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Free Printable Workout Log | Exercise & Training Logs

Use This Free Printable Workout Log To Keep Track of Your Exercise and Fitness Training & Progress in the Gym

Keeping a regular workout log or exercise log sheet is one of the best ways to make sure that you are constantly making progress toward your fitness and exercise goals in the gym.

Regardless of your goals or fitness experience, recording your workouts, cardio, and weight training in a daily exercise log can help you make sure that you are always moving forward in beating your last workout, as well as let you identify possible sticking points in your training before you hit a wall or plateau.

As I’ve mentioned before in previous articles, one of the seven habits of highly fit people is that they keep a log of their workouts and exercise to not only make sure they are always progressing, but also to hold themselves accountable. Writing down your daily exercise in a log makes you mindful of what you are doing and allows you to review your progress after each workout or training session. It also let’s you build on each subsequent workout, so that you are always pushing yourself a little harder each time you hit the gym.

Why I Created This Free Workout Log

There are a number of free printable workout and exercise logs available on the Internet, as well as some excellent exercise logs that can be purchased at your local bookstore. However, after taking a look at the dozens of free blank exercise log sheets available on the web, I generally found that they didn’t treat exercise holistically enough.

Most of the workout logs used the generic Exercise/Weight/Reps/Sets formatting, and didn’t take into account other key factors that you need to keep track of, including rest periods, pre-and-post workout nutrition, training and fitness goals, sleep, duration of exercise and mind-body factors. All of these variables can impact your training performance and progress, regardless of whether you are a beginner or an advanced bodybuilder.

I also found that the formatting and visual presentation of most free printable workout logs left something to be desired. Having kept regular exercise logs for nearly five years, I know first hand the usability factors that can impact how easy it is for a person to consistently and effectively keep an exercise or workout log in a busy gym environment. 

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Total Body Workout with Weight Machines | Workout Routines

Not ready for the free weight room? This total body workout routine uses the most common weight machines at the gym to give your entire body a great workout in under 60 minutes.

Total body workouts (also known as “full body workouts”) are a great way to build muscle, burn fat, develop core stability and strength, and cut down on your overall time in the gym. Generally, total body workouts are most effective when they are built around compound, multi-joint exercises that use free weights like dumbbells and barbells.

But not everyone feels comfortable in the free weight room, and if you are just starting a resistance or weight training routine, it can take some practice to learn how to perform free weight exercises with good form.  Weight machines can provide a way for newcomers to get a feel for basic form and movement, build a nice strength foundation, and eventually feel more comfortable transitioning into free weight exercises.

Incorporating weight training machines into your workout can also benefit advanced trainees as well, since machines allow you to go with heavier weight than you can typically use in a free weight lift. This can be useful for breaking training plateaus. And because weight machines don’t require you to swap out plates, you can typically move through your workout more quickly — a plus if you are pressed for time.

So by popular demand, I’ve created a version of my free weight full body workout that is adapted to give you a total body workout using weight machines alone. Actually, this workout uses a combination of multi station weight training machines, cable exercise machines and some body weight exercise equipment like chin/dip stations. With a few exceptions, the same rules and guidelines of that total body workout apply to this version. We’ll recap those a bit later.

But first, let’s take a quick look at the advantages and disadvantages of using weight machines, instead of free weights, as part of a total body workout routine.

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Weight Machines | A Visual Guide to Gym Weight Machines

What do all those different weight machines at the gym do? Learn to identify and use the most common weight machines.

Making sense of all of the fitness equipment available to you in the gym can be daunting, especially for beginners.  Use this illustrated, visual guide to identify the most common weight machines and equipment in the gym.

Weight Machines for Your Chest 

Chest Press Machine

Chest Pec Deck/Chest Fly Machine

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Full Body Workout Plan | Workout Routines

This Full Body Workout Routine Not Only Builds Muscle But It Torches Fat  … in Less Than 60 Minutes.

Can you spare 60 minutes, three times a week?

If the answer is “yes” I have the perfect workout routine for you: A “Full Body Workout” program that will get you in-and-out of the gym in less than an hour, will amp up your metabolism for the next 48 hours and — after about a month — will give you noticeable improvements not only in your strength, but also your physique.

Oh, and expect to drop some body fat in the process.

Why A Full Body Workout?

Full body workouts are probably the single most under-utilized workout routines in the gym.

Regardless of your experience level or existing strength, working your entire body in a single session is not only challenging, but an extremely effective way to build muscle, strength and even burn fat in the process. Even experienced bodybuilders can reap the benefits of switching to a full body workout, especially if they’ve been on a split routine plan for an extended period of time.

Before we actually take a look at a full body workout routine, let’s quickly discuss some of the advantages of working your entire body in a single session and the basics you need to know about before getting started.

The Benefits of Full Body Workouts

There are a number of benefits to performing full body workouts, including:

• Better core development
• Less overall time in the gym
• Improved recovery intervals
• Reduced risk of overtraining
• Greater training frequency per muscle group
• Increased energy expenditure during and after training
• Increases in beneficial growth hormones
• Highly customizable to different training goals, whether that is strength, muscle size (hypertrophy) , endurance or a combination of the three
• Better overall muscular development and symmetry
• Reduced risk of developing muscle imbalances, especially among smaller stabilizer muscles
• Secondary cardiovascular benefits
• Appropriate for all ages and levels of experience, from beginners to advanced trainees

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Six Great Reasons To Keep an Exercise Log

Keeping an exercise log can help you stay on track with your fitness and diet goals.  Learn the six reasons why you need one.

Making progress toward your health, diet and fitness goals isn’t easy … especially if you aren’t keeping track of that progress. One of the seven healthy habits of highly-fit people is that they keep a log of their exercise (and often, diet) in order to keep themselves accountable.

But are exercise logs really necessary? Can’t you just keep track of your workouts in your head?

Check out these six reasons for keeping an exercise log or journal and decide for yourself:

Reason #1: Exercise Logs Let You Measure Progression

One of the basic principles of weight training is progression.

During each additional workout you need to challenge yourself to overload the muscle a little more than the last workout.  Depending on your goals, this progressive overload will continuously strengthen the muscle, increase endurance, size or a combination of the three.

However, if you don’t know how much weight you used, the number of repetitions or how many sets of a given exercise you performed, it becomes very difficult to consistently overload the muscle and make progress.

By keeping detailed notes of your exercises, the order in which they were performed in, the weight used, repetitions, sets and rest periods, you’ll always know exactly what you did in your previous workout. This will help you make sure that your next workout is slightly different and slightly more challenging than the last.

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Should I Use Free Weights or Weight Machines? | Weight Training Basics from Answer Fitness®

Free weights and weight machines each have their advantages and disadvantages. Learn how to use both to get great results in the gym.

Few issues are more hotly debated among health and fitness professionals than whether free weights are better than weight machines.

The good news is that you really don’t have to choose between the two, since they both can help you increase strength, build muscle and increase muscle definition.

There are, however, differences between the two. And understanding these differences can help you make better decisions about when each type of equipment is appropriate for your weight training, and how often you want to include them in your workout routine.

The Advantages of Weight Machines

Weight machines are often the first choice of equipment for people who are new to weight and strength training. And this is for good reason.

Weight machines by design encourage good form, because they limit the range of motion to the specified exercise you are performing. They also isolate the specific muscle group you are targeting by disengaging secondary muscle groups that normally are called upon stabilize the body during performance of an exercise.

If you’ve never performed a bench press (a free weight exercise), for example, you may not be familiar with how to align your arms properly in relation to your body in order to perform the exercise effectively and with minimal risk of injury. A chest press machine, on the other hand, will ensure that your arms are positioned correctly and will give you a sense for how the movement should be performed.

By starting out on weight machines, you can work on get a feel for the exercise, which can then be applied to a free weight workout.

Machine weights also tend to allow you to use more resistance, because you aren’t limited by the smaller (and often weaker) stabilizer muscles that are called upon to balance a free weight. This can help you make bigger gains in strength, and can help beginners establish a more solid base before moving on to more challenging free weight movements.

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Weight Training Basics: Making Sense of Weight, Repetitions and Sets

Learn the fundamentals of weight, reps, sets and form before you pick up the dumbbells.

Adding weight training into your workout isn’t as difficult as it seems. Understanding the four basic principles of weight training is a good start, but what about all of this talk about weight, reps, sets and form?

Understanding Weight, Repetitions and Sets

There are four basic terms you need to understand, because you will hear them frequently in the context of weight training.

Once you understand them, you’ll finally be ready to hit the weights with confidence and purpose:

1. Weight or Resistance
   This is the amount of weight that you lift or move during weight training. Choosing the right amount of weight is critical and it will vary based on your goals (that “specificity” thing again.) It will also have a direct impact on the amount of repetitions your perform. Repetitions and weight are tied so closely together, that it’s best to discuss them in relation to one another.
2. Repetitions
   Repetitions indicate the number of times you move a given weight during a specific exercise. So if you are doing bicep curls with a dumbbell, and you curl the weight twelve times in a row, you’ve performed twelve repetitions (also called “reps.”)  Determining how many repetitions you should perform is really a function of your goals as well as the amount of weight you choose to use. In general, you will want to perform as many reps with good form as the particular muscle you are training will allow before you cannot perform another rep. Obviously, the amount of weight you choose has a direct impact on the amount of repetitions you perform. The higher the weight, the less reps you’ll be able to perform.
3. Sets
   Sets are simply a grouping of repetitions for the same exercise seperated by a brief rest period. So let’s say you performed 12 repetitions of dumbell bicep curls, rested for two minutes, and performed 12 more repetitions of the same exercise. You will have performed two sets. Simple, huh?
4. Form
   Form means you perform a given exercise properly, with attention to the positioning of your body, your posture, the correct movement during the exercise and proper breathing techniques.  Practicing good form ensures that you thoroughly work the muscles through their intended range-of-motion and do so with minimal risk of injury.

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