Total beginner - need MS ACCESS Design advice (1 Viewer)

[Rainbows8]

Hello Programmers,

I am a novice to creating and designing an MS Access database. I do know how to use it (user-end) but don't have much experience in building one. Anyway, I love data, sorting, creating tables, etc. I have started a new fitness regime and want to record the following things:
Date: (I assume this will be primary Key... tho not sure)
Weight for week:
Cardio: -- Time (mins), Distance, Cals
Sit ups: -- (No.) x 10 (this could do a calculation)
Muscle Group: (choose from Drop Down list: Arms, Legs, Back, Shoulders, etc)
Under Muscle Group I then want to manually enter the:
**Machine I used (so prob text field)
**# of reps (can this dynamically create # of fields for # of reps so I can enter the weight for each rep?)
**Lbs of Weight for each rep

And that's the design!
Now, should I have a separate table to store the reps and assoc. weight with each rep.

Thank you for your time.
Avid novice
~Rainbows8

 

[plog]

The process off setting up tables is called normalization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization). Check that link out, work through some tutorials and then give setting up your tables a shot.

You might be able to find a template database for just this sort of thing. Google around and see if you find something close, then adapt it to your specifics, or just use it as guidance.

My advice for rookies is to start with Excel. Make a spreadsheet of all the data you want to capture. It doesn't have to be real data, just pretend you did a weeks worth of your activities and compile enough sample data to cover everything you want to capture. That let's you see all the fields you need your database tables to accomodate and you can start normalization from there.

Lastly, I wouldn't use just the Date for a primary key. For one, you might do more than one workout in a day in which case you would be better served to capture Date/Time. Of course standard practice is to use an autonumber primary key for all tables. Again, read up on normalization and that should be covered.

 

[jdraw]

I answered a similar post recently. The advice is same. See this for design and database.
Good luck.

 

[Rainbows8]

@jdraw thank you for these intro problems. I shall try to work through them

 

[jdraw]

Good stuff. Let us know your progress.
Good luck with your project.