Right then guys first of all I want to say how proud I am as a coach to see you all blow the first quarter of the year and testing week out of the water, smash your current PB’s and really push yourself to the next level of your training. I could rant and rave about this all day so I will move on swiftly.
Now that the dust has settled on our week of training and we have reached that next level it is time to set some new goals for the 2nd quarter of the year. Now goal setting is never an easy task, we often try and set goals too large or goals that are dictated by social media conformity rather than something that we personally desire.
The whole point of this blog is to help you all not suck at setting those fitness goals as we go into the second quarter of the year.
One of the most effective ways to set a fitness related goal or a goal outside of the gym is to use the SMART principle. The SMART principle stands for Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound.
BE SPECIFIC!!
“I want to lose weight”/ “I want to get stronger”.
This is a terrible goal, super vague and relatively useless. You need to be super specific when setting your fitness goals. If weight loss is your overall goal, how much do you want to lose? What sort of time scale do we have to lose it?. If your goal is to get stronger, by how much are we talking? 100kg bench, 1.5 bodyweight squat?.
MEASURIBILITY!!
All our fitness goals need to be measurable for us to see any realistic progress. Similar to the goal above “I want to lose weight” is a piss poor way to set a fitness related goal, your goal needs to have a measurable component to it for example, I want to lose 2kg by July 1st for example, or I want to add 10kg to my total in the bench, squat and deadlift.
YOUR GOALS NEED TO BE ATTAINABLE!!
All of you should set yourself a goal that is attainable for you to achieve. This achievement allows us to stick to our program, or reinforces our mindset in to a healthier change. Wanting to lose 10kgs in a month is not an attainable goal, however if we lose 0.5 to 1kg a week over the same 4 week period our goal becomes so much more attainable.
MAKE THEM RELEVANT!!
Your goals need to be personal to you, they need to fit your needs, interests and your abilities. Theres no point in setting yourself a goal of mastering a muscle up if you can’t even do 1 assisted pull up. However engaging yourself into a program that has a pull up progression is far more suitable to build the relevant strength to string together multiple pull ups before moving onto different variations of a vertical pulling movement.
TIME!!
Your fitness goals need to have a timeline with a distinct end. These can either be a long term goal or a short term goal and having a timeline should in theory help you stay on track. For example your short term goal may be to attend one of our FIT classes once a week as well as your personal training sessions with the intention of meeting our long term weight loss goal six months down the line.
Have a think guys, hopefully I’ve helped somewhat with your goal making decisions. Follow the SMART principle and you’ll see success I promise. Remember its the process, not just the end results.
The Goal is to keep the goal, the goal (Dan John).
Rob.
rob@compellofitness.co.uk