I've logged every workout I've done over the last 14 years. I squat over 300 lbs and deadlift 450 lbs.

My roommate in university was an olympic lifter. The entire team logged their workouts. Serious athletes log workouts.

Also, you should read about high weight dead lifts and spine stress fractures. You are probably damaging your back.

Agreed, but logbooks are not a fitness regimen, they're a simple, useful technique for maintaining control of whatever fitness regimen you pick.

For me, this amounts to a spreadsheet where I track a few variables. Maintaining it takes 5 minutes a day.

I alluded to this above: your body responds best to randomly varying exercise. Both frequency and type. Take a few weeks off. Then work out three days in a row, a completely different form each day. Then twice a week, and so on. Don't work out on a predictable schedule. It pretty much happens if you listen to your body. This just isn't amenable to logs, but it has proven benefits to making fitness durable and affecting lean body mass. You want enough variety in what you're doing that exact volume and weight for a previous given lift isn't clearly relevant anymore.

My point is that the data is just really not going to be all that useful. It's not going to give you any meaningful linear projections. It's not going to tell you whether your body is stressed at a given time. If once a month you want to record your 100m time and how many pushups you can do that's one thing, but tracking each workout is almost surely a waste of time. Just mix it up a lot and go hard when you really feel like it.

In my experience, most successful bodybuilders take a scientific approach to their training. The main variables that affect physique are genetics, diet, and routine. Different diets and routines work for different people, so to achieve the best results it's important to experiment. A log book gives you data to learn how to improve your routine.

Even your point on the importance of varying routines is best achieved by using a log book. Try a steady routine for 3 months and measure your gains. Then try "dramatically varying" your routine for 3 months and measure your gains. Now you have data to support your own optimal workout plan.

Finally, to your point about picking up the pace: most routines involve rest between sets, so if you log while resting then it doesn't slow you down.

What you eat and at which points you eat it, what and how regularly you work out, whether you get enough sleep, and whether you currently have injuries are the most important factors. A fifth factor would probably be whether you have a workout partner to motivate you and spot you, so you always have a spotter, and thus can push yourself harder and get the most out of each exercise.

Genetics also controls things like metabolism and how well you respond to weight training, so you need to adjust your diet accordingly. I do agree with you that motivation and a good routine can create superior results in anyone. I was just pointing out that some people will have to work harder than others, diet harder, or eat more, or whatever.

Also, focusing on genetics ignores the fact that the exercise routines would be different for each person. Without knowing one's own genome sequence, a person who tries to stay active will learn what their body's preference is in terms of exercise. For me, I focused on muscle size. Other athletes focus on weight. Others focus on speed and conditioning. One will figure out which sports their body is meant for soon enough if they exercise regularly. The factors I've mentioned are also ones the person will learn to adjust--not their genetics.

I don't know much about my genetics except that I'm taller than my parents. But I have observed changes in my body after working out regularly. These changes included improvements in metabolism, hunger, body mass, mood, confidence, speed, and posture. My genetics presumably did not change in the same span of time. (Neither are they something I can control.)

So therefore, the person's activity level, amount of sleep, eating patterns, and a stable, consistent, work out routine are what matter the most.

Comparing two different people entirely (in other words, two people with different genetics) is purely theoretical and not practical, as each individual would have had different prior sports experience, confidence level, access to quality foods, knowledge about nutrition, free time, and more. Even if one did somehow match two people with the same activity levels at a given point in time, they are almost guaranteed to have entirely different results in the future for those reasons.

Similarly, two twins with identical genes will have huge differences in fitness if one considers the factors I've mentioned and one doesn't. Also, their metabolism levels, "bicep size", and other body features will be noticeably different.

Genes might cap one's maximum ability: some people have genetic diseases affecting their physical ability, while others have "caps" that are greater than those of other people. But while in the first case it might be easier to zero in on somebody's (physical) limits correctly, in everybody else, it is impossible to tell how strong, fast, athletic, or muscular a given person can be, or what their metabolism will be like, when they're athletic. Progressing from spending 20 minutes exercising, three times a week, to playing sports for 2 hours at a time three times a week, lifting weights for 90 minutes four times a week, and running for about 30 minutes a few times a week, all at once, does not depend on one's genes. Also, I want to point out that it may only be record-setting Olympic athletes who truly get close to their genetic caps, and therefore genetics are not a factor for most normal people.

Finally, regarding bicep size, here is a quote from the first search result on Google:

"Genetics play perhaps the most important part of not only how large your arms can be but also their shape. Now if you are not a genetically gifted bodybuilder do not take this statement as a cause for you to have a yard sale and sell your weights. True, you may not be able to develop a 21” arm but this will not prevent you from sporting an 18” or even 19” well shaped and defined arm and whats wrong with that? A well shaped defined 18” arm is much more impressive than a flat chunk of flesh that measures 21” anyway. It takes a lot of time and experience before one can say for certain any lack of arm development is due to genetics. Dont be quick in jumping to this assessment; its the lazy way out."

http://www.criticalbench.com/armmass.htm

Therefore, a group of average males can confidently be predicted to achieve the same fat/muscle ratio as a group of average females -- as long as their diet regimens, workout regimens, sleep regimens, and ages are the same?

Body building and power lifting routines involve rest between sets. The rest is needed to achieve the volume which induces sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Those guys look puffed up and ridiculous, in my opinion. They're also slow and have diminished hand speed and explosive power. High volume bench pressing, for example, will actually weaken your punch. Capillary density is also reduced and endurance is weakened. Brief and intense routines with very little rest give you endurance, make you fast, lean, and not puffed up.

You routinely see chubby guys lumbering around, resting, and then moving some heavy weights. Every time I see some one going for brief intensity they're ripped, and usually among the strongest anyway.

Firstly, the different between appearing ripped and appearing 'puffy' or bigger is far more about diet and cardio than anaerobic activity. The guys with abs at the gym are far less about practical strength and more about a strict diet and large amounts of aerobic exercise to put them at an unnaturally low body fat percentage.

High volume bench press will weaken your punch? I call bullshit. Tell that to someone like Houston Alexander. Or Rashad Evans tonite, knocking out the best puncher in MMA (and clearly a weightlifter).

Brief and intense exercise doesn't give you very little endurance. Instead, it works your muscles, primarily recruiting fast twitch muscles and improving anaerobic efficiency.

Lastly, if body building/power lifting routines are making you slower and less explosive, why when I was training as a competitive gymnast were we training with large weight/low reps and weighted pylometrics to gain speed and explosiveness?

I always hear talk about 'overtraining' but really I think the huge issue is under nutrition. I trained 20+ hours a week when I was younger as a competitive gymnast and didn't come close to overtraining. Overtraining occurs when serious bodybuilders workout 4+ hours a day, not when you workout twice a week for 30 minutes.

Finally, I find your 'ripped is the strongest' statement ridiculous.

I don't think anyone would suggest 30 minutes twice a week would lead to overtraining. That's a pretty good target, actually. Most people trying to get fit sort of half ass it five days a week, though. I'm not sure over-training is the right word, but they definitely spend way too much time training.

But as far as training 20 hours a week, that's far in excess of any health benefits, which was my point above with regard to not modeling on athletes. Competition level training involves major oxidation and over nitrification stress. Hormone profiles are messed up. Pro and college level athletes are not doing their health any favors.

I will have to disagree with your claim that getting cut is necessarily about aerobic exercise. Aerobics can certainly help, but another way lower fat is via boosted growth hormone. That "oh I'm going to puke" feeling you get from brief intense training is surging growth hormone levels. It makes you nauseous. It also reconfigures your body to be lean.

I thought this whole thread was about bodybuilding. That would be the target market for the app that was posted. I claimed that a logbook is useful for bodybuilders.

Originally I thought you were saying that logbooks were bad for bodybuilders, but now I suppose you are saying that bodybuilding in general is a bad activity. That's a whole different debate. Personally I like the appearance of a lean, muscular, and proportional physique, which is what bodybuilding is all about (not that I've attained this yet, but it's a goal).

> They're also slow and have diminished hand speed and explosive power

Bodybuilding won't slow you down, but it's not the optimal way to develop speed, since it develops slow-twitch muscles more than fast-twitch ones.

I don't understand at all your advocating "brief and intense" routines as an alternative to bodybuilding. Most bodybuilding routines are brief and intense sets, with some rest in between.

Yes it will. I amateur box and getting in the ring with big muscular guys who obvious do bodybuilding style routines is great. They can't flick out fast punches and they run out of juice inside three rounds. This is well researched.

Your other points are equally useless personal opinion.

My other points lack citations, but they aren't useless opinion.

And my notes are useful 10 years later. I can see progression, and the comment "allergies bad today" will explain why I cut sets short, etc.

That said, I wouldn't use software to do this. My clipboard served me well for years.

Sorry, I don't find that to be true at all.