Goal’s, Give Your Training Some Direction
Goal’s, Give Your Training Some Direction
By Neil Perkins
Many of us start an exercise regime with an intention of losing weight, toning up or getting fitter. Very often these are linked to emotional goals of feeling better, improving confidence or improved body image. Giving your training direction is key to you continually achieving and is key part of your journey if you want to evolve from been a ‘Gym Avoider’ to becoming a ‘Gym Rat’. Success is empowering, but how do you quantify your success? Fitness testing is a great way to assess your fitness level, it gives you a quantifiable figure to asses and benchmark against for improvement. There is a clear difference between someone who ‘Works Out’ to some who ‘Trains’
The goal of someone who ‘works out’ is to sweat and burn calories, someone who ‘trains’ will apply a more structured plan to achieve an end goal.
As people evolve form been a gym avoider to becoming a gym rat, they will be become more goal driven. The high intensity bootcamps you were doing to lose weight are becoming easier, your goal was to lose weight and now the jeans that you tried on that were too tight and kick-started you into this exercise regime are now too big and you’ve had to buy a new pair. What was your goal weight loss, because I would say you’ve achieved it? Now you’re going to stop exercising right? No, you enjoy it and are driven be success but now you need to learn to ‘train’ as opposed to ‘work out’.
For the next phase of your journey you need to give your training direction. Hitting a punch bag was great to burn calories, as were your bootcamp sessions. You’ve lost weight and progressed, now it is time to get quantifiable with your training.
Some great goals for those of you ready to take the next step….
Learn to Lift.
Weightlifting and in particular Olympic weightlifting is great fun. There is something incredibly satisfying about picking a very heavy weight up. People assume that squatting and deadlifting are easy moves? There is skill even in these raw movements, performing them at an appropriate intensity will send your metabolism through the roof and promote lean muscle mass which in turn aids fat loss. If your goal is fat loss then combine weights with HIIT training. If consistent you will get stronger and ladies if you think dropping a dress size is empowering, try deadlifting 100kg from the floor and listening to it slam back down – that is empowering.
Progressing to Olympic weightlifting is a natural evolution from your fundamental lifts. The Clean & Jerk and Snatch are moves that not only require power, but balance, flexibility and core strength.
Learn to Box
We are not talking about learning to punch or punch a bag. Start with some beginner intro sparring. You can identify the ‘fitness boxer’ from the aspiring boxer by the way they move, look and posture. An experienced coach identifies them by watching them train and hit a bag with purpose. They don’t have a bag in-front of them, they have an opponent. They stalk it, eyeball it and focus. They feint it, vary attacks from head to body and then like a cobra unleash the venomous strikes.
The beginners intro sparring will make you boxing workout real and now your goal can be to learn a skill. The pugilistic art of hit and don’t get hit. The progression from here is to open spar and once your timing and shot variety is starting to come together in sparring sessions then the only way to develop your skill is to box in-front of a crowd on a show. Boxing is part of the learning and sometimes so is losing.
Exercise is a wonderful and evolving journey. Our job as a gym is to keep evolving goals and progressing our users. As you progress beyond the stereotypical ‘lose weight and tone up’ you will need to evolve your goals and become more adventurous and/or quantifiable with your training goals.
Enjoy the journey.