaped off of some type of a outline. For instance, everyday you fill out a sheet containing the same fields. Things like current weight, what physical exercises were being completed, diet information, are all things that might be put in a training log on a day to day basis. Distances run, amount of weight used, length and number of reps done and other sorts of training specific information is often included.  A log of speed and agility drills would probably include all the various drills that were done in previous sessions.

I would not suggest going exclusively one route or the other, both journaling and logging are important to keep an effective account of your past. You will discover through experience that for convenience sake, it’s good to have the two combined together in some way.  This way it’s always easy to remember to do both.

Advantages of Documenting Your Work Out

The number one benefit of documenting your training is to have a complete history to look back on. This could be extremely helpful in terms of planning for example to discover what has worked for you and what hasn’t. It’s very helpful for determining reasons for injuries or for times of burnout. The idea is to discover more about the things that influence your training and performance over time and adapt your current training regimen or behavior by taking those factors into account. Speed and agility training can benefit a lot from these. They are especially beneficial if you are keeping up with a specific speed and agility program that has several components.

Have you ever sat down and tried to plan out training with nothing to work with? If you have something to look back upon with a complete description of what you’ve done over the past few weeks it’s simple to plan ahead.  It will effectively enhance your workout intensity, etc to improve for the future.  A good illustration would be speed exercises.  Documenting distances, times, and coaching observations will help keep you focused on the vital elements of the training and provide you with a road map of sorts.

A complete journal is also really nice to have just for personal use, and to be able to look back on past months and years, to remember different accounts. You may even elect to create a blog or some articles someday and it will make a great source of information about your experiences.

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