The Fitocracy Epoch

I've been going back to the gym for a few months now, and recently I decided (on a whim) that I would use Fitocracy to start keeping a record of what I was lifting. Previously I had dismissed the app as a passing fancy - something that would motivate you for a while, but eventually the novelty of it would wear out.

This time, however, I decided I would take it seriously. Record the actual weights I was doing, and not add an additional 500 kgs to each of my sets in order to level up to super saiyan.

If you haven't seen me recently, this is basically a self-portrait.

I would be honest and I would stick to it. The mobile phone became my most important accessory when going to the gym, and if I forgot I would borrow a pen from the counter and write my performance on my hand.

The difference was extraordinary.

If you've ever sifted through the enormous, most-often-contradictory information about weight training that is available on the internet you'll know that it gets confusing to the point where you start to devise a whole plan to take down the internet.

One thing I can swear by now: keep a record.

For the past 3 or 4 years, before I started using Fitocracy, I have been doing the same weight set, and the same rep range on nearly all my exercises. After, what I call, the Fitocracy Epoch, I was seeing steady gains on every one of my exercises. If it wasn't an increase in weight, I would at-least get an increase in reps. Once I hit a particular rep value for an exercise I would then increase the weight (not by much, maybe from 0.25 to 1 kilo depending on the exercise). Each week I would break at-least one personal record.

It is amazing how much of a difference keeping a record makes. Gains in gym usually happen in very, VERY small increments. The increments build up over the days and weeks, till you're lifting SUVs out of a ditch with your bare hands, and putting them back again so that you can get more reps in.

Don't shit yourself, do NOT shit yourself.....

Just seeing those records on paper makes you want to beat them, as opposed to going in every day and doing the same thing. If you never add on weight, the same exercise is going to tire you out, and you get the impression that you've worked out. If you add on too much weight, you're likely to perform too few reps, or suffer injury.

The only real way to add on muscle (barring diet of course) is through progressive increases in weights.

So keep a record. Whether it's fitocracy, some other app or even just a spreadsheet on your phone, keep a record. Pretty soon, you'll be seeing those gains you've always wanted.