Strength Training 5x5 (Stronglifts) - Tracking Progress

Polar Heart Rate Monitor

Doo — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:38:53 +0000

I recommend the Polar F11. I would not necessarily get the more expensive Polar watch that allows strength training to be recorded. Seems like it would be a bit tedious to enter weights and reps and custom exercises (doubt that it has all the ones I do built in).

The F11 will upload data to Polar site. I rename uploaded exercises to reflect activity: StrongLifts 5x5 Workout A, StrongLifts 5x5 Workout B, HIIT, etc.

I am doing a lot of redundant data recording: customized StrongLifts spreadsheet, Polar (minor edits - upload does most of the work), Gyminee, and StrongLifts forum log. Each has its advantages so for now I will keep doing it.

I use the spreadsheet for printing and recording info while I am working out. I have Polar data for several years so I want to keep it going to see progress over time. StrongLifts log only has worksets for SL5x5. I do not log cardio.

According to Gyminee tech, they will be adding Polar support via Microsoft Health Vault.

Scottymouth — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:04:24 +0000

Yeah, I agree. I think getting a heart rate monitor is the only way to be sure.

I like the site, except for calorie tracking

tele2tip — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:19:33 +0000

I found gyminee to be absolutely worth the price to be able to schedule workouts and print grocery lists.

I like the nutrition section better than fitday.

The calories burned seems way off unless I do a lot of cardio. It seems to seriously undercalculate strength training. Gyminee says I run a 500 calorie surplus in cases when I know I was running a deficit of the same magnitude. Now that I'm eating more, god forbid what sort of surplus it says I run!

Calorie Tracking

Doo — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:37:38 +0000

Calorie tracking can be a good metric. I only track workouts and I wear a heart rate monitor to provide a fairly good indicator of calorie consumption. Day-to-day activites are factored into your basal metabolic rate.

Sketch

hawknelson5208 — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:08:42 +0000

Calorie tracking with excersice seems futile.

Its hard to account for walking which i do a lot of, or street hockey which i do a lot of.

after that (im bulking) how many net calories am i supposed to have??

mojohealy — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:17:26 +0000

I also got a quick and real (not cut and pasted) reply to my suggestion- that exercise tracking be available from the locker room.

Decent Support

Scottymouth — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:24:59 +0000

I had an issue trying to post to this board and sent the tech support at Gyminee and e-mail. They got back to me rather quickly and have mentioned that it is a work in progress. The survey has items you can log your opinion on and they are looking closely at users' opinions for improvement.

bates:

mojohealy — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:26:06 +0000

I don't think I bothered trying, to be honest. It makes sense that it works the way you describe though.

Separate Squats

bates — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:17:19 +0000

MJH, I did an A and a B like you said with squats in each. I was worried it would keep them separate like you said, but it actually groups them together so you can view your constan progress, as long as you use the same squat exercise in both A and B. Did this not work for you?

graphs

mojohealy — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:18:19 +0000

all graphs should be available in the locker room tab, not just body data. This site is quite young, so I hope they listen to feedback. I'm going to suggest this sort of change on their contact us page.

Doo — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:01:45 +0000

It seems this site has a lot of features that are not very intuitive to access. I think they are still working on improving this site so maybe this will get easier. Thanks Michael.

doo- this site does have total volume

mojohealy — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:23:07 +0000

workouts tab> workout name> click on name of component exercise. Change the display option below the graph.

Another, maybe easier way is to click on "view public profile" from the right hand menu on your locker room.

It sure is great to look at total volume and see that despite the relatively low weights I'm lifting, I'm still lifting several thousand kgs cumulatively!

Strength Progress

Doo — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:38:17 +0000

I do like the nutrition but I would like to see some strength progress charting similar to bodytracking. My modified StrongLifts 5x5 Excel spreadsheet does this. I show Weight Volume per exercise over time.

I have seen other sites that track average reps per workout, total reps per workout, etc. I think total volume is the best and simplest thing to look at.

OK - Sold on Gyminee Nutrition

Scottymouth — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:29:16 +0000

This beats FitDay. My calories have been considerably off while using fitday. I especially like the recipe section because it makes it easy to add my usual meals without doing it in bits. I don't like the goals yet, but I might need to figure more out.

Update

Scottymouth — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:09:40 +0000

I removed the logo - I forgot about that, did it on the first day. Thanks MJH.

I probably won't upgrade to pro - if I pay for anything online at this point it will be a forum subscription.

Gyminee Pro

Doo — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:29:20 +0000

Are you guys considering Gyminee Pro? I may wait a little while longer. I have received email replies regarding some feature requests. The Gyminee team seems responsive. That may be enough for me to pay.

Good Day

Scottymouth — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:23:40 +0000

Today was great - running was a bit much but I stuck it out. I will give the nutrition a shot here and see what happens.

mojohealy — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:00:45 +0000

at first it got on my tits, but if you remember to take your regular food favorites as you find them for the first time. It makes life a lot easier. Make full use of recipes too.

Doo — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:16:24 +0000

I like the nutrition. It has almost everything I have eaten so far (including brand) without me entering custom foods.

Good points

Scottymouth — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:31:00 +0000

Yeah, the way this works always pisses me off, I may have to restructure and make squats separate. Do you guys like the nutrition on this better than Fitday? I am having issues adjusting.

mojohealy — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:04:44 +0000

I didn't bother assigning days for my workouts, as my workouts aren't always on the same days.

Also, I created three workouts- squats by themselves (in my case with some lunge type exercises too), A workout and B workout.

If you don't do it like this, you end up having two sets of squats. Having a seperate squat workout set up lets you track day A and B squat workouts together.

Kerberos — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:23:16 +0000

you first build a workout program and say which day it's on, but then when you report progress, it doesn't go on what day you put in, rather it uses todays date.

If you want to have another date (Say you missed putting in yesterdays session and put it in today) you need to manually change the date at the top of the "add progress report" page.

I have not found a way to move a progress report from one day to the other.

So first I just ad a new progress report , setting the date at the top first to the right date.

Then I click on calender. Go to the day with the wrong workout and click on that.

Then when the popup window comes up you choose " view fitness report"

now you see the exercises you did and you have to manually delete one, then go back to the same page (I usually click on the back button, otherwise do the same procedur , calendar, click day, fitnes report, delete).

It is a little ass backwards but there you go.

3/29/08

Scottymouth — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:33:20 +0000

This site it confusing at time. It says I did a workout yesterday, but I worked out on Thursday...weird.