When setting out to build the necessary habits to accomplish a fitness goal it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the many opinions and strategies that exist in the fitness market today. JC and I have both felt the feeling of frustration when we stood at the starting line years ago. We remember reading and experimenting over and over again until we found systems that worked for each of us. After having experienced this process we wanted to write a post that provided you, the reader, with guidelines to reach your goals in an efficient manner. Take your time to think about each of these steps deeply and then make sure to have fun during the work that lies ahead.
Step 1 - Identify your fitness goals
What do you want to accomplish? What is your dream? The reason most people fail to reach their fitness goals is that the goals are too vague. As a professional fitness coach, JC Deen sees this all the time.
You must think deeply about what exactly you want. With fitness, there are an endless amount of options. Which one of these fitness goals resonates with you?
- Maintain health
- Burn fat
- Gain muscle
- Build strength
- Increase athleticism for a sport
Choosing one of these options is a good start, but you will have to think even deeper about where you want to go from there. Even something as simple as ‘being stronger’ could lead to many different paths. You could simply lift on your own, powerlift, olympic lift, or even do strongman competitions. This is where step two comes into play.
Step 2 - Find a hero and educate yourself
The easiest way to find out what your fitness goals are is to locate someone you find incredibly cool. So cool, in fact, you obsess over what they do and how they do it. To someone else your hero might be a nobody, but to you that person is a gift to mankind.
For JC it was the bodybuilders he saw in the magazines. Frank Zane and Mike Mentzer were his favorites. For Matt it was Tony Gentilcore, who inspired him to lift heavy and devour more eggs than ever before. These heros inspired each of us to work hard and continue to get better. Every blog post and new product our heros created was worth it’s weight in gold. To make this learning process a little easier for you, here are some amazing individuals and communities who you could learn from:
Strength
Burn fat
Build Muscle
Cool communities online
Step 3 - Make a plan and build long-lasting habits
To build healthy fitness goals, you should:
- Start small - What’s the quickest and easiest thing you can do to get started? Maybe it’s buying a gym pass. Steve Kamb suggests it may be just exercising for five minutes each day. Whatever that easy first step is for you, don’t hesitate to get started. This concept is also known as creating ‘small wins.’
- Build momentum - After going to the gym one time a week, go two times a week. Then go three. Put on an extra couple pounds for that lift. Take advantage of your early position and push yourself to make big strides quickly.
- Automate - We love Steve’s suggestion of laying out your gym bag and fitness clothes the night before so you don’t have a choice to do your workout in the morning. For Matt, the most effective automation trick to eat healthy was to only shop on the perimeter of grocery stores and avoiding buying food in the inside aisles.
- Remain accountable - Tell people your goals, grab a gym partner, or find a personal trainer to motivate you! It becomes much easier to continue working when you have others supporting you.
And that’s it! Our last gift to you is a list of great tools to own to make the journey working towards your fitness goal easier and more enjoyable. We wish you the best of luck.
Tools
- StrengthPortal - Our software was built to benefit personal trainers and self-trackers of health and fitness. You can learn more about our features here. If StrengthPortal doesn’t fit your needs there are lots of free fitness apps out there.
- Diet tracking tools - The MyFitnessPal and Fitocracy Macro apps are two popular free tools.
- Wearable devices - Not really too useful in the gym yet, but if you want to track general activity or movement the data gathered from these tools could benefit and motivate you.
- Basic tools for mobility work:
High density foam roller
Lacrosse ball
Exercise bands
- Basic nutrition supplements
100% whey protein
Fish oil
Written by:
Matt McGunagle - CEO and co-founder of StrengthPortal, a fitness management software for personal trainers.
