Tracking your progress

You will never know how well you are doing if you don’t track progress. Tracking progress of your muscle mass gains is extremely important, but many people forget to do it. If you are serious about gaining muscle, then you need to constantly track your progress from your workouts. You should track weight and strength every time you workout. When I say strength, I mean you need to track the weight, reps, and sets of each exercise (I will show you how to do this later). You also need to test and record your body fat percentage and take measurements of your biceps, forearms, legs (thighs), and torso once a month on a regular basis. Lastly, I recommend taking pictures of yourself every 3 to 6 months. These pictures should be from the front and back with your arms on your hips and in the “bicep flexing” position. Then a picture from the side with your hands down and turned toward the camera. For men these pictures should be taken without a shirt. And for girls, these pictures should be taken with a sports bra on.

The pictures are a great way to keep you motivated and show you that you are actually working toward your muscle building goals. This way you can see the physical muscle gains, and not just the numbers to back it up. So, that is really all you need to know about tracking your process working out (this does not include the diet book, which I will discuss later). All it really requires is a journal or spiral notebook. This can be the same notebook that you write your goals in.