FIRST STEP: FIND NORTH
Your whole training should be defined by what you want to achieve. Once you know that, the other variables will set into place.
We’re just beggining the new year and most of us start of with our New Year’s Resolutions. Our list of thing’s we’ll want to achieve by the end of the year, etc. Most of these lists have fitness in common. Most of the fitness blogs and sites out there have been dedicating posts to this topic since mid December and not in vain. Goal setting will define your whole training.
Without a destination, how will we know when we’ve arrived? How will we even know what path to take? (this goes beyond training and physical development. But, since it’s not the object of this blog, I won’t go into it. If there’s more you’d like to know just drop me a note, I’ll be more than happy to direct you to better authorities than myself). Coming back to subject: only if we know where we’re going towards will we know what path to take (and then we’ll have to walk it).
Only if we know where we’re going towards will we know what path to take (and then we’ll have to walk it)
So how do we define a good goal?
- It’s precise
- It’s measurable
- It has a time limit
- It’s realistic, but ambitious.
As an example, one of my goals for this year is to be able to do 3 one-arm pull-ups by september 2014. Another one (much more ambitious) running the 2015 Columbia race (it’s a trail race, 120km in 3 days).
Defining wether or not it’s realistic is a huge challenge. For that, we’ll have to be honest and know where we stand, let’s call it Point A (yeah, I know, I’m a creative genius). In my pull-up case, Point A is being able to do 15 technically correct, no kip pullups. Will I be able to do one-arm pull ups by september? Sure, it will be challenging and it will be hard. It is ambitious.
Now, knowing where we want to go will allow us to program our training in a sensible and targeted way. But that’s next post’s problem.
Motus Virtute