Coaching practices for How to Track Training Load

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• The same weights I’ve always handled fine are suddenly feeling brutal week after week, and I keep telling myself it’s just a bad day
• No single workout feels like too much, but the weeks keep stacking
• I’m putting in the training but I have no honest way to tell whether it’s actually doing anything, and I’d love one simple number I can check each morning to see if the work is paying off or if I’m just run down.
• For a while I could add a little weight every single session and it felt amazing, but lately that exact same approach has dried up
• When I tell my coach a session "felt hard" they can’t tell if it was the weight or just me being tired, and we keep talking past each other

Practices that may help

1. Use post-session RPE review to detect overreaching early
   Track the RPE drift across a training block — rising RPE at the same load is the earliest signal of overreaching.
   The RPE Scale
2. Track cumulative training stress, not just individual sessions
   A single hard session is not the risk — it is the week-over-week accumulation of stress without matching recovery.
   Supercompensation
3. Track resting heart rate as a fitness marker
   Monitor morning resting heart rate over weeks as a simple, free proxy for cardiorespiratory fitness changes.
   VO2 Max and Longevity: The Peter Attia Framework
4. Choose linear progression for beginners; switch to wave loading as you advance
   Beginners can add load every session; intermediate and advanced athletes need weekly or monthly undulation to continue progressing.
   Progressive Overload
5. Use RPE as a communication language with coaches and training partners
   A shared RPE vocabulary turns subjective experience into objective programming data that a coach can act on.
   The RPE Scale
6. Estimate and track 1RM to make overload decisions objectively
   You can’t manage what you don’t measure — tracking your estimated 1RM gives you a single number that summarizes your current strength level.
   Progressive Overload
7. Track leading behaviors, not lagging outcomes
   Track what you do (meals logged, minutes walked, words written), not what results (weight, fitness, chapters finished).
   Self-Monitoring, Made Practical
8. Autoregulate daily training load using RPE
   If a planned moderate session feels like an 8/10 instead of the usual 6/10, your body is telling you something — adjust the session accordingly.
   The RPE Scale
9. Track coherence sessions to see real autonomic progression
   Log daily practice consistently to observe whether HRV trends upward over weeks — the measure of real training effect.
   Coherent Breathing, Made Practical
10. Track the action, not the outcome
    Record the behavior you control (workouts done) rather than the result you do not (weight lost).
    Habit Tracking

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