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Principles of ProgressPrinciples of Progress
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Work/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
Deliberate progression/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
Iterate/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
Composability/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
Be better, be specific/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
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Measure what matters/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
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Make it a game/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
Be flexible/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
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Members6) Measure what matters
If it's not measured it's not managed.
If you want to make changes, measure what matters.
Progress is measured by the numbers in your lifts, your body composition (body weight/fat/muscle), progress pictures, and lifestyle.
As discussed in [[5) Focus on what matters]], what matters in training is hard, effective reps and progressive overload, what matters in nutrition is caloric intake and protein, and what matters in recovery is sleep.
Measuring progress
Progress can be hard to measure, mainly because measurable progress takes time.
To be confident that progress is being made, you need a lot of data. And psychologically, being able to have several measures by which to measure progress can be helpful.
Generally, progress means you're adding muscle, losing body fat, or both.
You can measure this by tracking body weight, estimating body fat, and taking progress pictures.
Whether you're bulking or cutting, your body weight will be the primary indicator and feedback of success.
If you're cutting, and your body weight is going down over time, you're making progress. If you're bulking, and your body weight is going up over time, you're making progress.
Your body fat percentage is harder to directly measure, but there are bioelectric impedance machines in most gyms, hydrostatic body fat tests (dunk tanks), and even scanners (DEXA) that will be able to estimate your body fat. It's important to take all BF% measurements with a grain of salt though. There are many different variables including hydration, bloat, and inflammation that can affect the measurement devices. Even having body fat levels that are far from the average can give erroneous results.
Progress pictures are often the best way to quickly tell if your body composition is improving over time. If you can look at a picture from a year ago and notice differences in your physique, that's going to be better data than any body fat measurement could give you.
You can easily tell progress over long stretches by comparing your physique at the same body weight. If you can see that, at the same body weight, you have more muscle mass, you've improved your body composition.
Likewise, if you can get to the same visible level of body fat (usually only apparent at very low levels), but at a higher weight, that indicates muscle growth.
How to measure what matters in training
If you use the Deliberate Progression protocol found in [[1) Deliberate Progression]] and [[2) Iterate]], each set in a routine has a prescribed intensity, measured in RIR (Reps In Reserve). When you train, you perform reps until you get to the prescribed intensity (3,2,1, or None).
To measure effectiveness, you can rely on the feeling or sensation of the lift, but you also need video of your lifts to observe your form. You should be able to feel the muscles stretch and contract as you're performing the lift. Documenting your sets with video allows you to review the movements and make sure that you're performing the lifts correctly. Compare your execution to videos of knowledgeable lifters online to assess your form.
To measure your progressive overload, you need to track weight and reps for each set of your workout. There are a number of tools you can use to do this: workout tracking apps, spreadsheets, or even just a simple note is fine.
Per the Deliberate Progression protocol, you should aim for incremental improvement (increasing reps) or increasing weight and leveling up.
If you improve in reps each week until you level up to the next weight, then improve in reps with that weight until you level up again, and continue to repeat the process, you will progressively overload.
How to measure what matters in nutrition
Track your food. Track your food. Track your food.
If you want to make changes to your body, track your food.
There are many apps that allow you to do this, but any tool that has a database of common food items will work.
- *What is worth tracking?
Anything that has significant calories.
Most leafy greens, hot sauce, vegetables, water, and diet drinks don't contain enough calories to make a difference.
But if it has calories, and it goes in your mouth, it needs to go in the app.
Ideally, the majority of your food should be weighed or measured. It is really hard to accurately estimate food quantities visually. You need to weigh and measure if you want to be consistently within 5% accuracy.
A common recommendation for a caloric deficit is ~20%. Misestimating the amount of food you eat by 10% means your progress on a cut will take twice as long. And it is shockingly easy to be off on your estimates by 10+%.
Try it! Take an amount of any food. Guess how much food there is, or even better, try to guess how many calories are in that food. Now measure it using a food scale and log it in a food tracking app. Compare your results.
Even for people who have weighed, measured, and stuck to strict diets for years, it is hard to estimate food within 5%.
Errors of <5% will probably even out, so hand-waving some measurements is probably okay.
But if you care about making progress, you should track your food.
Recovery
The only worthwhile metric to track is the amount of time you sleep.
There are many ways to do this. You could keep a simple note or journal. You could use a sleep tracking app. You could use a wearable device. You could use a time tracker.
It doesn't matter what tool you use, but if you get to the point where your progress has stalled, tracking sleep makes it really easy to tell if you're just not recovering.
Sleep quality is another metric you could track, but it's also hard to quantify. Sure, some wearables have sleep quality metrics that may provide actionable data, but the feeling you have when you wake up and throughout the day probably tells you more about how well you slept than any device.
If you want to track sleep quality, jotting down how you feel when you wake up and throughout the day is probably going to give you as much insight as a sleep tracking device might give you.
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