How To Track Your Fitness Goals

amberlynwellbeing
Jan 30, 2024
4 min read

Are you starting a new goal or want to become re-centered on an old one? D

o you want to figure out how to track it and help you stay accountable and motivated? There is no one way when it comes to tracking. You are going to have to take into consideration what types of things motivate you the best, what mode you prefer, and which way can be more tailored to your goal.

Why Track?

More than anything else, tracking is a great way to visualize your progress over a certain amount of time.

Tracking is a great way to hold yourself accountable, in most cases tracking has a positive relationship with motivation and the longer you track the higher the chances are of developing a positive relationship with movement and exercise.

You are aware. You are aware of what you are and are not doing. Being aware of your behaviors and patterns is half the battle. The struggle comes in when judgment follows the tracking. If you struggle with harsh self judgement remember that tracking progress is about collecting data.

Some studies show that fitness trackers are helpful when they are accompanied by some kind of partner feature and app. The added element of another person(s) provides a sense of community and another level of accountability. Apps that are used in conjunction with fitness trackers can provide metrics we might not otherwise think about, can show you against others and provide infographics.

As we're talking about apps let’s get into different ways you can track your goals.

How To Track

Digitally:

Fitness Apps: There are ones that you can manually input your information and there are ones that can connect to some kind of smart watch and do so for you.

There are so many apps out there, you just have to find one that you will actually use and is specific to what you would like to track and your goals.

Strava - Main focus is aerobic activities (running, walking, cycling, hiking and swimming) will track your distance, time, and show you your route
Strong - Primarily for strength training and lifting weights and shows you your progress over time
Fitbit: Health & Fitness - You can track about anything when it comes to fitness (sleep, hydration, steps, workouts). Will show you progress and you can set goals

Electronic Fitness Trackers: These more often than not are going to look like watches. All fitness devices come with some kind of app and many will be compatible with 3rd party apps. Common brands include:

Apple Watch
Fitbit
Garmin
Google Pixel Watch

Excel Sheet or Google Doc: You can build something from scratch and not complicated. You can choose what variables you would like to track.

Planning/General Wellness Apps: These typically offer more freedom and flexibility when it comes to what you can track. Some you can get very specific with what you want others you can be fairly general. Most of these focus on overall wellbeing than just fitness.

Notion - You can customize entirely to what you want to do. You can used premade page templates or build one from scratch. It allows plenty of flexibility in what you track.
Me+ Daily Routine Planner - Focuses on self-care and building a daily routine. Can record not only goals and habits but also your mood and thoughts. There are plenty of in app resources.
Habit Tracker - Designed to help you reach goals and build habits. Shows you progress with stats and graphs
Finch - It sets out to be a self-care app. It gives you suggestions on what to track and you can add anything you would like. You are give a pet and each time you complete a task or habit you are better taking care of the pet.

Analog:

Fitness Journal: There are plenty of fitness journals you can buy. All the spreads are all ready made for you, and you just fill in what you would like. They usually have a goal and intention section. Many come with a calendar. Again you can find one that fits your style and what you would like to track:

Commit30 - A standard planner with with some extras. It is built as a month to month challenge, where you make a goal each month and how you are going to accomplish it.
Training for a Healthy Lifestyle - Is based on daily spreads. Has your goal, a food tracker, exercise tracker and a few other questions to ask yourself.
Clever Fox Fitness & Food Journal - Geared towards strength training, provides spreads where you can input your reps, sets, and weights. Has a goals section and a tracking section. Has a food, macro, and measurement tracking section
GoneForARun Running Journal - specific for runners. Each day you can record your run, how far, fast, weather and route. It has a goals section and a monthly and weekly tracking page to see mileage. Page for races and extra pages for notes

Calendar: Analog version of excel or google doc, just a bit more limited.

Make Fitness Journal: If you are a journaling person I highly recommend this one. I prefer this one. You can choose different types of journals and completely personalize what you would like to track or not. There will be no pages that you are not interested in using. You can use your creativity and find what set up works best for you. You can make it as complex or simple as you want.

Tracking your goals, progress and behaviors can be helpful in promoting self efficacy, motivation, self confidence and more. It’s important to find trackers that work for you. To track things that help encourage a positive relationship with exercise.