Overview

  • Think about why you want to work on fitness. That’s your high level goal
  • Also recognise that on a technical level pretty much all fitness goals involve one or more of these four things:
    • health
    • increase lean muscle
    • decrease body fat
    • improved athleticism
  • Have realistic expectations

Goal setting

Most people probably have an idea of their lifting-related goals already. It might look something like this:

  • I want to lose weight
  • I want to get toned
  • I want to get stronger
  • I want to get bigger
  • I want to be healthy
  • I want to get better at a sport

All of these are perfectly valid. Hold on to that thought. I’m going to suggest that we simply want to frame this in a more structured way. A goal hierarchy if you will.

High level goal

Let’s try to identify what our high-level goal is, at a broad conceptual level. If we want to be clinical these are typically known as superordinate goals.

Effective goals here are generally long-term, abstract but not vague, and corresponds to a person’s identity. 1 It’s ok, and in fact encouraged, for these goals to be aspirational in nature, as it relates to how you perceive your ideal self.

Medium level goal

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that for 95% of us, our fitness-related superordinate goals will fall into one of the following categories:

  • Health
  • Body recomposition
  • Performance in a strength sport
  • Supporting another physically active hobby

Of course, these can and should be tailored in your own words, to something that’s meaningful to you (but really it does likely boil down to one of those four options).

Let’s briefly look at each one.

Health – Long-term quality of life

It seems like a no brainer to say we all desire long-term quality of life and longevity. Now, a lot of folks may say: ‘I don’t care about being strong or big, I just want to be healthy.’ Unfortunately, there’s usually a couple of misconceptions in those who follow this train of thought – mostly underestimating what a relatively easily attainable level of strength is (which in turn has a correlation with health), as well as the actual recommended minimum guidelines set by national standards (which are already generally fairly low).

Body recomposition – Weight loss or muscle gain

Many of us will have goals of a weigh loss or muscle gain at some point in our lives. This is a bit of a misnomer, as technically the body composition goal itself is likely not our superordinate goal.

This is the part where you’ll find it most helpful to describe, in your own words, the intrinsic motivation any body composition goal. External motivators (such as ‘I want to look good on a beach’, ‘I want to lose 5kg before this holiday’) are all well and good, but tying that all together should be a deeper, internally driven reason for doing so (‘I want to prove to myself I can accomplish a difficult task’, ‘ I want to better myself for my own sake and personal fulfillment’).

It should be said that health, longevity, and long-term quality of life is implicit within this goal as well.

Performance in a strength sport – Powerlifting, Crossfit, Strongman, etc

Some will be training directly for a sport where the activity involves exercising within the weightroom.

It should be said that health, longevity, and long-term quality of life is implicit within this goal as well.

Supporting another physically active hobby

Some will have a (relatively) serious activity that is their priority, so strength and conditioning is simply a means to enhancing their activity.

Running, marathon running, trail running, cycling, rowing, swimming, MMA, BJJ, muay thai, soccer, tennis, rock climbing, bouldering, skiing – this list could go on for a very long time…

All of this is absolutely valid, it’s just important to understand and specify your priorities.

It should be said that health, longevity, and long-term quality of life is implicit within this goal as well.

Intermediate goals

Effective intermediate goals spells out a behaviour that can be carried out to support the superordinate goal.

In my opinion, these are some suitable lifting goals at the intermediate level:

  • Lift a lot
  • Eat a lot
  • Get enough sleep
  • Minimise stress

Of course, these can and should be tailored in your own words, to something that’s meaningful to you.

A new years resolution (see Goals#New [[Goals#New year’s resolutions]]) would be an excellent spot to append an intermediate goal.

Subordinate goals

Effective subordinate goals specifies what to do and how to do it. And yes, this is where you can apply the (overrated and overused) SMART framework to write a goal.

In my opinion, there are lots of suitable lifting goals at the subordinate level:

  • Go to the gym 3x a week, on Mon, Wed, and Sat evenings
  • Workout for 45-60 mins each session
  • Only eat 3 cheat meals a week

Of course, these can and should be tailored in your own words, to something that’s meaningful to you.

Event goals

Milestone goals

Knowledge goals

Other concepts

New year’s resolutions

Are they good or bad?
Every year, we see an abundance of comments saying things along the lines of:

  • the time to act is now
  • if you haven’t started yesterday, you’re already too late

This is a very negative, fatalistic approach at looking at goal setting. And it’s probably just not that effective.

Some of the most common new year’s resolution goals are fitness related.

Now a lot of people poo-poo on new year’s resolutions. It’s probably a little more nuanced with that.

Another study suggested that:

  • 6 months after new year’s resolutions, 65% self-reported on-going success.
  • 12 months after new year’s resolutions, 55% self-reported on-going success.

A new year’s resolution is simply a goal with a temporal landmark. This is a concept of distinguishing a point in time.

What about SMART Goals?

SMART goals is a common (some would say, overused) term that you’ve likely encountered. Now, it does provide a good framework to set objectives, and fits in nicely into our Subordinate goal concept.

  • specific
  • measurable
  • adaptable
  • realistic
  • time-bound

How does this apply to fitness? Instead of saying “I want to lose weight” or “I want to get stronger”, why not consider your actual age, your training age, and how much time you want to commit to health and fitness.

Let’s look at two population types and an example of a better, more targeted goal.

“In the next 6 months, I want to lose weight with an initial goal of 1kg of weight per month, and adjusting from 0.5kg to 1.5kg for each subsequent month depending on progress. This will be measured by my home scale, using the average weight of 3 consecutive days measured at the same time.”

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