Tracking Your Progress with HIIT Workouts (+Printable Chart)

Hey guys! As you might guess from these late-night posts, this post-MDW week has been a bit hectic for me. That’s what happens when you decide to extend an already long weekend well into Tuesday afternoon. Whoopsies!

But I’m really excited about this post, so better late than never. For the past few weeks, I’ve been able to play around with Bob Harper’s new Black Fire program on DailyBurn and it’s gotten me back into using rep tracking to add a little competition to my interval training workouts. I used to religiously keep track of the reps I got during each interval of HIIT workouts so that when I did them again a few weeks later I would push myself harder to beat my previous performance. It was a great way to hold myself accountable when working out alone at home. But with teaching and taking group fitness classes now in addition to my at-home workouts, I’ve kinda let that habit fall to the wayside.

Black Fire has reminded me what a great tool it is, so I thought it’d be fun to put together a simple printout you can use to track your progress with HIIT workouts. I have a TON on the site (see these pages: tabata workouts & interval workouts), but you could apply this scoring method to any timed interval-based routine. Let’s start with a little about Black Fire and then I’ll talk more about tracking progress.

DailyBurn’s Black Fire Program from Bob Harper

I knew I would like Black Fire before I was even asked to test it because I am quite literally in love with Bob Harper. No, but really.

It’s a 60-day program that includes workouts, guided rest days (yoga, SMR, etc.) and nutritional guidance. If you closely follow Bob like I do (I like to walk the fine line between fangirl and stalker…) you know that he loves CrossFit, and you can definitely see its influence in the Black Fire workouts. I didn’t follow the 60-day program, but tried the workouts and they are LEGIT. Very challenging, but I’d say most are also scalable for beginners.

The videos are easy to follow, and fun. You feel like you’re actually working out with Bob and the others and competing against them. The workouts use lots of functional movements like burpees, bodyweight exercises, box jumps, plyometrics, etc. and are all about 20 minutes long. In addition to a good ass kicking, I even got a couple ideas for new exercises to add to my group fitness classes and blog posts (love that!).

Tracking Your Progress by Scoring HIIT Workouts

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PDF

What made the Black Fire workouts the most fun for me was the scoring aspect. It’s not required, but works as awesome motivation to push yourself. For each exercise, you write down the number of reps you complete each interval. You take your lowest number from the intervals as your score for that exercise. At the end of the workout, you add up your lowest number from each exercise and that’s your score for the total workout. Next time you do it, you try to beat that number.

For example, let’s say we’re doing a tabata workout (8 rounds of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest for each exercise) made up of squats, push ups, v-ups and burpees. During each of the eight 20-seconds rounds of squats, count how many you complete. Your lowest (“worst”) round is the round that counts towards your score. Do that for each exercise and then add them up.

You can apply this scoring method to any sort of interval workout, so I made myself up a simple chart to track my progress with the P&I workouts I post. As you can see, it’s something you could easily make yourself on your computer or in a notebook, but I included a download so that you can also print this one off. If you workout alone at home, competing against yourself in this way is the perfect way to stay on track and motivated!

Have you guys used DailyBurn before? If so, have you tried Black Fire?

How do you track your progress with workouts?

DailyBurn.com is a leading online health and fitness brand, delivering first-class video workout programs and personalized nutrition plans to ensure that members reach their fitness goals. DailyBurn brings fitness and nutrition to members, anytime, anywhere, by streaming HD-quality workouts in a variety of disciplines from dance and high-intensity cardio to yoga, kettlebells and strength training. Unlimited access to DailyBurn’s plans is only $12.95 a month. For more information, visit http://www.dailyburn.com. You can also follow them on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram.

This post is sponsored by FitFluential on behalf of DailyBurn. As always, all opinions are my own.