Don't jump in at the deep-end: a goal setting guide for the new fitness enthusiast

IF YOU ARE familiar with this series of articles you will know that it’s all about taking a long view, being strategic and realistic with your goals and approach.

Some key assumptions at this point is that you have already fulfilled the two first major criteria insofar as you have decided to make a change at all and that you are have a rough overview of the entire process, the potential time-frames involved, necessary skills required and that there are no short cuts or magic pills worth taking.

Let us then jump straight into short-term goal setting by firstly giving an example of how someone with the best intentions can run into trouble.

Let’s call this person John.

He has decided that he wants to lose some weight this year. Nothing too specific he just feels like he needs to trim up because he’s noticed ‘a bit of a pudge’ come on the past few years since he turned 30.

About a stone sounds right to him because he felt much more athletic in college. He works a standard 9-5 job, eats what he considers ‘well enough’ and plays five-a-side football with his mates every Thursday evening.

He has decided to join a gym in an effort to start getting more regular exercise in his weekly routine. So far, so good.

John decides that he needs a plan. He’s dedicated, motivated and knows that he’s about to make a lifestyle change that should see him live a longer happier life. He’s in it for the long run.

A quick Google leads him to an exercise website on the cover of which is an Olympic weightlifter. He’s lean, strong and apparently very happy. John wants to look like this guy.

Luckily inside there’s a programme outlining this Olympian’s training in the run up to his gold medal performance at a recent major international competition.

The programme is six days a week training twice a day at times and outlines the need for specificity (John adds this to his ‘to Google’ list) in exercise selection, increasing intensity while decreasing over-all volume, managing recovery and really controlling all the variables in his peaking cycle.

Despite not being very familiar with the rest of the exercises listed, John now has a plan and an excel sheet. He is now a force of nature and he cannot be stopped. Squats? Easy. Power cleans? If he wanted to power clean he’d buy a cordless vacuum cleaner.

According to the author all that’s left to do now is to turn up to the gym, follow the simple incredibly complicated plan and the results will look after themselves!

Now John also noticed that he’s a bit slow compared to some of his friends in the Thursday five-a-side. Having settled on his gym programme he Googles ‘how to be faster’ and is lead to another glossy fitness website. This time he reads an article by a renowned international rugby conditioning coach.

He prints out the conditioning programme and adds it to his new dossier of exercise success. John isn’t done though. He’s on a roll and he knows that he needs to make some changes to his nutrition to really maximise the contours of his latent eight-pack abs.

First thing to go is the pints. The pints kill him, every Friday he has a few and sure that’s the weekend out the window! John decides that he is never going to drink again. Literally EVER.

His body is a temple, he’s too serious about his new business for socialising anymore anyway as the programme he has constructed looks like it’s going to take 22 hours of training a week. He now only drinks lemon grass tea.

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While perusing the many fitness articles online he also comes across ‘this solid lad’ who gave up carbs and as a result lived to 120 years of age or something.

Who needs carbs anyway? He doesn’t even know what carbs actually are but he’s done with them regardless. He’s going to be a hybrid athletic demi-god. He has the training and the nutrition sorted, he has his new compression shorts and runners packed away in his gear bag and a carton of protein milk in the fridge for when things get intense. It couldn’t be easier right?

Wrong.

John is absolutely to be admired for his enthusiasm and commended for his time spent researching different training and nutrition methodologies but he has bitten off a little more than he can chew. Is this his fault? No.

The availability of information now means that the most advanced training protocols ever implemented are only a few clicks of the mouse away and it can often be very difficult to distinguish between good and bad information.

He also deserves respect for joining a gym, playing sports socially and wanting to improve in general. These are, after all, very positive things.

However poor John has completely underestimated his current stage of physical development. Can he make progress doing something a little less complicated?

Absolutely, and probably more than he knows as long as he doesn’t kill himself or burn out following his own initial plan.

To do this John needs to understand where he is now. What does day one really look like? I say this to every new client when we sit down to discuss their project – you simply have to establish a baseline.

This baseline is specific to the individual but without it there are no parameters to gauge progress. Your bodyweight, movement ability, training history and a hundred other variables determine how best to proceed and being honest some people just need to get up off the damn couch and keep getting up off the couch every day.

So what can he do to start out in a manner that allows him to learn, progress and have a little fun along the way? Perhaps if he focused on what successful athletes do in their formative years he might learn the skills that create broader parameters for progress instead of focusing on elite programmes design to sell magazines and advertising space.

Perhaps if he learnt how to move, how to breathe, how to control his body through space, how to lift things, throw things, carry and swing things all combined with how to eat healthily he might just end up with everything he ever wanted.

In a nut shell he needs to learn the basics. Step one is to sit down and set specific goals.
Let’s break John down and help him establish his baseline.

We have already given an example of what a bad first week for John would look like. Complex multi joint high skill movements performed at high intensity with an associated conditioning programme designed for an elite athlete – all combined with a zero carb diet for no reason and relative social seclusion. So if that is a bad week then what could a good first week look like if we have all the details above?

Step two is to write down the goal and be honest with your motivation. What is the significance of his goal? He mentions that he only noticed last year on holidays that he had put on some weight and felt a little apprehensive about taking his top off at the pool.

He has another holiday booked in six months and he doesn’t want to feel like that again. We just established a good time timeline to work within and uncovered the motivation under the desire to change.

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We tell him about the process of healthy maintainable weight-loss, the benefits of progressive strength training, quality movement and where to look for good nutritional information.

He agrees to scrap his initial plan and admits he never wanted to go to the Olympics anyway. Flights would cost a fortune to Rio.

So six months to look and feel better, now we’re getting somewhere. Here’s an alternative example of what his first week could look like making small but significant changes:

• Start to move
• Learn one thing about nutrition
• Make one lifestyle change

It doesn’t have to be complicated but it sets the foundation for the next week and the next. He might not be where he wants to be after seven days but he’s moving, learning and making changes outside of the training and eating habits.

Next week he might learn about food quality, learn a new exercise and decide to start walking to work. Who knows where he could be after one, three or six months – but he will certainly be further along the path than if he had jumped into the deep end straight away.

Now, John does not exist and this is all purely hypothetical but I meet people like him all the time. There’s nothing wrong with that, we all start somewhere and sometimes we get crazy notions in our heads.

However, week in and week out in the environment I work in I see the frustrations and lack of success that go hand in hand with trying to do too much too soon. People worrying about losing 100lbs when they really only needed to be concerned about the first pound.

People making drastic nutritional choices without any understanding of nutrition and people seemingly training for the Olympics when all they really need to do is to master an empty bar and find a way that allow then to have some fun and keep coming back.

If any aspect of John’s story sounds familiar then ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you doing an exercise programme you enjoy?
• Are you making small but regular changes to the lifestyle within which your exercise and nutrition exists?
• Do you have a plan for this week and this month?
• Do you know where you want to be or what you would have liked to have achieved three months from now?

If the answer to any of these questions is no then perhaps cancel those flights to Rio and rethink your plan – simplify, get strategic and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Write down the answers and revisit them next week. After all there will be another Olympics in 2020 and who knows, if you are smart about your training you might just be in with a chance to actually go.

Kieran Hegarty is a professional strength and wellness coach and owner of EverStrength. You can read Kieran’s weekly fitness blog on The42 every Thursday morning.

For more information, you can follow him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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