Gym Progress Tracking: Why Paper Beats Apps

I’ve been going to the gym consistently for years. Three times a week, rarely missing a session, feeling like I was putting in the work. But the truth was that my progress was rubbish.

I was stronger than when I started, but not to the level I should have achieved with that level of consistency. I’d do my exercises, feel accomplished, and head home. Rinse and repeat. The problem? I wasn’t actually tracking anything. I was just showing up.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with this approach if your goal is to stay active and maintain good health. If the gym makes you feel good, reduces stress, and keeps you fit, then showing up and moving your body is absolutely enough. However, if you truly want to improve, simply showing up isn’t enough. You need to progress, and progression requires tracking.

I started to progress when I started keeping a paper training journal. No elaborate fitness app, just a simple paper journal where I write down what I lifted last time and aim to beat it today.

The Problem with “Just Showing Up”

Consistency is key, but consistency without progression is just repetition. I was showing up three times a week, doing roughly the same exercises with roughly the same weights, and wondering why I didn’t make any improvements.

I thought that I was working hard to improve, but in reality, I was fooling myself. As humans, we have adapted to conserve energy, so our default setting is to do as little as possible. This pre-programmed laziness now bites us in the butt, as we in the Western world have an abundance of food and little to no need to move.

Without data, you’re relying on your intuition, and this is usually the ‘way of least resistance’; however, it’s precisely this resistance that we need to improve.

Why Paper Beats Digital in the Gym

When I first started going to the gym, I used one of those TechnoGym dongles. This worked well in the beginning. All my progress was tracked in my account, and the machines remembered my reps and weights.

But this only worked on TechnoGym machines. And it was useless when I switched to doing more free weights. So I tried some apps for manual input. Some were fine, technically. But the process was tedious. Open phone. Open the app. Fill in the weight for set one. Fill in reps for set one. Then repeat for set two. And set three. And so on.

And there’s the bigger problem: it’s on my phone.

Every time I pulled out my phone to log a set, I’d see notifications. And when your phone is already open, it’s just too tempting to have a quick look at Snapchat or Instagram while you’re there. Your 1.5-minute rest between sets becomes four minutes, stretching your gym session unnecessarily long and annoying the other people waiting for you to finish your set on the machine they want to use.

Therefore, paper is king in the gym.

1. Less distraction. My phone stays in my gym bag, meaning I’m less tempted to start scrolling.
2. More satisfying. Something is rewarding about physically writing down your lifts. It feels real. Substantial. When I flip back through pages and see months of progression, it’s tangible in a way a digital chart isn’t.
3. Psychological accountability. This one surprised me. When I’m writing on paper, it feels set in stone. With digital, it can always be edited later, so it feels less permanent. And therefore less important, making me more ‘loose’ on what I put in.

My Results: The Data Speaks

Right, enough theory. Let’s look at what actually happened when I started tracking properly.

I began consistently logging my workouts in September last year. Before that, I had scattered notes and vague memories, but nothing systematic. Since starting proper tracking, I’ve focused on three main upper-body lifts: bench press, barbell row, and overhead press.

Understanding the Numbers

Before we examine the graphs, a brief note on how I measure progress. I write down repetitions and weight. I aim for at least three reps and no more than 15. When I can do around 10 reps, I usually increase the weight, although this depends a bit on the muscle group.

It’s not helpful to multiply the reps by the weight to get a score that determines whether I’ve improved. For example:

• 3 reps × 65kg = 195
• 6 reps × 55kg = 330

By simple multiplication, 6 × 55 kg looks better. But any experienced lifter knows that 3×65kg represents greater strength.

The one rep max is considered the best measure of strength. However, when I go to the gym, I rarely test my one-rep max. I try to keep my gym sessions as efficient as possible. Luckily, there’s a formula we can use to find our hypothetical one-rep max: the Brzycki formula, which is well-researched.

Brzycki formula: 1RM = Weight / (1.0278 – 0.0278 × Reps)

This formula works best for sets between 1 to 10 reps, which covers most strength training. Using this calculation:

• 3 reps at 65kg = 71.5kg estimated 1RM
• 6 reps at 55kg = 66.0kg estimated 1RM

So 3×65kg is indeed superior. It represents about 5.5kg more estimated maximum strength. This is why tracking with proper calculations matters.

Barebell Bench Press Progress

Being able to create a graph like this is brilliant because it clearly shows where you’re hitting a plateau. For me, this was the case in March last year. I would not have spotted this and addressed it if I hadn’t been tracking. I was able to move past the plateau by adding a dumbbell bench press to my other upper-body gym day.

Barbell Bent Over Row Progress

For me, this graph clearly shows the power of logging. It shows a steep increase at the start, revealing that I’d been too cautious in the beginning, putting on less weight than I could actually handle.

The graph also shows that taking a step back from time to time is just part of the improvement process and that there is no need to feel bad about it.

Overhead Press Progress

The overhead press shows a slightly messier picture. This is mainly because sometimes I would start with it, but mostly I’d start with the bench press first. Depending on whatever equipment was available. Not such a linear progression, but a progression nevertheless. And that’s what counts.

What the Data Shows

The graphs tell a clear story: improvements across all three lifts. There are plateaus and regressions (training isn’t perfectly linear), but the overall trend is undeniably upward. Sometimes, I made big jumps; other weeks, I barely improved or even regressed slightly due to poor sleep or injury. But by tracking everything, I could identify these patterns and adjust accordingly.

Enter AI: Your Data-Driven Personal Coach

This is where AI actually becomes useful.

I took my training data and had a conversation with ChatGPT. I showed it my numbers: steady progress on rows and overhead press, but complete stagnation on the bench press. I asked what might be causing this and what I could do about it.

Here’s the point: AI is a brilliant personal coach, but only if you give it data to work with.

If I’d asked, “Why isn’t my bench press improving?” without any context, I’d have received generic advice: eat more protein, sleep better, try harder. Possibly useful, but not specific to my situation.

But with actual numbers showing my training history, progression on other lifts, and the specific nature of the plateau, AI could provide targeted analysis. It suggested that my chest might be understimulated compared to my shoulders and back. The solution: add more chest volume.

I incorporated additional chest exercises: dumbbell press, chest flies, and more push-ups. Within weeks, my bench press began to improve again. Over the following months, I made more progress with the bench press than I had in the previous two years combined.

How to Start Tracking

There’s no science to this, but there are some best practices. You can do it neatly, like my gym buddy does (left image), or with quick and dirty scribbles like I do (right image). Just ensure you have sufficient space to log multiple sessions on two pages.

What you don’t want (and this is where all the gym journals you can buy online get it wrong) is having to write the exercises every single time. We want to quickly see two things: 1) which exercise is up next, and 2) how many reps and what weight we had last time.

That’s why a layout like this works ten times better than the layouts from popular gym journals you can buy.

Concluding

For years, I was consistently going to the gym and consistently seeing mediocre results. The missing piece was data.

Once I started tracking properly, using a simple paper journal with a sensible layout, progress became inevitable. Each session has a clear target. Each week builds on the previous one. Over months, the gains compound.

The tools don’t need to be fancy. A notebook and pen work perfectly. In fact, they work better than most digital solutions because they remove distractions and create a tangible record of your progress. But don’t ignore digital tools entirely. When you need to analyse trends or troubleshoot plateaus, AI can be an excellent coach, provided you give it actual data to work with.

The data doesn’t lie. And neither do the results.