Success in body building is not just pegged in winning a contest or championship trophy after a graceful display of muscles. In fact majority of those intimate about body building are not into contests and or professional body building. Body building is a personal venture aimed at improving physique and body fitness. These body builders who never enlist for contest also need to know how they are fairing in their body building endeavors. A body builder who is strictly following a training program at a home gym should also have a means of assessing his or her progress by judging the results of the program and adjusting accordingly if and when need be.

There are several ways in which a body builder can assess his or her progress. The first and most basic ways is usually referred to as the Third Party Reaction Screening. This technique involves objectively analyzing the nature of comments and impromptu reactions of those people who interact regularly with the body builder. These will be the first to note when a negative or positive change occurs in the body builder, whether physical, social or psychological, and will not hastate to comment on it. Their comments can be very accurate because they know the body builder intimately even before the training program was initiated. But care should be taken here because these same people are given to flatter and may comment in a way that is meant to make the body builder happy and or proud.

The second technique is called Self Assessment and involves consciously estimating the most objective changes felt or seen by the body builder himself or herself since the program begun. Self assessment is mostly not objective because body builders tend to feel or see what they want to. But it is still a valid means of estimating the first hand changes accrued, especially if honesty to the self is observed. The third technique is called the Professional Critique, and is usually the most objective and scientifically valid. The professional critique requires the body builder to go to a weight machine and calculate the difference accrued since the last weighing in terms of specific units. The body builder then tests muscle power garnered by lifting weights in sets of ten, and comparing the muscle ability with the previous strength level, again in concrete units of measurement. Weight lifters attempt lifting weights that were hitherto ridiculous and then estimating the improvement in terms of units added to the regular muscle power.

The final technique is more complex but also valid although used by very few body builders. This technique is called the Quadratic Muscle Volume Test or simply the Tape Measure Technique. This involves the use of a tape measure to calculate muscle volume by unit measurements. All muscle groups are measured to ascertain their quadratic estimation and then recorded on a columned sheet. Consequent measurements and volume calculations are compared with the previous records and the accrued changes differentiated. These four techniques only help estimate the progress of a body building technique in terms of physical differences. Other changes are often accrued however, after a disciplined body building program such other immeasurable results include psychological balance, flexibility, mental alertness and muscle coordination. Most of these however, can be noted from healthy bodies and balanced emotions.

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