Simple Google Docs Workout Log

Remember how you always craved for knowing how so not lazy I am. Here you go:

If this bar chart looks simple and nifty to you, it's because you are absolutely right.
This bar chart is generated from a Google spreadsheet, filled using a simple form and intended to track how far off my workout goal I am.

Essentially, it reflects my relative progress in my undertaking to perform 360 workouts in a 365 day period.

As I had mentioned, I have defined a workout as any endurance, strength or fight training of reasonable length, demanding reasonable amounts of effort, and thats exactly what I track. In order to do that, I have created a new Google spreadsheet and made a simple form, that lets you choose from the three workout options. The data collected consist only of a timestamp and a workout type, which is all I need to know.

Editing the form.The finished form.

Once I had the form, I went on creating a second sheet, which basically counts how many days have passed since the day I started working out, then counts the number of workouts submitted, and, finally, it uses that information to determine how my training differs from the golden 360 units in 365 days.

Nifty, but far from intricate, is the formula for the field Active:

=(A8*A5)/(B8*A2)

This formula divides the number of workouts performed by the number of days since the first workout times the inverse slope of my set goal. Easy as pie.

So much for the moderately geeky part - on to the convenient part. I sent the link to my form straight to my iPhone and added the form to my home screen, so I can access my form as soon as I'm done taking a shower after every workout. And since the form is so darn simple, it really takes no time at all to feed the spreadsheet.

At the bottom right, next to another form.

Now leave me alone. I gotta zero my laziness bar.

Update on Oct 1, 2009 by Juan Romero Abelleira

Cleaned up the stats spreadsheet to, hopefully, make it less confusing.