Excel for training Log?

[coolcolj]

Wondering who here uses Microsoft Excel for training logging?

I just got MS Office 2000 from my dad, after he upgraded to Office XP. Anyway Excel seems pretty cool for this, you can even creat custom formulas to total up tonnage and volume etc, plus graphs and so forth

 

[spatts]

It's awesome. I'm an accountant though, so I'm an excel junky...even use it for grocery lists.

I really like the graphs. I can just black out the cells I want, and tell it to graph the data. Nice to see your progress right there in front of you in a single picture. It's like the stock market...from day to day it's hard to follow, but I like being able to pull up a graph, set the date terms, and see the big picture.

 

[Tarheel]

I dont.

I started to one time, and I have about 7 months of records that I could compile in Excel. I just dont see how it would really help me, unless I was doing strict periodization and I wanted to see how my toneage fluctuated.

Do you record all lifts or just core lifts or what? How do you do Excel with WSB when you have ME and DE days?

 

[teen1216]

Well, I can see how Excel would be useful, but I do not currently use it because I am slowly working on my own training log and diet software.

 

[spatts]

I just track my lifts and accessory work from time to time to evaluate progress. For example, I noticed that my floor press was stuck at 177 pounds (raw of course) for MONTHS. So I changed up my accessory work for shoulders, and then this last week, I did ALOT more than I used to. So I guess it helps me not only organize the data, but to analyse it and evaluate what changes need to be made and which ones have worked.

 

[AustinTX]

...you can even creat custom formulas to total up tonnage and volume etc, plus graphs and so forth

yeah, I do. Use formulas to show % and lb gains on various lifts over time, also maintain body and BF measurments.

 

[Fatty4You]

I use excel, but only to make a sheet to write things down on. I usually have a grid that is split up into three columns - primary / Secondary / Terciary to mark down in which order i did an exercise on a particular date. Then each column is broken up into 5 columns, one for date and 4 for sets. Sometimes the 4 is too much, sometimes not enough, but generally i can finagle it to work just fine.

It really helps me see my progress overtime. Also, lets say i do incline press first and get a certain weight, then one day i do it as a secondary exercise and have to drop 30 lbs - i wont be bothered if i can see that i am up from the last time i did it as a secondary exercise.

I am thinking of switching over to index cards though, cause i dont have a printer

-Fatty

 

[coolcolj]

I like excel, but I still can't get it to be as good as I want a training log to be - sigh

wish I could code up my own. I think I'll just use a normal diary software for now, and use excel to plot tonnages etc

 

[TxArmyGuy]

I tried it once, but didn't like it...so I just keep a good stock pile of old training logs around to compare quickly

 

[zackdarnell]

I tried it once, but it got to be too much of a hassle and I ended up just gradually not doing it. I just write everything down in a notebook and keep all my old notebooks.