Staying on Track for Your Fitness Goals

Want to avoid having the same results this year.

The New Year is a time for new beginnings, whether it's at work , home , or health. It’s not unusual for fitness centers and boot camps all across the country to show a high rise in sign ups in the first couple of months of the year.

If you talk to any trainer and they will tell you that by the end of February, a large number of these fitness buffs have already fallen off track. So if you don’t want to be one of them again this year, read on.

Making whole house changes to your exercise or eating routines for the whole year ahead will be hard. If you were not training in 2018, committing to a 6 day a week intensive PT program in 2019 will be very difficult. On the same lines, if you’ve been on three meals a day, changing to six meals you carry around in little Tupperware containers it’s most likely not going to last long. The same can be said for getting rid of entire food groups. We used to blame all on fats, then carbs. Right now, it's meat.

Be kind, but firm to yourself.

The biggest problem with the 'new year, new me' approach is that when you falter, the mind set is that the ‘plan’ has failed so you walk away from the entire project.

I am asked a lot: ‘whats the best training program for x, y, z.’ No matter what the goal, the real answer to that question is: the one that you’ll stick with on a regular basis.

Like all things in sport, health and fitness, there's a handy acronym for effective goal-setting. When figuring out your January programs, ask : is this goal SMART.

Specific

"Be more healthy" is quite a broad target. Join a basketball team, complete a 5k, or maybe get to one belt size smaller in this coming year lends some specifics to the goal.

Measurable

Tying in with the above, goals must be measurable or else how to we ever know when its achieved? "Looking good" is not really a quantifiable goal, but "adding 10kgs to my bench press" or "do 20 pull ups" definitely is.

Attainable

Be honest with yourself. At 39 years old, I’m more unlikely ever to play centre forward for Boston Celtics. But a more obtainable goal for me currently is to improve my hip movement maintaining dead lift and squat strength.

Relevant

This could be slightly less of a concern if your goal is to improve overall health and fitness. But let us say, the goal we set should have some importance on the result we desire. If you desire to run your first marathon, then setting a goal of improving your jump shot accuracy will be of limited use.

Timed

Simply, this one. Unless we put a time frame on things, we can easily keep putting off our goals into the long grass and putting it off till next week. Setting a time frame to a goal allows us to stay on track.

So: my opinion for making new year resolutions last is, to be kind, but hard on yourself. That way when 2020 comes around, you'll be ready for it.