Hopefully everyone has had a nice restful Christmas. Which means plenty of excess and gluttony i’m sure. I always tell my clients to enjoy the this period and not to worry too much about diet or training and enjoy some well earned time out with loved ones.
The gap between Christmas and New Year gives us an opportunity to think about what you want to achieve in the New Year. Now i’m not talking about a whole heap of resolutions that ultimately get broken within the first 2 weeks, i’m thinking more about proper planning of the first few months of the year.
What I often see in January is very vague goals, comments like “i want to lose weight” or “i want to tone up my bum” start resonating around gyms up and down the land. This stuff just doesn’t really cut it as far as actually outlining what the hell you’re going to do to get these results.
Variety in training can be good, and i like all forms of exercise: studio classes, yoga, pilates, running, cross-fit or whatever you want to throw into the mix to challenge yourself in 2017. Just don’t try and be a yogi, a runner and a bodybuilder all at once. Choose a goal and stick with it, or you will end up spreading yourself thin and getting nowhere.
Make sure you have a way to track your progress, I expect you might have some physique tracking methods in place such as weight, circumference measurements, photos and maybe a way of getting your body fat done. These are all great and I would absolutely recommend them. However these are tracking that your sticking to your diet and not really much to do with training. You need to be training specific.
As a personal trainer I spend time periodising my clients training plans and setting goals. Periodising your training is vital, periodisation is used for athletes to get them ready for events, however it is relevant for everyone. An example of how I might periodise my clients training would be something like this; 4-6 weeks training to get stronger, 6-8 weeks training to build some muscle mass and 4-6 weeks conditioning phase. Within each phase there will goals associated. Simple goals such as achieve 1 x body weight chin up with good form and add 10kg’s to the bar for 5 reps on deadlift in the strength phase, be able to hold a 80% body weight barbell squat at the bottom for 5 seconds and to be able to do 100x barbell curls at 20kg’s in under 3 minutes (without swinging the bar) in a body building phase, then a 5k row and 5k run target in a conditioning phase.
Each month or 6 weeks focus on 1 or 2 specific things. Now that could be a couple of really tricky yoga poses that you know you struggle with, or being able to get that 5k run time down, perform the latest Bodycoach HITT program 10 seconds faster. As long as they are SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant & Time-bound). Then at the end of the month or 6 week period set a new goal to go with your new focus.
I like to plan out phases about three month in advance. So if January is going to be all about getting the 5k run time down, how about mastering the Squat technique and lifting 0.5x your body weight for 5 reps in February and then for March you can start tracking what you eat in an app like MyFitnessPal and only drinking alcohol at the weekends.
In my experience you cant do it all at once, I would suggest to do 1 maybe 2 fitness or health challenges each month, track it, hopefully nail it and move onto the next phase with a new goal to focus on. If you start to enjoy the processes and hitting targets, the results like fat loss, toned bum and being able to breath when you walk up the escalators become a nice additional add on.
So give it a go, plan out 1 or 2 things you can realistically do each month for the first three months of 2017. Simplicity is key.
