I'm always curious as to why people train? Are they seeking a body transformation? More lean mass? Less fat mass? Are they looking to address an injured or painful joint? Maybe they would like to increase their performance in sport? Or maybe extend a professional career?Obviously there are lots of reasons to train. And they to achieve success in each of these would be different.But there is something that is in common with all of these different training goals. And that is the value of testing. And maybe the appropriate term these days would be 'monitoring'.So that is the question to anyone who trains...what are you doing to test or monitor your training?Do you wear a heart rate monitor? Do you use a training journal? Do you weigh yourself before or after training to check water losses? You you keep a clock on yourself to keep track of rest breaks and total duration?Besides what we do during a training session we can also measure our workouts outside of the gym as well. We can use an HRV device for recovery, we can measure our heart rate in the morning and journal our nutrition.So why even monitor or test in the first place? I mean you can usually test if something is working or not without testing right? And for athletes shouldn't the goal be success in the sport anyways?You could answer yes to both of these. It is possible to see improvement in the early stages of training without testing. And athletes may see little benefit and potential injury if testing is not appropriate.But that doesn't outweigh all of the benefits of testing or monitoring. Here are a few.1. AccountabilityI know I am competing in Tough Mudder on June 20 in Whistler. This race will be tough (pun intended) and will...

Recently we held a power-lifting meet at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc. Below are the results of this lifting meet as well as some benefits of testing your lifts.Before we get to the results of the meet it is important to understand why we held this lifting competition. My goals and some of the main reasons were:1. To see where we're atHere's an analogy I like to use as to the benefits of testing.Imagine you want to go to Vancouver and you're starting out in Kelowna. But you don't know where Kelowna and couldn't pin it on a map.What are the chances you will reach your goal of getting to Vancouver? Probably not very good. And if you do make it what are the chances it was the most direct and efficient way of getting there? Again, probably not very good.When we test our lifts we set a starting point. We know where we are. We know what the next goal should be. We know how long it will take to get there. And we have a good idea of the most efficient way to achieve success.Given this is all common sense and fairly obvious isn't it surprising the number of people who train but don't test themselves?2. To identify weak linksI'm a big believer in addressing weak links. If weak links are ignored they come back o haunt as bigger, more painful problems.When we test our lifts we push ourselves to the limit. This exposes our weak links and lets us know what we need to do to improve.For example, for some people they missed their bench press as they couldn't lock out and complete the press. For this individual some more triceps training or rack presses would help overload the finishing portion of the lift to eliminate this weak link.3. To...