It's ironic because the single biggest reason you should read my log is because I am no expert. Like a lot of you out there, I'm just figuring things out as I go along. I train, ask questions, and evaluate. Oh boy and do I ever need to evaluate right now.

This epiphany came from a very recent setback. This week I was to do max reps with 415 on the bench. I only ended up with 5 reps. The reason I know this is horrible is because back in December, I benched 410 for 11 reps and I was only about 10 lbs lighter. The reason I know this is because I keep a log.

I have said many times in the past, keeping a journal of your training is an integral part of making progress in your program. If I was not a sponsored athlete, I would still keep a log. Many years ago Dave Tate taught me the value of reviewing my entries and drawing correlations between what works and what doesn't.

Initially, after my crappy bench day, I had the following reflections: Why was I so weak the other day? Was it an off day? No. To be honest, I have been feeling a little weak on bench for the past couple of weeks. How about my weight difference? Not likely. Ten pounds of my body weight is only about 4%. That is not going to cause that much of a drop in strength. Age? Sure I'm getting up there, but I cannot believe I could have that kind of a decline in 7 months. Sleep? Nutrition? Check. Check.

Now what? Time to review my log. Wow, it couldn't have been more obvious. When I hit the 410 for 11 reps, I was only weight training three days a week. Now, I'm training four with weights along with 2 days of additional core work. Looking even more closely, I was doing even less exercises back then. Hmmm, I'm beginning to see a trend.

I have been so enamored with idea training more, but I never considered the consequences. Wendler always talks about the certain amount of space you have for training. If you add something in, you usually need to take something out. Well, it looks like I have been taking my strength out. I have fallen prey to trying to serve two masters, one being strength and the other being aesthetics.

Does this mean that this block of training was wasted, no way! I am in much better condition than I can ever remember. That will pay dividends down the road. For pure strength however, I have to pare down my training. Getting close to competing I will be back down to training just three days a week. I will be very selective in how many exercises I perform and keep only the ones that carryover best to my bench.

Lastly, as the case with training, I have upped my conditioning a lot in the past month. No more. My conditioning will be monitored closely. The work will be done between 60-70% of my max heart rate. This is just enough conditioning to feel good, aid in recovery, and not tap into anything that should affect my strength.

The moral of the story is, keep records of what your doing. Data is a very powerful tool. Yep, I said, "Tool."