WHY TRACKING PROVIDES YOU THE RESULTS YOU WANT

Often you will hear us say "Don’t forget to track your results in WODUP." Now there is always a WHY behind everything we say to you. While it may seem like a broken record if you are already tracking (great job!) there are a lot of our members who don’t. We want you to see and feel progress during your time at Pherform which can happen in a variety of ways. And in order for you to experience it there needs to be tracking.

Your fitness and health goals that you want to achieve may be different to another member. So your plan of attack should reflect what you want to achieve and move you from where you currently are to where you want to be.

What is the main reason to track? When you have data results, it gives you the motivation to keep going because you know the work you put in is paying off. Improving your health won’t come in instant gratification; it takes time and effort. So when you track it’s much easier for you to see the results. It’s only when you see some result that keeps us moving towards the long term goal.

There are a variety of things you can track that are related to health and wellness:

• Training

• Sleep

• Reproductive Health/Menstrual Cycle

• Recovery

• Nutrition

• Supplements

• Lifestyle

• Mental Health

• Mood

Did you notice we DIDN’T mention tracking your weight? While this CAN work for some, it doesn’t work for the majority because it’s not an accurate representation. There are so many factors that could affect it- when you ovulate, before your period, the time of day, what you ate. Its also a singular data point. We recommend only using the scale if you know you are in a mentally and physically good space. What we DO recommend is getting a Dexa Scan, which will give you body fat %, muscle mass, bone mass and much more. You can get this done in HK by contacting Glen at HKU.

Pherform’s intention, regardless of the goal, is to guide you in achieving those goals based on evidence-based, realistic and sustainable actions for you to feel confident, competent and in control of.  What matters most is what YOU want to achieve.

If you are just starting off in your health journey, here are a couple things we recommend tracking:

1. Your Training

This would include movements, reps and weights used as well as duration and intensity.  Every time you repeat a movement or workout you now have data of what weights you’ve used. This type of tracking gives you evident based tracking, so you can continue to progress.

We use a training app called WODUP that lists all the daily workouts you see in each class. These workouts list movements, reps, and recommendations. It has a section to write down notes if you want to jot anything down for the future.

2. Your Menstrual Cycle

Most Women go through a new menstrual cycle every month, which on average an American Women will have around 450 period in her lifetime. That’s a lot of periods! Every week of your cycle your body is producing different hormones and then reacting to the levels of each. Understanding when and why you are feeling certain ways plays a major affect on your mood, training, sleep and recovery. Here is a great article with more information on the menstrual cycle.

We recommend using an app to track this. There are a variety of different ones, such as The Apple Health app, Flow, Clue, Glo.

3. Sleep and Recovery

Sleep is hands down the best thing we can provide to our body. It allows our body and mind to reset, recover and regenerat. Each night we essentially go through 4 different stages, with each stage playing a different role. The goal is to have a balance between each stage. Awake sleep is a natural break in sleep (before and after falling asleep). Light Sleep guides you inter deeper stages. Your respiration slows down, heart rate increases, body temperature drops, muscles relax and may jerk and prepare you for sleep. Deep sleep focuses on restoring your body. Your blood pressure drops so the body can promote muscle growth and repair. This is done due to blood flow increase to muscles, growth hormone released, and tissue growth and cell repair occurs. Your brain flushes waste and shows long, slow brain waves. REM sleep re-energizes your mind. Your respiration increases, heart rate increases, Temperature regulation is switched off, vivid dreams may incur, and your body becomes immobile to stop you from acting out dreams. These all support benefits of memory, learning and problem solving. **Exercie can increase your body’s priorization of deep sleep the night after an intensive workout.

We recommend using an app to track this. You can use a tech like Apple Watch, Fitbit, Whoop, Oura ring or apps like pillow, sleep watch,

4. Nutrition

Because nutrition is fuel to your body it should make you feel better, not worse. It should create energy and feeling good for your training. If you’ve never tracked your nutrition before, or even if you have, you often don’t realize the quantity or quality of the foods consumed. We chat a lot more about nutrition here, which we suggest reading.

We recommend using apps such as Cronometer or My Fitness Pal.

While we mention using an app or device on all of the above you can ALWAYS track via a journal or notebook. This option is completely free!

There are so many benefits that Tracking can provide us. The first step is to establish what is most important in your current health journey and start there. Data will always be non bias and give us a true representation of the hard work you put in daily.