Welcome to my second blog mini-series! This time I’m going to be focusing on goals. Hopefully by the end of the series you will be confident to set goals that are meaningful, measurable, challenging and achievable, and ultimately keep you motivated and satisfied in your fitness programme.
When most people start a fitness programme they do it with some sort of vague aspiration in mind – ‘I want to lose a bit of weight before my holiday’ or ‘I want to feel healthier’ or ‘I want to be able to ski all day without feeling tired’. The problem with these aspirations is that it’s very difficult to know when they have been achieved. This means it’s easy to lose motivation. This blog is going to help you turn your aspirations into clear goals that will spur you on rather than leaving you feeling disheartened.
In this first part I’m going to take your through how I like to categorize different types of fitness goal to enable me, and my clients, to work on multiple goals at once without it being too overwhelming.
Types of Goal
I like to divide my fitness goals, and those of my clients, into 4 categories: Process, Best Effort, Technical and Health. Sometimes you might focus on just one of these categories or you might be pursuing goals in several of them and achieving a goal in one category is likely to help you on your way to achieving one in another. Here are some examples of goals in the different categories:
Process
This type of goal is great for someone new, or returning, to exercise or if you’re trying to increase your training volume. A process goal isn’t about personal bests or setting records. It’s about building up habits and changing your lifestyle. Here are some examples of process goals:
· To go for a 20 minute jog once a week for 8 weeks.
· To do 15 minutes of yoga every day for 1 month.
· To cycle 100km per week for 12 weeks.
Best Effort
A best effort goal is fairly self-explanatory – it’s about pushing yourself to your limits and doing something better than you have done it before. It’s important to be aware that at the start of your fitness journey you can find yourself smashing your best effort goals almost every week as your body is making adaptations quickly to keep up with the new demands you’re placing on it. As time goes on and you continue to train your rate of improvement will slow down, but hopefully by then you’ll be hooked anyway! Here are some examples:
· To be able to deadlift my bodyweight for 1 set of 5 reps in 12 weeks’ time.
· To be able to run 5km without stopping in 8 weeks’ time.
· To run 10km in under 1 hour by the end of the month.
Technical
Technical goals are great to use as steppingstones on your way to achieving your best effort goals, and often without them it would be very difficult to achieve the best effort due to poor technique. Technical goals are useful for people at all levels and help to keep your time in the gym or playing sport safe by ensuring you are moving functionally. Examples of technical goals:
· To be able to lower my hips past my knees without my heels lifting when squatting by increasing calf muscle flexibility in 8 weeks.
· To be able to maintain good posture consistently when landing from a jump in 4 weeks.
· To be able to perform an unassisted Pistol Squat in 4 weeks.
(This has been one of my goals for a while, and I'm getting there! On my right leg at least, most of the time ... check out the video at the end for some bloopers!)
Health
In this type of goal, I include anything relating to weight and body composition change, nutrition/diet and posture. Again, this type of goal can complement your efforts towards a best effort goal by ensuring your body has the right type of fuel and is moving with optimum functionality. Here are some examples:
· I want to lose 0.5kg of body fat/week for 8 weeks.
· I will increase my protein intake to 20% of my daily calories consistently in 4 weeks.
· I will get up from my desk every 30 minutes and move around for 5 minutes every day for 2 weeks.
Now I challenge you to get some pen and paper and write down a goal for yourself in each of the 4 categories. Keep hold of this and in the next blog we’ll look at whether these goals should be short, medium or long term how to stay motivated for the long term ones!
Pistol Squat bloopers - this is what happens when you try to film an hour after you just smashed legs in the gym 😂
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