Why should I keep my training diary up to date?
Working with athletes locally and remotely it is important that I can monitor and review an athlete’s progression. As you all know your regular 4 weekly programme is based around your work or life schedule. However that’s no guarantee that you are going to do the exact session that is set or on the day it is set for.
The beauty of Training Peaks is that it allows me to log in to your diary at anytime and keep up with progress and/or responses to workouts. This only works if the diary is up-to-date, and the post workout comments are filled in. This doesn’t mean you need to put something in the post workout box every time only when there is something you need to let me know. If the session turns green with no comments It is assumed that all is OK. The important fact is that the diary is filled in on a regular basis and comments added where necessary.
Here is a breakdown of the information that we like to be recorded:-
WORKOUT -
Duration of session, distance covered, time of day, weather conditions (for outdoor sessions), content of workout (content of warm up, main set & cool down) physical responses to each section (RPE, Heart rate, power outputs, Pace etc) some brief thoughts about your performance in the session
Comments may include – felt really good on main set, had to focus on last 2 reps to hold cadence.
HR on finishing each rep was 162/164/165/167/168 which is about where I’d expect. Felt I could have pushed harder so will bear this in mind next time.
- Workout duration – 1 hr
- Distance Covered – 13miles
- Avg HR – 158
This can also include additional information such as Power, Speed, Pace or any other measure you feel will be beneficial.
There is enough detail here to raise any questions from me if need be, and you have something to look back on and compare as you progress through the season.
LIFESTYLE - As well as training information we also like athletes to keep other information such as…
Hours of sleep, quality of sleep, stress levels, motivation to train, muscle soreness, general fatigue levels.
Apart from the sleep quantity everything else should be scored out of 10 with 1 = horrible and 10 = fantastic. Training Peaks uses a slider bar as shown in the diagram below. The best scores are green and the worst scores are red
Using these daily metrics in conjunction with the training diary provides a fuller picture, not just of the training that you complete but also your physiological responses to it. If after the previous example of the turbo session you didn’t sleep well, your legs were unduly sore and you were more fatigued than normal, this might indicate that either the session was too hard at that particular time or that with everything else that was in your life, you didn’t have enough chance to recover. Either way, extra recovery was needed.
SUMMARY
Some athletes don’t like to keep a training diary. That’s a personal thing but this is a missed opportunity to progress and develop as an athlete. If you were to keep a record of your training in the manner described above it will help you with the following.
- Record what you have done and how you responded
- Provide clues as to what worked and what didn’t.
- Give you an insight into how training and lifestyle interact
- Allow you to work out what was the cause of an illness or injury
- Give you a basis from which to develop future training plans
Train hard but keep it fun....and safe J
Brian
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