What the Whiteboard Doesn’t Tell You
written by Colin Jenkins
The Whiteboard is an amazing tool to have in the gym. It helps athletes keep track of what they do during the workout, so that they can accurately document their progress in their journals. It allows me to track every single person’s progress and use it as data to continue evolving the effectiveness of our program. The whiteboard becomes a score board for those who thrive on competitiveness, and pushes athletes to give amazing efforts during workouts. Just imagine if we never wrote your name or times to the board…do you think you would still push as hard?
But as great as the whiteboard is, it does have its limitations. For one, it doesn’t track how you feel during workouts. And while many coaches may not believe that to be an important factor, I believe it is immensely important. Notes about how you felt during workouts reveals about what is going on physiologically within your body. Think about this: A workout takes you 3 minutes one day, and you feel terrible after it. 6 weeks later, you try it again and you get a 5 second PR, but feel really good afterwards. Is that improvement? I would argue it is a HUGE improvement, depending on the goals of the current training. But the whiteboard would be blind to such detail.
That is why I have my athletes send me detailed notes after they workout. While I do track and look at the numbers they post , I am as much, if not more interested in their notes on how they felt during and after the workout. The notes tell the story the whiteboard just cannot tell, and helps guide the direction of our program as much as anything.
