CrossFit Niagara

Your Training Bag…Your Training Journal
by Bob Takano - Takano Athletics

Back in the late 1960’s when the late Strength & Health was turned into a weightlifting magazine by Bill Starr and Tommy Suggs, Bill would regularly write about topics of immediate relevance to the weightlifter and thus it came about that he wrote an article about your training bag. Around the same time Tommy Kono contributed one about training journals. I think both were really important, and today I’ll give you my version, at least from a coach’s standpoint.

Training bags or gym bags. Occasionally one of my athletes will show up for a session without weightlifting shoes. This severely limits the range of exercises that can be prescribed. “Why don’t you have your shoes?” I query.

“I took them out of my car after the last workout and didn’t remember to bring them with me today,” is the usual answer.

“Why did you take them out of the car? Were you polishing them?”

“No.”

“DON’T TAKE YOUR WEIGHTLIFTING SHOES OUT OF YOUR CAR! KEEP THEM IN YOUR GYM BAG IN YOUR CAR SO YOU’LL ALWAYS HAVE THEM WITH YOU! YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU MIGHT RUN INTO A BARBELL!” is my usual, grouchy reply. I know that all the veteran coaches know these lyrics.

Your gym bag or training bag should always have everything in it that you’ll need for a workout and should be in your car all the time, unless you workout at home or take the bus. It should have a towel, extra chalk, analgesic rub if you use it, ibuprofen if you use it, weightlifting straps, tape, wraps or supports, a belt if you use one, deodorant if you use it, training clothes, extra shoelaces, a laminated copy of your weightlifting registration card and your training journal along with a writing utensil. You do not need an MP3 player, gameboy or I-pod because you are an athlete, not a spa dude or bunny.

Let’s say you’re driving home from school or work and planning on picking up your gym bag and then going to workout at the gym. Your car breaks down. By the time you get the car towed and then get a rental car, you may not have enough time to go home, get your gym bag and go to workout. If you’re a serious lifter, once you drop off the car at the repair shop (or not) you call someone to pick you up and go to the gym. The workout is the thing and you have to try as much as possible not to let life intrude. This is an attitude that the champions have and eventually it becomes a part of the lifestyle.

Going to a meet can require even more severe crisis intervention. One of our better Southern California lifters during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s was a guy named Marshall Morris who eventually snatched a national junior record of 130 kg. in the 75 kg. class. He was driving up to the Junior Nationals (the old name of the American Championships) from Orange County in Southern California to San Jose in Northern California, a trip of more than 400 miles. Less than a third of the way on the trip north his car broke down and simply wouldn’t run any more. Marshall left it on the side of the road, took his fully loaded gym bag out of the trunk, hitchhiked to the meet in time for the weigh-in and lifted well enough to place. He took care of his car later.

Your Training Journal

This is an important tool for the development of a lifter, especially if you are not in a setting where you are a paid professional weightlifter with a paid professional coach. This will keep track of what worked and just as importantly what didn’t. Details are important here.

Your training journal should be something that is a convenient size (8 1/2 x 11 inches is too big) with a sturdy cover that will resist the dust and moisture that inevitably finds its way into a gym bag. A 4 x 6 inch diary with pre-printed dates is ideal.

Each day should have the day and date written or pre-printed. You can figure out if weekends are especially bad for your snatching or whatever this way. Weigh yourself at the same time each day on a reliable scale and keep track of that. This is a form of biofeedback, and eventually you will be able to “feel” your bodyweight quite accurately.

Write down the name of each exercise and then the specific poundages with reps and sets. If you are working off a pre-written workout with percentages, make sure to translate the percentages into poundages. Make sure that you make notations as to which lifts are made and missed.

You may want to write down any notes about factors that might have an effect on your training. Mood, energy levels, impending crises and external obligations are all factors that can influence the outcome of workouts and you and your coach need to take these into consideration when evaluating your training journal.

One of the critical indices that was developed in Eastern Europe to determine the loading of the training was the K-value. A fair amount of empirical knowledge went into the determination of the K-value for each athlete, and all of it can be derived by keeping track of the parameters mentioned in this article. I’ll go more into depth on the K-value in another article, but to make it work you will need to have recorded about two years worth of serious training.