Workout Goals

Well, it’s a new year. By now most of you should have gotten over eating too much for Christmas and drinking too much for New Year’s, and should be back on track as far as training and workouts go.

This is the time of year that you always hear about “New Year’s Resolutions” and all this big, grandiose things people want to accomplish for the New Year. It’s a good idea in theory, but in practice, it generally flops. I still think that the whole idea of “New Year’s Resolutions” is pushed more by the consumer industry so that companies can sell you crap you don’t need (especially in the fitness community), but that’s another argument for another day.

Like I said, I like the idea of Resolutions, but there are two basic problems with the whole idea of Resolutions:

#1 – Everybody always makes plans for these HUGE changes, but never map out an accurate plan of attack to actually accomplish these things. As a result, these Resolutions rarely ever get accomplished. And this leads into #2…

#2 – It’s become socially acceptable to make excuses for why you can’t make (or stick to) a plan, and in turn, never accomplish your Resolutions. In fact, if you were to just casually ask folks you know, I’d wager that more often than not, most would tell you that Resolutions are more likely to be failed at than accomplished. And it’s Ok with everybody if this happens. Which sucks.

Social acceptance of failure aside, the main reasons people fail to accomplish Resolutions are the same reasons that people fail to accomplish any goal (which is all a Resolution is) – poor goal setting.

Most folks set these lofty goals with absolutely no plan of attack on how to get there. They just start out haphazardly in the general direction of what their goal is with a vague idea of where they’re going, and just sorta “hope they make it.” The thing that blows my mind is that people have done it this way for what seems to be forever, and it NEVER works, but they keep doing it anyway. The crazy thing is people don’t do this in other areas of their life. If you were in Los Angeles, and wanted to drive to New York, would you just pick a road and start driving, armed only with the idea that you’d have to drive east to get there? I kinda doubt it. Yet people think this half-assed mindset will help them accomplish their goals.

When it comes to goal-setting (especially for fitness or your strength & conditioning training, or even your MMA training), there is a process you should go through if you’re truly serious about accomplishing something. It might sound anal, but it will DRAMATICALLY increase your chances for success.

Make Your Goals Definite

You have to accurately define your goals, if not, you’re destined for failure, if for no other reason, than you don’t know what it is you’re trying to accomplish.

Look at it this way, let’s say you decide you want to “get stronger.” Ok, how do you want to get stronger? In what areas? By how much?

You could go from squatting 225 lbs. and in six months, be squatting 235 lbs. Did you just get stronger? Sure – the amount of weight you put on the bar is higher. But is a ten pound increase on a 1RM in six months anything to really be happy about? Maybe if you were throwing around a ton of weight, but if you’re only squatting 225 lbs., unless you’re a girl, you shouldn’t be too happy about anything.

The same could similarly be said if you went from 40 pushups in a max set to 43 pushups. Did you get stronger? Sure you did, but not that much.

On the other hand, if your Overhead Press when from 165 lbs. to 200 lbs., then you’d have a helluva accomplishment to be proud of, there. You not only got stronger, you got a lot stronger.

You have to be definite in setting your goals. Don’t just say, “I want to squat more.” Say, “I want to go from squatting 225 lbs. to 250 lbs.” Then you have a definite goal in mind – you know exactly where you’re headed.

Put Your Goals on a Timeline

Just like being definite with what your goals are, you have to be definite with when you want to achieve them. Sure, you might be specific in saying that you want to add 25 lbs. to your squat 1RM, but if it takes you 3 years to do it, are you going to be happy? More than likely not. Yet, at the same time, you can’t expect to achieve it by the end of the month, either.

Once you have your specific goal decided, map out what a good timeframe is to achieve that goal. And be specific about it. Don’t just say, “in a couple months,” or “a few weeks.” The timeframe has to be as specific as the goal itself.

“There’s a grappling tourney on June 10. I weigh 210 lbs, now, and I want to compete in the 185 lbs. class. I can safely cut 5 pounds in water weight, so I need to weigh 190 lbs. by weigh-ins, which are June 9. So, I need to lose 20 lbs. by June 7-8 so I can safely cut the last 5 lbs. by June 9.”

THAT is an example of a specific goal, with a specific timeline.

Another example:

“In my last fight, I didn’t have enough gas in my tank. I’d better increase my work capacity and overall endurance (muscular, strength, and cardiovascular). Now, sparring 3, three-minute rounds hard really drains me. My next fight is going to be sometime in May. I need to increase my endurance by then. But seeing as how I’ll also be in fight prep training, I’d better be in shape by then. I’ll be in camp for most of April, so I’d better be in shape by the end of March. By March 31, I want to be able to spar 3 hard, five-minute rounds without getting tired.”

Break Your Goals Up Into Manageable “Mini-Goals”

Sometimes goals – especially if they’re big goals – can be pretty daunting. Not only can it be hard to keep up motivation, but you can get off-track or behind, but not really realize it until it’s too late.

For example, let’s say you want to lose some weight. You make a specific goal of losing 30 lbs. (though a better and more specific goal would be to lose XX lbs. of bodyfat rather than just bodyweight, but for now, we’ll just say “weight). You also give it a specific timeline of losing said weight in 3 months. So far, so good, right?

Well, here’s the problem. Let’s say you don’t set benchmarks for yourself along the way. Two months pass by, and you’ve lost your 30 lbs. Great right? Well, now it’s time to set a new goal, and keep going.

But let’s say the opposite happens. Say 10 weeks pass by, and you’ve only lost 15 lbs. You only have two weeks left, yet you still need to lose half the amount of weight you set for yourself. Guess what, unless you just decide to cut a bunch of water weight for some sort of weigh-in (which isn’t gonna be permanent weight loss anyway), you’re pretty well screwed.

Had you set benchmarks for yourself along the way, you’d have been able to see that you weren’t making progress like you would have needed, and could have made necessary adjustments.

In this case, to lose 30 lbs. in 3 months, you could easily break it up into smaller, mini-goals of losing 10 lbs. per month. If one month had passed, and you’d only lost 5 lbs., you’d know that something wasn’t working right, and you’d better make some changes. On the other hand, had you lost 12 lbs., you might be able to determine that you could meet your goal early, and possibly even lose more weight - maybe 35 lbs. in 3 months.

Like I said before, a lot of this might sound anal or “nit-picky,” but the more specific you can make your goals in nature and in timeline, and as much as you can monitor your goal as you progress, you can assure that you accomplish your goals. It will also make planning how to accomplish your goals that much easier as well.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.