Goal setting

Whether you’re training for health reasons, sports performance or to feel/look good, everyone has a goal in mind that they would aspire to achieve. In a perfect world, it would be a straightforward path to this goal, however, there will be ups and downs and setbacks along the way. Having an effective method of goal setting can help you stay focused and keep you on track. Using our modified SMART target system, you can measure your success in order to achieve your results.

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Repeatable

Timed

 

Specific

Your goal must be clearly defined in order for you to progress. As coaches, you hear a lot of people say they want to burn fat, build muscle, improve their fitness, fix an injury, get ready for an event….the list goes on, but these people are the very same people that are stagnant in their journey. You must have a specific goal you want to achieve, I.E. I want to reduce my body fat percentage by 5%.

 

Measurable

Your goal must have a value that can be measured. You’re essentially conducting a science experiment with multiple variables involved. Your outcome must be measurable against your input. There’s no point just simply saying ‘I want to reduce my body fat percentage’ if you have no means to record the data needed to quantify your results. QUICK TIP: Don’t try to change too many variables at once (we’ll come onto this later)

 

Achievable

Don’t set goals which are so extreme that you set yourself up for failure. For example, losing 5% body fat is more than achievable in say, a 3-month program designed specifically to do so. Saying you want to drop 5% in 3 weeks, however, is a bit extreme and you will fail.

 

Repeatable

This is where our modification fits in. Repeatability in fitness ultimately boils down to controlling your variables effectively. You need to know what change resulted in an adaptation. I.E. If you did, in fact, drop 5% body fat how would you tell what worked best if you changed 8 things at once? How would you isolate that dominant force in your change so that you can become more and more effective at achieving your goals? You need to gradually implement change so that you can assess what works, what doesn’t work and what you need to include more/less of in the future. For example, if you are just starting to work out, do 3 total body training sessions/week and don’t change anything else. When you are comfortable with that, begin to introduce some healthier options in your nutrition and see what effect that has, etc etc. Gradually layer your changes on so that it becomes a habit rather than a chore.

 

Timed

Placing a timescale on any goal is really important in achieving it. Without that timescale, you can make excuses for yourself that it won’t affect your goals that much, but that’s how you end up stuck and not achieving anything. Setting a goal of losing 5% body fat in 3 months will help keep your focus, especially when you break that down into smaller ‘sub-goals’ which will break down into months/weeks. It’s a lot easier to say no to that pizza when you know you’ve only got 4 weeks left to achieve your goal.

 

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Coaching Couch – Bang for Your Buck

In a world where complicated training systems and ‘new’ exercises are popping up every day, how do you know that your training is effective enough to guarantee results? In this week’s blog, we discuss the concept of ‘bang for your buck’ so that you can get the best out of your own, or a clients training program.

What Does Bang For Your Buck Mean?

Bang for your buck simply means to get the most output for a minimum input.  In short, it’s a process where you optimise the expenditure of your resources to attain the highest possible yield. In regards to exercise, this basically boils down to spending more time/energy on the exercises/movements or training systems which give you the best progress for your specific goals. Exercises that work multiple large muscles (compound movements) are a great place to start as a general rule.

Squats & deadlifts are classic exercises which can be used for a wide variety of training goals and many pressing/rowing movements can be used effectively in the right programs. Whilst programming and periodization is a complex subject, ensuring you have the ‘best’ exercises included is a solid foundation to work from.

The easiest way to visualise this is if you have an empty jar. This is your total capacity for a single training session. You have 3 different sized balls which you can put in the jar; large, medium and small. The large balls represent your compound lifts, the medium balls represent your accessory exercises and the small balls represent everything else you could include in a training session. So the idea is that you fit as many large balls in the jar as possible, then as many medium balls and then as many small balls in the leftover space. What you are left with is a training session with the key components as the main focus (squats etc), your accessory exercises next (RDL’s) and finally, everything else (bicep curls, calf raises etc).

Use this thought process when you’re planning your own or a clients training programs and you’ll be well on the way to producing an effective training program.

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Why consistency isn’t the key when it comes to fitness training.

The Problem(s)

   If you’ve been following fitness blogs for a while, you’ve probably heard the saying “consistency is key”. When it comes to setting goals and smashing them, its pretty good advice for the most part, however, it’s not strictly true. Now this isn’t to say you can kick back and take it easy and still achieve some incredible results, far from it, but you just have to be a bit smart about it.

   The problem with consistency is that people try to obliterate themselves day in day out, for weeks, and months on end with high intensity training sessions. This coupled with little to no recovery strategies will inevitably lead people down 2 paths; path number 1 is injury and path number 2 is overtraining & burnout (potentially leading to injury).

Injuries

   Injuries aren’t uncommon when it comes to physical exercise and there’s always a risk that you could pick up an injury at any given time. This can be a freak accident, or something that could be avoided. Where there are risks, there are risk factors and the job of a coach is to minimize these so that you can train in the safest environment possible; another great reason to hire a coach for your training sessions.

   When it comes to training, a major risk factor is that the body hasn’t fully recovered from the last session or even a block/period of training you’ve completed. This means that the body isn’t ready to exercise and as a result you could be exposing yourself to a higher risk of injury. Now most of the time this is something minor like a slight muscle pull, however injuries like muscle tears or snapped ligaments aren’t uncommon and can cause some long-term problems for your exercise goals.

Overtraining & Burnout

Overtraining & burnout can actually be a hell of a lot harder to overcome than an injury. When you’re injured you can at least focus on your recovery to get back into it, however, when you’re over-trained you probably couldn’t think of anything worse. Battling your mind is a lot harder than just simply saying “I’m going to get motivated now”, it’s a condition which has built up over a long period of time as a result of training too hard for the recovery strategies you employ.

When you’re over-trained you feel tired, lethargic and often dread going to the gym. This is your body’s way of telling you to take it easy and not listening can lead to burnout or injuries. Now, overtraining isn’t what you experienced when you simply “can’t be bothered” this is a chronic state in which you really struggle to motivate yourself when normally you’re fine and enjoy exercising.

The trick is knowing when to take a step back and let your body have a bit of a rest and not beat yourself up about it. If you imagine your body as a car engine, if you drive constantly at 100 mph it is going to break down eventually and cause more problems than if you just ease off the throttle for a little bit.

The solution

So, you may ask, if not consistency, what should I be aiming for in my training? Well, that is what I would call sustainability. If your goal is to run a marathon, you don’t want to burn out half way through because you sprinted at the start and progressively got slower as the race goes on. No, you’ll want to keep a good average speed, potentially with periods of higher intensity and lower intensity running.

Taking the example of a marathon, this is what we look for with fitness training. Overall we want to maintain a certain level of intensity, however this doesn’t mean it always has to be high. Sustaining an effort is as much about managing your energy and time as it is about putting yourself through grueling workouts. Allow your body a bit of time off and it will reward you with the results you desire.

A great way to visualize this is your bank account. If you spend more than you have coming in, then eventually you will end up with no money. To have a positive bank balance you will need to regulate your income/outcome balance over the course of the year. This may mean that you have periods of higher expenditure, but then you will compensate this by having periods of lower spending.

In Practice

It should go without saying that not being able to train due to injury or not wanting to train due to burnout are probably the two things you definitely don’t want to be doing, so how do we avoid them? The answer lies in a well structured, periodized program including proper recovery and nutrition strategies.

This is when we take your goals, and make a systematic plan of how we will hit them in the next year, 6 months, month week and even individual sessions. With a periodized program, a coach can effectively monitor and track your workouts, prescribe adequate loads and intensities, whilst also being able to plan appropriate ‘de-load’ periods. Monitoring can range from just assessing your mood/ability to train intensely to the super advanced tracking systems used in elite sport like GPS trackers, sleep tracking and psychological assessments.

So in short, if you’re feeling run down and dread training but fear not going, give yourself a week off, or a week of planned lower intensity sessions. Your body will thank you so much and will be ready to smash it when you back to it. Sustainability is the key.

 

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For exercise demonstrations, check out our FREE app (click the picture below) to view videos, pictures and exercise cues for over 250 exercises!

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D.N.A S&C