How to Track Workouts (And Why You Should)

Your workouts feel great. You’re pushing hard, lifting heavy, and not skipping sessions. 

But are you actually improving?

Tracking your workouts eliminates the guesswork because you always know:

• If you’re getting stronger over time
• If you’re doing enough training volume
• What you previously lifted, and for how many repetitions
• How hard you train on average

So, let’s explore the best ways to track workouts, what metrics to monitor, and what to look for in a training log.

Key Takeaways

1. Logging workouts helps you assess your performance and progress toward objective goals, such as gaining 16” arms or squatting 315 lbs.
   
   
2. To log workouts effectively, keep track of the exercises you’re doing, the number of sets, reps, RPE (or duration), and even your rest periods. Where relevant, write custom clarification notes (e.g., “Left knee pain affected my squat performance today.”).
   
   
3. Additional things worth logging include your body weight, how you feel (daily readiness), and recent life events that may have impacted the workout.
   
   
4. Logging workouts with an app involves less writing, it’s easier to change details, you can see your previous performance and notice trends more quickly, and the data is stored securely.
   
   
5. You can use workout templates (routines), change workout variables, monitor exercise performance, log crucial details like movements, sets, repetitions, and RPE, and write custom notes with Hevy.

Hevy – Workout Tracker

Create and log your workouts with Hevy and track your progress.

Create my workout

Hevy – Workout Tracker

Create and log your workout with Hevy and track your progress

Create my workout

Why Track Workouts in the First Place

Logging workouts means recording your performance in key metrics, regularly reviewing your progress, and taking action to improve your training plan. It helps you make guided programming decisions that help you get closer to objective goals like getting 16” arms, squatting 315 lbs, or running a 5K in 25 minutes.

For example, if you notice that your current training program doesn’t lead to an increase in your squat strength, you can make changes like:

• Doing the squat more often
• Experimenting with the load and repetitions
• Adjusting the number of sets and your target RPE
• Taking longer rest breaks between sets
• Adding one or two squat variations to your training 

But without data, it’s hard to remember all the details about your training, let alone make effective changes.

Of course, some people exercise to feel better and have more energy without chasing performance or aesthetic goals. If you’re in this camp, you’re okay with that, and you don’t want to bother with workout logging, keep doing what you’re doing.

The Most Important Gym Training Metrics to Track

1. Movements & Variations

Start each workout with the exercises and variations you’re doing. To be as detailed and accurate as possible, you can also write notes to clarify things, such as:

• A modification you’re doing for an exercise like split squats (e.g., front foot elevated on a 4” step platform)
• Your body weight for that day on bodyweight activities like pull-ups (e.g., 155 lbs this morning)
• A nagging ache that may have affected your performance (e.g., sciatic flare-up after the third set of squats)

In Hevy, you can freely add movements to any workout and write a note to any exercise to clarify details that could be useful when reviewing your completed strength training sessions later.

2. Sets, Repetitions and Weight, or Duration

Log the number of sets, reps and weight, or duration. You could go with a minimalistic approach like “5×5 w/ 285 lbs” when doing identical sets, but a better approach is to document your performance on each set individually. 

This makes it easier to review your performance later and see precisely how you’ve done on a particular exercise. As such, it’s easier to tell if you’re making progress now. 

For example, I use Hevy to log my workouts. I can easily add or remove sets for any exercise, write down my repetitions and weight for each lift, and see my previous performance (under the Previous column). 

That way, I don’t have to guess what I did before or wonder if I’m actually doing better now than I did previously. Plus, logging my sets one at a time means I don’t have to remember if I just completed my 3rd or 4th set and can instead focus on catching my breath so the purple spots go away.

3. Rest Periods

There is debate about whether you should monitor your rest intervals between sets and adhere to specific rules or rest intuitively and start each set when you feel somewhat recovered. 

In general, you can rest intuitively, but it takes some experience to tell when you’re ready for the next set. Rushing back can affect your performance and overall training volume, which could lead to slower strength or muscle gain progress. 

For instance, let’s say you’re doing the 5×5 beginner strength program, which generally calls for 2—to 3-minute breaks between sets. This is necessary to recover well even if you don’t feel out of breath and to continue getting five repetitions on each set, and will create the required overload so you can add more weight for the next workout. 

Resting too little can cause your set-to-set performance to drop and prevent you from adding weight for the next session.

On the other hand, resting too long can break your momentum, cause your muscles to cool a bit, take your mind out of it, and affect your performance. So that’s not good, either.

As in Goldilocks’ tale, the sweet spot is in the middle. But unless you’re disciplined and mindful at the gym (i.e., no excessive chatting with gym buddies or endless scrolling on Instagram) to tell when you’ve rested enough, it might be best to follow basic rules and use a timer:

• 3-5 minutes of rest on heavy (1-6 reps), strength-promoting sets
• 2-3 minutes on moderate (5-10 reps) sets on compound lifts like leg presses and pull-ups
• 1.5-2 minutes on accessory/isolation lifts where you do 10-15 reps
• 1-1.5 minutes on light (15-20+ reps) isolation work close to the end of your workout

You can set a global rest timer in Hevy’s workout settings (say, two minutes) and adjust it up or down on individual activities. Then, as you mark a set as complete, the timer starts, and you don’t need to guess when to start the next set or exercise.

4. RPE

RPE, or rate of perceived exertion, is a chart to monitor your effort from set to set. In the context of weight training, this is a 10-point scale you can use to see how many repetitions you’ve left in the tank at the end of a set. For example:

• RPE 10 – to failure; couldn’t have done more repetitions or lifted more weight
• RPE 9.5 – couldn’t have done more repetitions but could have possibly lifted a bit more
• RPE 9 – one rep in the tank
• RPE 8.5 – one or possibly two repetitions in the tank
• RPE 8 – two repetitions in the tank
• RPE 7.5 – two or possibly three repetitions in the tank
• RPE 7 – three repetitions in the tank
• RPE 6 – around four repetitions in the tank; moderate effort
• RPE 1-5 – low effort, hard to tell the exact number of repetitions in the tank

The closer you are to muscle failure (RPE 10), the more accurate you’re likely to be with your estimation. 

As a rule, you should do most of your training within an RPE of 7-8 to ensure you work hard enough without reaching failure and risking technique breakdown or excessive fatigue. 

For instance, Hevy allows you to log your RPE on all sets and exercises or just the main lifts you want to get stronger on: squats, bench presses, deadlifts, rows, shoulder presses, and such.

Other Things to Log For a More Complete Picture

Tracking the above already puts you ahead of many people who train but don’t take the time to log their workouts. That said, you can take things a step further to get a more complete picture and make it easier for yourself when reviewing your performance later. 

So, let’s look at three additional things worth monitoring:

• Body weight – weigh yourself in the morning and write it down next to your workout or as a note for a bodyweight exercise like pull-ups. This can provide additional insight into your performance and why it might be better or worse than usual.
  
  
• Daily readiness – a subjective measure of how prepared and motivated you feel to train on a given day. It’s influenced by factors such as sleep, nutrition, hydration, life stress, and recovery from previous workouts.
  
  You could measure it as bad, average, or excellent and write the score once you’ve completed your workout. Also, make a mental note of how you feel before the session and compare it to how you feel afterward.
  
  I recommend doing it that way because you may not initially feel super energized and motivated, but that can change as you warm up and do your session.
  
  
• Unforeseen circumstances – this broad category can include different things currently happening in your life. For instance, maybe you have a newborn baby that kept you up for four hours last night or knee pain that stopped you from going heavy on leg day.
  

These notes can be brief or detailed – whatever makes it easier to review your performance later. For instance:

How to Track Workouts in 1-2-3

1. Write the date, the workout’s title (e.g., Push 1), and your body weight at the top. Leave some room for a brief note at the top: weight, daily readiness, and other relevant info.
   
   If you plan to use Hevy to log workouts, you can write the session title and a note at the end. The app will automatically add the date, time, and session duration.
   
   
2. Log the exercises, individual sets, and the repetitions, weight, and RPE, or duration for each set. You can also write how long you rest between sets if it’s relevant to your own training.
   
   
3. Write notes next to relevant exercises––for example, if a nagging ache affects your performance or you feel strong on a given lift.

You can add more details, but a simpler approach is generally better. It’s easier to review your performance later and not feel overwhelmed when it’s time to change training variables.

Why a Workout Logging App > Pen & Paper Fitness Journal

Using physical log books is an old-school approach that works well enough. However, as someone who’s tracked my workouts extensively using both methods, I can confidently say that an app is more efficient. Here’s why:

1. Less Writing Involved

One cool advantage of a good workout tracker is that you don’t have to create every workout from scratch. Instead, you can make your templates, reuse them, and change details about them only when necessary.

It looks like this:

Open the app > Start a workout from a template > Maybe adjust some details (like swapping an exercise if a gym machine is super busy) > Log your performance > Write a note or summary for the workout > Save

(This is how logging a workout in Hevy looks.)

A good app like Hevy will also work on smartwatches (like an Apple Watch or a WearOS device), so you can log workouts even if your phone is not with you in the weight room.

In contrast, using pen and paper means you must write everything from scratch, which can take you a good few minutes and get tedious after a while. 

2. Less Messy

The problem with pen and paper is that changing training details can get messy. For example, imagine you’ve written your workout and only need to add the weight and repetitions. But then something comes up, and you need to leave the gym early or change an exercise.

In contrast, logging workouts with an app is always clean because you can freely add or remove exercises and change details without making a mess.

3. Easier to See Previous Performance

The easiest way to see what you did last time is to open the log, flip through the pages to last week, and find the exercise. Then flip to the current workout and start logging. Then flip back because you forgot the numbers. 

In Hevy, you can readily see your past performance on any exercise in your workout under the Previous tab. The info is always right there, so you know what you need to do now to create an overload.

4. Easier to Spot Trends

Monitoring performance on a single exercise can be difficult when using a workout log because it involves a fair amount of flipping through pages and typically requires writing the numbers side by side.

A good workout logging app stores the data so you can easily see your performance on each lift, track your personal records, and determine if you’re getting closer to your goal. 

No flipping through pages and writing numbers side by side. Simply log your workouts and access your history when you need to.

5. Automatic Rest Timer

This isn’t a concern if you have the experience and prefer to rest intuitively, but it can be a disadvantage if you want to track your rest times. You’d need to log a set, open the stopwatch or timer on your phone, and start it. 

In contrast, Hevy allows you to set a rest timer for each exercise and trigger it automatically when you mark a set as completed. This allows for a more seamless logging experience.

6. Training Logs Wear Out

Some people prefer the physical feel of a log in our increasingly digitalized world. But keep in mind that, between carrying it around and opening it to write and review workouts, the log wears out, especially if you use it with sweaty or chalk-covered hands. 

And what if you lose it or spill a liquid on it? You could lose months of valuable training data. 

In contrast, while an app might not give you that same feeling you’d get from a log, it doesn’t wear out, and your data is safely stored even if something happens on your phone. You can always access and export your training history.

Conclusion

Logging your workouts is essential to monitoring your performance and ensuring you’re doing enough on your fitness journey for continuous improvement toward your goal. 

It also eliminates the need to remember every tiny detail about your training. Simply look at what you did before, adjust for the current session, and get to work.

An app is more practical than a physical log because it’s less messy when making changes to a workout, you can more easily see your previous performance, and you can spot progress trends on each exercise. Plus, you don’t need to write all the details from scratch before every workout.

Hevy is a fantastic workout logger you can use to document your training, see your previous workouts at a glance, dive into advanced statistics (such as your performance on specific lifts), and enjoy neat options like an automatic rest timer.

Learn about the app’s features here, or download it and test everything for free.

Hevy – Workout Tracker

Create and log your workouts with Hevy and track your progress.

Create my workout

Hevy – Workout Tracker

Create and log your workout with Hevy and track your progress

Create my workout

FAQ

1. How often should I review my workout data?

You can review your weekly performance to set goals for your upcoming sessions and monitor monthly trends to see if you’re progressing.

2. Should I use a workout logger app or a log book?

A good app will be more convenient because it will allow you to log sessions more automatically, reference your previous performance more easily, and use analytics to track long-term progress and spot strength plateaus.

3. What are some common workout logging mistakes to avoid?

Common mistakes include logging workouts inconsistently, focusing only on the numbers and ignoring proper technique, and changing workout details (like the order or selection of the exercises) too often. These can lead to inconsistent and inaccurate data, making it difficult to tell if you’re actually improving.