Today I want to discuss goals. Goals are very important to your training. Without a goal you are essentially wasting your time in the gym. Everyone that has walked through the doors at the gym has at one time had a goal. It may have been to lose a few pounds, or become a better athlete, or to become a healthier person. Whatever it was it motivated them to take the hardest step and walk through the door. These types of goals are vague and very subjective. They will get you up off the couch and moving but they have no real obtainable goal. After you've lost those few pounds and feel healthier it's easy to become complacent with your training if you're not careful. So what do we do to combat this complacency? We set objective goals. They can be anything as long as they have an objective outcome and can be reached in a reasonable amount of time. One goal of mine is to back squat 400 lbs. I want to reach this goal by the end of 2012. But your goal may be to run a 6 min mile. Or to bench press your body weight or to fit into your wedding dress again (that's something women are interested in right?). It doesn't matter as long as it is specific.
Ok so we have set our goal, now what? Well we have to formulate a plan for reaching that goal. We need to make a roadmap if you will. The route that is going to get us from where we are to where we want to be. This is easier said then done. Everytime I log onto the computer there's a new workout program out there that is promising to be better than anything that has ever come before it. So we have to gamble in a sense. We take advice from friends, or celebrities, or Joe Schmo off the street and we throw our eggs into a basket and get to work. The key is to follow the program. Whichever program you decide to follow stick with it. The key to achieving our goals is consistency and hard work. I will never hit my 400 lb back squat if I only squat once a month. You're never going to fit into that wedding dress again if you're only watching what you eat 3 days a week and having a food orgy free for all the other 4.
At Crossfit Littleton we have our "Goals" board. It's broken into two halves. 30 day goals and year end goals. The 30 day goals are short term goals. Goals that can be accomplished with a little bit of training and focus. The year end goals are goals that you are going to have to buckle down, tighten up your boot straps and put in some hours on. If you accomplish your year end goal in 30 days you didn't aim high enough. Period! I'm not going to lie to you the year end goal scares the shit out of me. When you put down your year end goal you're committing to a year's worth of work. It might mean that you're coming in early to get in your squats, or while everyone else is out having ice cream and beer (weird combo I know don't judge me) you're snacking on carrots and almond butter. But in order to reach those markers in our lives we have to sacrifice sometimes. Believe me when we do accomplish those goals there is no better feeling. And guess what when you do complete that goal there's always another pinnacle that needs to be reached. When I squat 400 lbs I won't quit working out I will set a new goal of 450 lbs. The instructions for goals are similiar to the ones on the back of a bottle of shampoo. Set, reach, repeat. So choose your goal, choose your plan and get to work. Remember anything worth having is worth working hard for.
Post up your year end goals under the comments section.
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