Measuring Attention

What's in your training journal?

I’ve tried all kinds of apps, spreadsheet amalgamations, high-tech, and low-tech ways of documenting and reflecting on my training over the years. None of them were harmful, but only a few were beneficial, and rarely stood the test of time.

I’m not going to go into reviews of specific apps / platforms in this post. What I want to deliver is a series of concepts that I think are helpful for grapplers to document and keep note of in their “training log / journal.”

First, let’s talk about the function or objective we’re trying to achieve before exploring specific implements.

Objectives of the Log:

This is the simplest concept to understand. A log serves as, well, a log. It’s an archive of data or points of reference. Contrary to what you might find in a journal (below) this is a collection of data which we might use to look for trends or progressions.

A great example of this is a daily training log. The load I used in today’s workout (or set / rep volume) is useful information in the immediate past and present (e.g. if I repeat the same session next week and don’t want to guess appropriate loading from scratch). However, five years from now I won’t care about a workout I did on a random Tuesday afternoon.

What I might care about five years from is what my PRs for a given movement or energy system have been for each of the past 5 years.

This brings us to another important point, that we may actually need or want different logs for different spans of time as well. That is, to use different tools for different tasks.

For me this looks like a “short-log” of daily training sessions and a “long log” of monthly objectives that spans several years.

Objective of the Journal:

The journal is more oriented towards words rather than numbers. It’s a place for us to reflect and process. For example, we may want to set goals, check in on those goals, have some way of evaluating our goals (via the data in our logs), and reflect on what went well (or not) and how we want to adjust or continue in the future.

This can also be a place for simple “process notes” like:

• I’m too jacked up if I drink coffee before training.

• I make more technical mistakes if I didn’t sleep well.

• I hate X position … I should probably work on that.

It should also be noted that the process of active recall aides in learning. If you can really sit in and re-imagine what happened in your training and apply that information, you’re in a much better position than showing up and hoping for the best – literally letting go in one ear and out the other.

The journal is also a good place to take note of things like:

• Internal Motivation (desire and discipline)

• External Motivation (external vibe and gym culture)

• Sleep Volume and Quality

Avoid: Written Descriptions of Techniques

Assuming you, or the white belt version of you, actually recalls a technique and it’s components correctly, the language you use to write that down is likely excruciatingly verbose, and will make absolutely no sense to you next month – let alone years from now.

Video is a much better option for this. Virtually everyone has a cell phone with a decent camera these days. Put it to use! Hopefully, you can get your coach or an upper belt to demonstrate the techniques for you too.

Avoid: Obsessive Quantification

Measuring success in grappling isn’t as simple as a barbell, especially if you’re not an active competitor. Therefore, trying to conceive of some sort of ELO like in chess or tennis would be very difficulty to establish, let alone have relevance – I’ve tried.

What you can do instead is identify some “competency areas” – like school subjects – that every grappler needs to be good at. This doesn’t need to be complicated, in fact, the simpler the better. We could start with some yes-or-no questions about limitations:

• Physical: Is my physical health or fitness a limiting factor?

• Technical: Is a lack of knowledge a limiting factor?

• Tactical: Is experience or time a limiting factor?

From there we could expand the number of subjects, still using the limiting-sufficient (pass/fail) system.

• Strength / Power (fitness domain)

• Aerobic / Endurance (fitness domain)

• Mobility (fitness domain)

• Strategy (intra-round, tactical domain)

• Adaptability (inter-round, tactical domain)

• Control (tactical domain)

• Top Position (technical domain)

• Bottom Position (technical domain)

• Standing Position (technical domain)

Then we might make our grading system a bit more granular, evolving as follows:

• Pass / Fail (limiting or not)

• Limiting, Sufficient, Proficient

• 1-5 / F-A (poor to great)

• 1-10 (very poor to excellent)

Of course, these scales are relative. Are you comparing yourself to your local academy, regional competitors, or the global professionals?

At any rate, the point is consistency in measurement. Similar to how if your bathroom scale is off by 3 lbs., as long as it’s always off by 3 lbs. you know whether you’re losing or gaining weight.

Structure and Format

My current documentation includes the following:

• Daily Training Log (reps, sets, technique videos)

• Fitness PRs (monthly log including weight, body fat, and injuries)

• Grappling Goals (monthly log)

• Competitions (as applicable)

• Promotions (as applicable)

To understand this, let me explain things in reverse order, working from the top down. I start with an annual goal (log). That goal get’s broken down into quarterly goals that should support the annual goal.

Next, I evaluate myself based on what elements will contribute to those goals. Once I have my evaluation, that should inform which short term (monthly objectives) I need to work on.

Competitions and promotions speak for themselves. I started fighting before Smoothcomp and Instagram existed, so I’m stuck with spreadsheets! Though, competition reflection and results could certainly be fodder for any of the steps / process mentioned in this article.

I keep a separate log of fitness PRs which also includes any notable injuries. This is useful for determining if my overall fitness is going up or down over the past year or two.

Lastly, my daily training logs are the most valuable because they’re the foundation that everything is built on. I can write a program, say I did a program, but if I don’t actually do that program, I can’t fairly evaluate it or any measure of progress I’m trying to extrapolate from it.

So, my daily logs include both “journal” and “log” content and look something like this:

• Reminders:

  • Quarterly Goal: written out

  • Monthly Focus: written out

  • Weekly Objective: based on the ‘plan for next time’ step below

  • Daily Intention: what sensation or experience am I seeking today?

• Technical information:

  • reps / sets / load

  • links to video(s) for techniques / positions worked

  • time / duration / heart rate

• Reflection:

  • What worked well?

  • What didn’t work well?

  • Plan for next time?

The reflection component is critical because that informs the “weekly objective”, which again, should be contributing towards the monthly focus which is building towards bigger quarterly and annual goals.

You may not want to slap your goals on every Instagram post you make, but a screenshot of your workout or clip of the “technique of the day” followed by your reflection in the caption is a fantastic use of social media. The caveat is that you have to recognize that that process isn’t for “likes and shares”, it’s for you to document your training and set a direction for the future.

Instagram is just an example here. You could apply the same process to a private YouTube playlist. You could start a Substack (!). Or you could just type your reflection in the comment / info section of your Photos app.

The point is that there isn’t much of a magic formula other than paying attention, consistent application, and responsive adaptation. Much like jiu jitsu itself, what that road looks like for you is entirely up to you.