Train more and let google sheet help you with the logging!
Oct 10, 2016 16:16:08 GMT -7
jessebruni likes this
Post by nacl on Oct 10, 2016 16:16:08 GMT -7
Hi fellow climbers and training/logging addicted!
I’m writing this inspired by and in the full spirit of the post The Nerdy Joy of Tracking Your Training.
I’m a theoretical astrophysicist (looks like a recurrent theme Charlie S
), this means that I'm coding and dealing with data a lot! I love climbing and I really like tracking my progresses. The problem is that collecting and registering the data is not something I particularly enjoy. On the other hand, as you’ll see, if I can spend a lot of free time 
learning some new coding skills and create something that does it “automatically” I’m going for it!
My original idea was a simple personal logbook for next season (I started using the Rock Climber’s Training manual (hereafter RCTM) this year), but it kind of grew into something a little bit more complex. So, before this is getting completely out of control, let see if someone else might be interested and especially have some comments and feedback from climbers with more experience both in training and logging!
Disclaimers:
- I’m not an expert on Google Sheet (or Excel). I’m learning along the way with this project.
- The sheets are strongly based on the RCTM, so a lot of things will look familiar;
- I took some assumptions based on my limited experience on the past year;
- I protected the important cells. In this way you can play with the sheets without breaking anything. If someone is interested in the “behind the stage” action let me know.
- The file is an editable google sheet “proof of concept”. I work on it the past weekend, but if someone else is interested I might spend some more time fine-tuning it to have some sort of working shareable version ready for coming year.
- The long post make it sound complicated. It is not!! Play with the sheets while reading and you’ll see!
The system starts with the calendar planning sheet (e.g. “Spring plan”).
The following are some basic informations on how this sheet works:
1) You can modify the starting date changing the date in cell B1: the one with text “2017” (use your default date format). The calendar below will automatically update.
2) You can add your workout in the cell below each date. In order to have the system working automatically (explained later) you must start the brief workout description using one of the tags (case sensitive) specified on the right (you can customise them, i.e. you can change “ARC” with whatever you prefer). If you find the sheet without any workouts use the custom function "Restore default values" (check the custom button in the menu after “help”, the others two functions are explained later).
3) When you add a new workout the cell is coloured in red. This is the colour for a not done workout (meaning either in the future or skipped).
4) Placing a “v” in the box on the right of the date will change the cell colour to green: workout done, good job! (This was the first way it came to my mind to have a visual check on “done vs skipped” training sessions. I know it shouldn't happen but, from my experience, the way of the climber is full of obstacles).
5) Specifying the number of weeks for every "Phase" on the right of the sheet will update the colours of the weeks accordingly (the colour scheme mimics the one on the RCTM)
6) There are two custom functions to clean all the ticks and workout descriptions.
This is it for the planning sheet.
The nice part is coming now: if you input your workouts on this sheet (no way to skip this phase) these informations will be automatically filled-in in the following sheets, Log ARC and Log HB (the two I created so far).
Looking at the “Log ARC” sheet:
1) The dates and descriptions of every workout starting with “ARC” are automatically pulled from the planning sheet: add a new workout to see the system in action!
2) I tried to create the system as flexible as possible: in this case it is able to register up to 7 ARCing workouts per week from the 1st to the 7th week (you never know, someone might have some crazy endurance project!)
3) If you enter the duration of each set the total ARCing time is calculated and the "ARC plot" is updated.
4) I don’t really have experience with “Outdoor Milage” training. The system is already in place (using a different tag to differentiate it from ARCing), but if someone is interested I need some input on which parameters you want to log and on how to "measure it".
Switching to the “Log HB”.
This required some more thinking.
1) As for the ARCing sheet the workouts dates and descriptions are automatically inserted (add one workout to see the sheet updating).
2) In this case the system is working up to 3 HB workouts per week up to 4 weeks between the 2nd and 7th week (already far into madness for me!).
3) Under the date and workout description you can enter other specific informations for each workout. Three particular cells are marked in green: these values are necessary either to generate the plots (your “Weight” and “Rep t”) or for the system to fully work (the “Sets”).
4) You can specify you personal grip training sequence (up to 11 grips) in the first column under the cell containing “Grip”.
5) Specifying a number of sets (in the lower green cell) will automatically generate the extra sets logging cells using the grips specified as at the previous point.
6) Inputting values in the “Res+” and “#Reps” cells will update the various plots (at the moment considering only the 1st set).
This is what I created so far.
I’m still thinking-about/modifying several aspects and I know that there is a lot of space for improvement, particularly in the visualisation of the data (I’m looking into it).
Every comment/feedback is more then welcome!
I’m writing this inspired by and in the full spirit of the post The Nerdy Joy of Tracking Your Training.
I’m a theoretical astrophysicist (looks like a recurrent theme Charlie S
), this means that I'm coding and dealing with data a lot! I love climbing and I really like tracking my progresses. The problem is that collecting and registering the data is not something I particularly enjoy. On the other hand, as you’ll see, if I can spend a lot of free time 
learning some new coding skills and create something that does it “automatically” I’m going for it!My original idea was a simple personal logbook for next season (I started using the Rock Climber’s Training manual (hereafter RCTM) this year), but it kind of grew into something a little bit more complex. So, before this is getting completely out of control, let see if someone else might be interested and especially have some comments and feedback from climbers with more experience both in training and logging!
Disclaimers:
- I’m not an expert on Google Sheet (or Excel). I’m learning along the way with this project.
- The sheets are strongly based on the RCTM, so a lot of things will look familiar;
- I took some assumptions based on my limited experience on the past year;
- I protected the important cells. In this way you can play with the sheets without breaking anything. If someone is interested in the “behind the stage” action let me know.
- The file is an editable google sheet “proof of concept”. I work on it the past weekend, but if someone else is interested I might spend some more time fine-tuning it to have some sort of working shareable version ready for coming year.
- The long post make it sound complicated. It is not!! Play with the sheets while reading and you’ll see!
The system starts with the calendar planning sheet (e.g. “Spring plan”).
The following are some basic informations on how this sheet works:
1) You can modify the starting date changing the date in cell B1: the one with text “2017” (use your default date format). The calendar below will automatically update.
2) You can add your workout in the cell below each date. In order to have the system working automatically (explained later) you must start the brief workout description using one of the tags (case sensitive) specified on the right (you can customise them, i.e. you can change “ARC” with whatever you prefer). If you find the sheet without any workouts use the custom function "Restore default values" (check the custom button in the menu after “help”, the others two functions are explained later).
3) When you add a new workout the cell is coloured in red. This is the colour for a not done workout (meaning either in the future or skipped).
4) Placing a “v” in the box on the right of the date will change the cell colour to green: workout done, good job! (This was the first way it came to my mind to have a visual check on “done vs skipped” training sessions. I know it shouldn't happen but, from my experience, the way of the climber is full of obstacles).
5) Specifying the number of weeks for every "Phase" on the right of the sheet will update the colours of the weeks accordingly (the colour scheme mimics the one on the RCTM)
6) There are two custom functions to clean all the ticks and workout descriptions.
This is it for the planning sheet.
The nice part is coming now: if you input your workouts on this sheet (no way to skip this phase) these informations will be automatically filled-in in the following sheets, Log ARC and Log HB (the two I created so far).
Looking at the “Log ARC” sheet:
1) The dates and descriptions of every workout starting with “ARC” are automatically pulled from the planning sheet: add a new workout to see the system in action!
2) I tried to create the system as flexible as possible: in this case it is able to register up to 7 ARCing workouts per week from the 1st to the 7th week (you never know, someone might have some crazy endurance project!)
3) If you enter the duration of each set the total ARCing time is calculated and the "ARC plot" is updated.
4) I don’t really have experience with “Outdoor Milage” training. The system is already in place (using a different tag to differentiate it from ARCing), but if someone is interested I need some input on which parameters you want to log and on how to "measure it".
Switching to the “Log HB”.
This required some more thinking.
1) As for the ARCing sheet the workouts dates and descriptions are automatically inserted (add one workout to see the sheet updating).
2) In this case the system is working up to 3 HB workouts per week up to 4 weeks between the 2nd and 7th week (already far into madness for me!).
3) Under the date and workout description you can enter other specific informations for each workout. Three particular cells are marked in green: these values are necessary either to generate the plots (your “Weight” and “Rep t”) or for the system to fully work (the “Sets”).
4) You can specify you personal grip training sequence (up to 11 grips) in the first column under the cell containing “Grip”.
5) Specifying a number of sets (in the lower green cell) will automatically generate the extra sets logging cells using the grips specified as at the previous point.
6) Inputting values in the “Res+” and “#Reps” cells will update the various plots (at the moment considering only the 1st set).
This is what I created so far.
I’m still thinking-about/modifying several aspects and I know that there is a lot of space for improvement, particularly in the visualisation of the data (I’m looking into it).
Every comment/feedback is more then welcome!
