Measuring Progress

This may be the most important thing you can do to achieve your goals. It allows you to see progress and keeps you motivated. I made the mistake of not taking measurements and getting a body composition test done, and I have no idea how much I've improved over the last year. The scale hasn't changed much, but I keep getting comments about how I look different.

There are a couple of things you can do to measure progress, some better than others. The scale is the most common and the most useless. Fat is far less dense than muscle, so you could replace 5 pounds of fat with muscle, and the scale would never tell you. But measurements would have shown you've gone down a size.

Probably the best tool for measuring progress are the dreaded before and after photos. To me, I look the same as I did a year ago, cause the changes are gradual and my self image changes right along with my body. A true change is never registered. But a glimpse at a picture from a year ago and today, and it becomes obvious I have changed.

Don't put it off, take a picture of yourself!!

Another easy way to measure progress is to take measurements with a measuring tape. It's pretty straight forward, take measurements of some key areas: waist, thighs, chest, arms, shoulders. Take measurements every month and track your progress.

If bodyfat is your main concern, you may want to buy some calipers and learn to do body composition tests, or go to get them done at your local health club. They only cost around 10-30 dollars for a caliper test, and can be a quite accurate method of tracking bodyfat.

There exists an ongoing debate as to which methods are most accurate in determining body composition, but as long as you always use the same method, you'll have a relative measure that tells you if you've gained or lost fat. So If they tell you you've got 15% bodyfat, don't freak out, it could be out several percent. Just use it as a guideline.

Several web pages have online body composition calculators, you just plug in some measurements, age, sex, weight, height, etc. and it spits out a bodyfat estimate. I don't know how accurate these things are, but again, they may suffice as a relative measure.

I'll get some links to such calculators soon!

What should you do?

Take before and after pictures!
Avoid stepping on a scale.
Measure and record key body part sizes.
Keep a training log (maybe even a food log).
Maybe get a body composition test done.

Measuring Training Progress

If you are serious about weight training and bodybuilding, you should use a training log. Keep track of exercises, reps, sets, weight, rest, tempo, and any other factor you can think of.

This is usefull for a variety of reasons. You can see if you are making progress on the program you are on. You can look back to see what program brought the greatest gains in the past. You might learn to spot overtraining trends and avoid them.

Here's a sample training log. It's pretty straight forward. The arrows on the left are to indicate if you had an increase or decrease in weight lifted, or you could use it to indicate if you want more or less intensity in your next session. Under exercise you list the exercises you are doing. For each set you indicate the number of reps and what weight you used, i.e. 10@135 would mean ten reps with 135 pounds.

Underneath that you can record the speed you lifted the weight at. The convention used is as follows: first digit is lowering (eccentric) speed, second digit is the pause at the bottom, and the third digit is the lifting (concentric) speed. For example: 402 means lower for a count of four, no pause, lift for a count of 2. Sometimes you might use an X instead of a number indicating an explosive lift. You should never use an X for the lowering part of a rep!!! I've seen people who should be using a B for bounce (of their chest) for the middle digit, they should have their heads examined!!

Last Modified:
February 10, 2000

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