The scale often fails to capture your complete progress, as it tends to overlook these five crucial factors.
You’ve likely experienced the scenario: you commit to prioritizing exercise for the year, diligently working out for several days. Yet, after a week or two, the scale fails to reflect any progress, leading to discouragement and abandonment of goals. However, true progress isn’t instantaneous; it requires patience and dedication over time. Additionally, while exercise occupies just one hour of your day, the remaining 23 hours significantly impact your outcomes. Relying solely on the scale to gauge fitness progress is flawed. Instead, factors such as workout intensity and exercise execution efficiency are pivotal. So, before dismissing your next workout, consider these five alternative methods for evaluating your fitness journey.
Your personal record now serves as your warm-up
Within the fitness realm, a personal record (PR) represents your maximum weight lifted for a single repetition, serving as a benchmark for assessing strength. When beginning your fitness journey, you typically start with lighter weights, progressively increasing them as you train. Thus, if 7 kilograms was your initial starting point and is now merely your warm-up, it unequivocally indicates notable strength gains. Such progress underscores your dedication and hard work over time, as strength development is an ongoing process.
Your form undergoes improvement
Initially, when starting our exercise journey, whether at the gym or home, our primary focus is on grasping proper movement techniques. Initially, there’s a lack of muscle sensation during the exercise. However, as you become proficient in the lift and can incorporate some weight, it indicates mastery of the basics. A valuable self-assessment criterion, especially beneficial for beginners, is feeling muscle soreness the following day after a workout, particularly in targeted areas like the legs. This soreness signifies a successful execution of exercises with a strong mind-muscle connection and proper form.
You experience the pump
Just like the saying goes, addicted to the pump! Likewise, experiencing a muscle pump is among the finest indicators of progress. Initially, your focus is on completing repetitions. Yet, over time, you start noticing muscle growth, feeling your arms becoming firmer and larger with each repetition. The pump becomes evident only after you’ve gained some muscle mass, and there’s no greater achievement than muscle building, given that natural muscle development is often more challenging than weight loss or gain.
You’re Familiar with the Exercises
Let’s be honest, we’ve all been there—thinking a lat pull-down was for the chest because of its downward motion. But as you delve into your fitness journey, you realize it’s actually targeting your back muscles, particularly the lats. Understanding which muscles each exercise targets and how many reps to perform signifies an improvement in your training efficiency.
You’re Experiencing Injuries
It may come as a surprise, but with consistent and intense training, minor injuries can occur. When you first start, your muscles are fresh and resilient, but with daily workouts, they can become overworked, increasing the risk of injury. While gym injuries are common, sustaining minor strains in areas like the lower back, hamstrings, or shoulders—muscle groups constantly engaged during exercises—can indicate progression in your fitness journey.