What to Measure and Track

Written by Kyle Ligon - MovementLink.FIT Head Coach

Note: This article is available as both a narrated YouTube video and transcribed fully below the video.

“What gets measured, gets improved.”

But, what happens when you measure the wrong things and what you choose to track does not accurately represent what you actually want to improve? This is an extremely common mistake I see people make, so in this article, I explore what the mistake looks like, its consequences, and what I would recommend tracking.

Weight Loss or Fat Loss?

A major example of how measuring the wrong thing can lead us off track is when people use their weight on a scale as the only metric to track their fat loss. Notice I said “fat loss” as “weight loss” is a misnomer. Not only is muscle mass important for functionality, but it is one of the best indicators of healthspan. As we work to lose fat, we absolutely want to prioritize maintaining muscle mass and bone density. Because muscle is denser than fat, even with two people who weigh the exact same, one can be much leaner than the other based on their body composition. It’s even possible for someone to lose fat and gain muscle in a way that makes them leaner while increasing their weight on a scale.

What people are really after is improved body composition through fat loss while maintaining or gaining muscle mass and bone density. When people put their focus only on the scale, losing any type of weight can be celebrated. This is one of the major criticisms of using GLP-1 drugs for weight loss. Because of the major lack of appetite, if people are not prioritizing eating adequate protein and strength training, the weight being lost is fat, muscle, tendons, and bone. A theme of this article is like I talk about in my article on Non-negotiable Fitness Goals - because we do not need to, we should not adopt any methods at the expense of functional performance, body composition, tissue and joint health, and overall health and wellness. Tracking weight loss can be fraught with issues where body composition would be a much better indicator of if we are on a sustainable path that will help us thrive.

Quick note - don’t confuse gaining muscle mass with getting bulky. Muscle is lean and the toned look many strive for comes with building muscle and losing fat. Additionally, to clear up a common misconception, to grow muscle, we would do lighter weight with more reps (hypertrophy work) and to strengthen our body without a ton of muscle growth we would lift very heavy for lower reps. I mention this here only because it is opposite of what people think and it is possible to make these customizations within the MovementLink Method to bias one type of aesthetic over another…as long as it is not at the expense of our non-negotiable fitness goals.

What about workout scores and exercise PRs? What about your back squat max, your marathon time, and your ability to get into different yoga poses?

These are all common things that people choose to chase and use to measure their progress, but progress towards what exactly??? Just like weight loss, through these, sometimes we can completely miss the point.

Below are some common mistakes in logic in action. Each of these assumptions make jumps in logic that come from commonly accepted fallacies that have people following a path that may actually be detrimental to the non-negotiable fitness goals. Here’s some common thinking and where it goes awry:

“I want to look better, so I should improve my body composition. To lose fat, I need to do more cardio. Running is cardio, so the better I get at running, the better my cardio will be and therefore the more fat I will lose.”
- Fallacy - To lose fat, you need to focus on cardio.
  Cardio should be a consistent part of a well balanced workout program to ensure we get adequate exposure to all the Non-Negotiable Exercise Stimuli, but cardio is not the end all be all for fat loss. Having adequate muscle mass is not only super healthy, but muscle increases daily calories expenditure as your body works to maintain it. Not only is including strength training and high-intensity workouts critical for life, but these things are highly effective for fat loss too. To lose fat and maintain/gain muscle, you should not focus solely on cardio as endurance-only plans can actually cause you to lose muscle mass and bone density.
- Mistake - Assuming Improved Running Performance Equals The Body You Want
  It is true, to maximally improve your running performance, running needs to be an enormous part of your training, but we need to remember a couple of things, 1) professionals cross-train, even professional runners and 2) if your goal is fat loss and you put your focus on improving running performance, you can be tricked by your improving performance and progress in that one metic may be at the expense of some non-negotiable fitness goals. Imagine this scenario, you choose your running performance and your weight as your primary two metrics to track your progress. You could make big progress on these two metrics while losing muscle, bone density, speed, power, agility, strength, anaerobic capacity, and mobility.
“I want to look better, so I should improve my body composition. To gain muscle, I need to be stronger. The higher my back squat, the stronger I am, therefore the higher my back squat, the better I will look.”
- Fallacy - Getting stronger will get your body composition where you want it.
  I’ve seen this one a lot. People imagine that to lift a certain amount, their body would be muscular. Like cardio, strength training should be a consistent staple in your workout program, but putting all your focus on increasing personal records (PRs) in the gym will not guarantee the body composition you’re after. Yes, strength training will have a positive impact on your muscle mass and can improve fat loss, but not only does it not guarantee fat loss if proper nutrition is not integrated, but hypertrophy training would generate more muscle gain than strength training. This is clearly evident when comparing powerlifters with bodybuilders. Powerlifters are much stronger than bodybuilders, but many are overweight and carry a lot of body fat.
  Additionally, there are ways to game the system with PRs in the gym. There are gear and technique strategies that effectively change the exercise. With these “competitor” strategies, PRs can look good on paper, but your gym efforts can actually become less transferable to your real life. We should be looking to improve in ways specific to the life we want to live.
- Mistake - Using 1 rep max PRs as the metric to track progress towards the body you want.
  By focusing too much on 1 rep max PRs, your training and diet can be at the expense of the non-negotiable fitness goals. You can make big progress 1 rep maxes while gaining fat and losing VO2 Max, anaerobic capacity, endurance, stamina, and mobility. Additionally, if growing muscle is your actual goal, not only does 1 rep max work come with higher risk, but there are opportunity costs associated with the hypertrophy work you could have been doing instead.
“I don’t want to get hurt, so I’ll improve my flexibility. The better I get at yoga, the more flexible I will be and will be more resilient I will be to injury.”
- Fallacy - Getting better and better at yoga makes you more resilient to injury.
  Just like with the cardio and strength talk above, all of these are important to integrate consistently into our workout program, but we need to see the value in all of these things together. To be resilient, we need to be strong and capable through full ranges of motion. Strength training can decrease the chance of sports injury by 50%. Yoga-only lacks the strength, muscle, and bone density development vital to resiliency.
- Mistake - Assuming mastering yoga is optimal.
  Everything can be taken to an extreme and flexibility is one of those things where there’s an optimal range. Too little and we are restricted, but too much flexibility can cause major issues too.

The biggest issues with what people choose to track generally come from misconceptions. The value of talking through your goals with your coach is enormous as we can get help point you in the exact direction of your goals as opposed to putting a lot of effort into methods that can lead you astray. None of these things above are inherently bad to measure or track, but we need to be extremely careful to ensure what we do decide to track accurately represents what we are actually after.

Here’re a few additional common measurements that can be flawed and lead people astray (maybe I’ll write about deeper in the future):

Using heart rate monitors to track strain or fatigue - heart rate does not account for muscle fatigue.
Using heart rate monitors on our wrist during workouts - these types of monitors are inaccurate during workouts.
Using heart rate variability to track recovery and workout preparedness - HRV can be impacted by many factors, even respiratory rate, so can be prone to reasonably large fluctuations.
Counting calories/macros - does not account for micronutrients or consider factors like satiety, hormones, and difficulty of implementing that contribute heavily to long-term adherence.

What should be measured?

I recommend you track, 1-3 times a year, the things that directly represent the non-negotiable fitness goals. On top of this list, track anything you’re interested in, but the goal is to use the metrics below as a base to help ensure that you are not doing things accidently at the expense of what is vital for long-term success and sustainability.

Track:

Functional Performance - ultimately, the goal in our efforts in the gym is not to improve our ability in the gym, we want it to transfer into the life we want to live. To do that, I recommend having a set of fitness tests that mimic real life as much as possible. At MovementLink, we have a benchmark week which we complete two times a year to give us an idea of our capacity across all aspects of fitness.
We want to be careful not to test our progress towards our goals by using our normal workouts as the test, as that would prove only that the training we are doing is making us better at the training we are doing. An example is whether or not to include a max barbell snatch in your testing. If our goals are functional performance in the real world and we include snatches in our training, it is illogical to test the snatch and conclude that, if it increases, we have improved our real world performance. Because the barbell snatch does not exist in regular life, we could only conclude that training the snatch has improved our ability in the snatch. If however our tests mimic the real-world as much as possible, like carrying things, picking things up, stepping up and down, getting on and off the ground, etc., then we could include snatches or remove snatches from our training to test how valuable snatches actually are for our real life.
The goal with our functional performance testing is to provide as accurate of a view into real life capabilities as possible to ensure our training is actually pushing us in the direction most useful to us.
Body Composition - Via DEXA scan or similar, measuring and tracking amounts of fat, muscle mass, and bone density gives us insights into what actually matters.
Tissue and Joint Health - The goal is to be strong and capable through full, normal, ranges of motion. We have a series of functional movement tests that help us identify and track if we have adequate ranges of motion and what areas we can work on.
Overall Health and Wellness - Using blood work from a company like InsideTracker or from your doctor can provide insights into vitamins, minerals, hormones, blood sugar, genetics.

It is fine to track your weight, aim to improve your marathon time, your back squat PR, or your flexibility in yoga poses, but keep in mind that we should never be doing anything at the expense of our non-negotiable fitness goals, so while we track things that we may become interested in, we should have a base of metrics that can show us if we are accidently doing something at the expense of something else that matters to us.

Possibly Most Importantly, Track Your Efforts

Tracking results should be part of your process to see if your strategies and adherence level to those strategies are producing the results you’re after. The things listed above are ways to track your progress, but if you also track your efforts, you’ll not only have insights into how well you actually followed your plan, so that you can make adjustments in the future, you’ll have additional built in motivation to implement your strategies consistently over time. You don’t have to be perfect, but adherence and consistency will be the biggest factors in the results you get. The strategies you choose to follow and your efforts are the only things that are actually in your control, so they should take on the vast majority of your focus.

Maybe you’ve heard the comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s Don’t Break the Chain concept of becoming a better and better comedian. He says to write a joke every single day and to then mark with an “X” on a calendar. Then, do everything you can to not break the chain. If you break it, start again as fast as possible and try to beat your last record.

I go much deeper into these areas in my article The Specifics of a Healthy Lifestyle, but here are the broad categories of effort that I recommend tracking:

Exercise - How many days a week did you exercise and what types of exercise stimuli were you exposed to?
Sleep - How well did you sleep and how well did you follow your pre-sleep routine?
Nutrition - How well did you follow your nutrition plan?
Non-exercise Activity - Did you perform 10 minutes of mobility and did break sedentary hours each day?

These efforts lead to the improvements you’re after.

Honestly, I think someone who defined their goals, defined the strategies and corresponding habits that would lead them there, and put all their efforts into tracking their adherence to those habits would outperform someone who only tracks their results. Unfortunately, most people only do the latter.

So, to sum it up, make sure what you choose to track actually represents the results you’re after and does not allow for progress in your metrics at the expense of what really matters to you.