The Value Of Keeping Training Records?

[old] GeorgeD · Post by **[old] GeorgeD** » June 1st, 2004, 3:56 am

I have always read that athletes who record information regarding their training generally outperform or see better progress than those who dont. The premis being I guess that by refering back we can learn from our mistakes and successes and seek to eliminate one and build on the other. I keep a basic note of all my sessions but would have to say that it is not in a format that would necessarily lend itself to 'introspection and reflection'. Does anyone out there use their 'diary' as a tool in the prescibed manner. If so what form does their recording take and in what form did the analysis take? (big questions I know). An aside to that would be the assumption on my part that you would need a fairly extended period of data to build a base upon which you could justifiably make decisions. Tks

[old] jamesg · Post by **[old] jamesg** » June 2nd, 2004, 3:18 am

It's a bit narcissistic to drip sweat on the kb as I note my daily distance, time, weight, rating and let the ss calculate W/kg, Wmin/stroke, totals, averages etc; but I don't think it does me any harm. Except that I can see myself getting older.

[old] Cran · Post by **[old] Cran** » June 2nd, 2004, 10:46 am

I only keep a record of my training when I have specific goals/targets. last year I kept logs of every session, drag/dist/time/pace/spm/hr for each split and a hr graph of every session. It is good for motivation as well as tracking improvement. At the moment I'm just doing about 7 hours a week on the erg, 5 hours a week on the water, plus 4 hours cycling and 1 hours running. And I'm not logging any of it. I did start logging metres on the on line ranking, but gave up after 2 weeks as I kept forgetting to log the sessions then I couldn't remember what I'd done.

[old] eurofoot13 · Post by **[old] eurofoot13** » June 2nd, 2004, 11:10 am

I have found that training logs help immensely. they honestly put the whole season in perspective for me. I just finished my spring season, and looking back through my logs, I cannnot believe the amount of a. hours I have put in and b. progress I have made. I didn't accomplish my goal for this season, but honestly looking at the logs, it doesn't matter. I have progressed so far as a rower, the actual fact of not acheiving my goal was secondary. without the logs, I don't think I would be as accepting of myself as I now am.

[old] Rogus · Post by **[old] Rogus** » June 2nd, 2004, 1:09 pm

If you are at all serious in your athletic activities and are trying to reach any goals you HAVE to keep a journal/diary. How else do you know how you got where you are and whether your training worked well or not? It's the only way to be able to track what works for you and what doesn't so you can revise your plan as necessary to acheive your goals.

[old] jjpisano · Post by **[old] jjpisano** » June 2nd, 2004, 4:37 pm

George D etc. I use a training log and its contents are varied. There are alot of details on my workouts. There are comments about how the workouts went. Also there are lots of comments about extenuating circumstances which end up being a commentary about my life in general. About sleep and kids and moods and work. I think a training log is invaluable. I can look up last year's training intensities and my weight on specific days and I can consult my past limits and I can look up my failures and steer my workouts away from things I can't perform. Recently I've been doing Heavy 10's and I was progressing from 10 strokes to 11 strokes with decreasing rest between intervals. After a few Heavy 11's, I had the withers - the workout is just not doable by me - the exact parameters of the workout are recorded and I will not make the same mistake again. My Heavy 10's workout this year is slightly different from last year's. I can compare this year's power to last year's power just by recreating last year's workout parameters. If I didn't have a training log, I would have only a vague idea whether I were improving my power or not. Jim Pisano

[old] Jim Barry · Post by **[old] Jim Barry** » June 2nd, 2004, 5:23 pm

In my log (excel workbook) I track meters for the session and the time it took. I'll out a check in one column if the session was "high quality" (aka Hard days) I do track other things like stroke rate and calc Meters per stroke and I have a notes column where I’ll put how I felt about the work and where my HR was at the end of the session (or ends of intervals). The key thing is I keep a rolling 30 day cumulative score on my meters, my intensity (watts derived from pace), my frequency and the number of hard days. Over the years this has given me a method of “weighing” my training. I’ll sometimes point out a time when I subjectively say I was training well (PB’s etc). I’ll look back at the training prior to that to get way of defining the path to get there. The last time I saw a lot of speed was, not surprisingly, when I was training hard and often. To quantify: I had been logging 200k covered in the prior 30 days and at 200 watts (about 2:00 pace). I worked out 70% of the days and I had 13 hard days. That is sort of a recipe for me. It can be another path of sorts to get there and be ready for that kind of training load, but I get prepared to train hard by hook or by crook. Now when I want to build to some new level I just nudge my training along (by hook or by crook) to work to the day when these stats are generally “Better” Right now my goal in the next 6 or 8 months is to see something like 300k (Volume), 200watts (Intensity) and 90% (frequency) with 13 hard days (count the quality sessions as one great coach once said). This past month (month 2 of a hopefully LONG build up) was 237k at 170watts and 11 hard days. Good “base” work. June is going to be better. The BIG thing this year is I hope to string a lot of “hot months” together. For one reason or another (maybe two kids under 4??) I’ve yet to put more than 3 “good months” together. --Jim Barry

[old] GeorgeD · Post by **[old] GeorgeD** » June 2nd, 2004, 5:36 pm

This is great stuff and I really appreciate the depth of replies as it calrifies a lot of my thoughts ... tks to everyone

[old] Bill · Post by **[old] Bill** » June 2nd, 2004, 10:56 pm

George, I keep a spreadsheet with various data recorded. Its useful to me to know what I could do a couple of months ago as I am now recovering from some minor injuries and flu. I will know when I have "got back to where I was" I get an idea of where I am relative to past efforts by looking at metres per heartbeat for a standard 8000 m piece at 2:03 S10PS. Another measure is fastest 8000m holding a steady pace and S10PS - my best ever was 1:57 - probably fairly simple for many people but very difficult for me. Another measure is using the polar software to compare heartbeat vs time for two different pieces by overlaying the graphs on top of eachother. I am quite numbers oriented so keeping these records makes intuitive sense to me - other people who are less inclined to use numbers to help visualise things may not enjoy keeping these records like I do.

[old] GeorgeD · Post by **[old] GeorgeD** » June 2nd, 2004, 11:27 pm

I think something I am taking from this is that it is important to maybe have some 'benchmark' workouts of differing distances or types that can be recorded and reviewed. Do you think PB attempts fill this criteria or is it better to look at the overall results from a week, maybe you could devise a series of workouts from short intervals thru to a 10k or 60 min row that you could do every 6 - 8 weeks over consecutive days to gauge progress. Further thoughts .... this approach is only really relevant if your training is built around macro and micro cycles in build up to targetted events, so how many people actually do that? If you are not doing that then ones training programme is likely to be unstructured and therefore reviewing recorded data may have little merit?

[old] jbhoren · Post by **[old] jbhoren** » June 3rd, 2004, 8:46 am

Shalom! I've been using Steven's Creek Software's "The Athlete's Diary" since I began jogging at the end of September 1996. I kept up with it, logging each and every workout -- believe me, it makes the "bad years" and slack periods noticable. When I bought my Concept2 in January 2002, I continued logging my rowing with The Athlete's Diary (it has a Save As HTML option, which lets me upload the workout file to my website) and, in parallel, I began recording my rowing on the Concept2 website. Keeping a log motivates me, helping me to set new goals and view my progress. It gives me gentle criticism, and it's always from someone who loves me (apologies to Woody Allen for paraphrasing his famous quote) And, certainly not least of all, it lets me strut my middle-aged jock stuff, for any-and-all who arrive at my website (but mostly, for myself). It's not enough for me to know that one time I actually rowed more than 13.6K in a 60-minute session, or that one time I actually rowed a half marathon -- seeing it "in print", surrounded by the lesser (but consistent) day-to-day workouts, lets me know that if I want to do them again (perhaps even better them), I can, and it shows me, Hansel-and-Gretel-like, just what I'm going to have to do to get back there. Who said logs were only for lumberjacks or fireplaces?