My guest blogger today is Sarah Bockhart from sarahbockhart.com. Sarah has been in the personal training industry since 2008. She specialises in sports massage, cardiac rehabilitation, exercise with medical conditions and teaches a number of different fitness classes. Today she's going to share with us a great way to achieve our fitness goals! Take it away, Sarah:
There are not many people who aren’t at least thinking about fitness in the lead up to the New Year, right?. If you’re not used to training regularly but want to dust off your trainers come January 1st, here’s my guide to using the SMART model (an acronym that gives you the basic criteria to set objectives for a certain goal or goals) to starting a new regimen.
Thanks for this amazingly helpful post, Sarah! If anyone else would like to guest post for me, please get in touch!
There are not many people who aren’t at least thinking about fitness in the lead up to the New Year, right?. If you’re not used to training regularly but want to dust off your trainers come January 1st, here’s my guide to using the SMART model (an acronym that gives you the basic criteria to set objectives for a certain goal or goals) to starting a new regimen.
S:
Specific
The first rule of
SMART goals is to be specific with what you want to achieve. Whether
it means simply saying the goal out loud or writing your goal down.
Only instead of saying “I want to get fitter in the New Year” you
could say “I want to exercise for 20 minutes, three times a week”.
It gives you much more direction for the next stages of the SMART
model.
M: Measurable
Next, is your
goal measurable? How will you know you’ve accomplished it? How do
you know what steps it will take to reach it? This can mean, for
example, the way you measure that you’ve completed three walks a
week, (i.e. tick it off your calendar) or it could be as simple as
using your watch to measure the total time you’ve walked each
session so you know when 20 minutes are up (because you may only
regularly walk for 15 minutes currently and this is your way of
measuring the increase). If you want to complete a 5km run in the
summer you can use a tracking app to measure the distances you
complete in the lead up or you can go one further and encourage your
friends to measure together using a leader board at work or online. Bullet
journalling is also a great and creative way to track and set goals.
A: Achievable
If you commute to
work for a 2-3 hour round trip and don’t get home until 8-9pm every
night, then setting yourself a goal to exercise for 2 hours per day
probably isn’t something you’re likely to achieve (unless of
course, you’re Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who sets an alarm at
stupid o’clock in the morning to get up and train before a day’s
work and more training in the evening). Evaluate your lifestyle and
adapt a plan around it so you are setting yourself up to succeed.
R: Realistic
This one is quite
self-explanatory. If you are the type of person who doesn’t like to
be off in the great outdoors or you will more than likely stay in if
there’s so much of a sniff of the chance of rain...it’s probably
not realistic for you to commit to jogging 5 nights a week. It’s so
important to choose something you are realistically going to stick
with. This, to me, means finding something you enjoy doing. It could
mean trying new classes or ideas, some you like and some you hate,
but when you find that healthy obsession it makes keeping fit 110%
easier! Likewise, if you have a chronic medical condition or injury
that will hold back what you can and can’t do, set realistic
mini-goals. This works hand in hand with the “achievable” aspect
and sometimes the two blend together.
T: Time
Giving yourself a
time to work to can help you stick to your plan and give yourself a
little nudge with a sense of internal competition. Saying to yourself
“I’d like to run 5km” doesn’t inspire you to commit to
training like “I’ve booked myself on to a 5km charity run, I know
I can walk it but I’d like to run the entire thing on the day”
does. It not only gives you a date but a goal and a distance to work
up to. Other examples of time scales are “I want to fit into the
next size down trousers by the wedding in May” or “I’d like to
feel confident in my swim-wear for my holiday in September”.
Don’t forget,
if you’ve set yourself the goal with all of the best intentions and
you feel it start to dwindle, there is nothing wrong with taking a
different approach and re-evaluating your SMART goal. This model can
be used for one long term goal and many short and medium term goals.
Life gets in the way sometimes and that’s okay!
Sarah has uploaded a very basic food plan to get people back into preparation and avoid snacking in the new year, which you can find here.
Sarah has uploaded a very basic food plan to get people back into preparation and avoid snacking in the new year, which you can find here.
Thanks for this amazingly helpful post, Sarah! If anyone else would like to guest post for me, please get in touch!
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