The New Year is upon us! I ran a little poll on instagram asking about what kind of goals people have for the year. There was a varied selection of aims from getting over back pain to getting back in shape. I think the first step for any goal is just being aware of the raw facts of what needs to be done to achieve it. I have summed up the main factors to consider below
Gaining Muscle – Muscle growth is about consistently providing a stimulus that makes your body want to increase the size of your muscles. The body has no reason to grow new muscle unless you do resistance training in some form. You then need to consistently repeat that stimulus to see any real-world change. What people often miss is patience, gaining muscle is a slow process. The process is helped by having ideal protein intake and adequate sleep etc. However, it all comes back to are you going to keep applying a muscle-growing stimulus over the year ahead. For more advanced/consistent lifters then you cannot just keep repeating what you have always done. While you are doing resistance training yes, you probably are not creating a stimulus for new muscle growth.
Getting Healthy – To feel healthier, be sick less often or to increase your chances of living to an older age you will need to change something in your daily habits. Health is about how the basic inputs accumulate over time. I have discussed many times how for me the biggest quick increase in health will come from reducing a food or food group that irritates your body. This can create positive short term changes. Longer term health benefits will come from exercising consistently throughout the year, improving sleep, eating a balanced diet, managing stress or cutting down ‘bad’ behaviours. Despite all the biohacks out there, most people are not doing the basics that influence the vast majority of your results. So, to change your health, what food, movement pattern, or reduced ‘bad’ behaviour will change going forwards?
Resolving Injuries – Pains come about because one or more joints are out of alignment. If you can get them back into the right position your pains will disappear and you can get back to movement safely. To make this happen you will need to either strengthen or lengthen specific muscles or retrain your brain to coordinate movement patterns differently. Surprisingly, results can come quite quickly in many injury cases, while others require a longer process of discovery to find out what you need to do to rebalance the joint positions.
Improving Fitness – Fitness goals are about consistent effort over time. Whether you’re aiming for better endurance, strength, or overall conditioning, the principle is the same: start where you are and build up gradually. The key is finding something you enjoy so it doesn’t feel like a chore. People often do not realise how many different training methodologies exist that can increase your fitness. You can feel completely differently about doing one type of training to another even when the two methods are quite similar.
What Does This Mean For You
It is important to be really clear on what needs to happen to achieve your goals, and it is helpful to zoom out to see what general things must happen. Everyone is focused on the specifics, but if you look at the underlying principles involved, you will realize there are many ways to get there, which gives you more options and therefore more freedom.
Section 2 of my book really delves into the mechanics of achieving any goal, focusing on what you must do but also what you do not have to do. Every year, you see so many people doing things that are totally unnecessary to get results. The consequence is usually failure to achieve your goals and another deflating outcome for your health & fitness.
Photo – Some of the replies to my Instagram goals survey:
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