How to Become a SMART Goal Setter!

Picture this. You get into your car, turn on the ignition and set up your GPS, only to never punch in a final destination. How do you think this scenario would pan out? You would probably end up driving around for a while, not really sure where you’re going exactly, getting confused and frustrated along the way. Maybe you never even leave in the first place! This is what life can be like without having a clear goal put in place. A goal is your final destination point, something that provides you with a clear sense of direction and gives your life a clearer sense of purpose.

One of the most common goals that people set around this time of year are New Year’s resolutions. These are a chance for many people to hit the ground running as they look to better themselves in different areas of their lives.

The resolution could be to cut out sugary foods such as candy and ice cream from their diet. Or it could be to start going on 6am jogs before work. While the intentions of a New Year’s resolution are good, many people struggle to make it through the first couple of weeks before losing all motivation. If you are reading this and find that this is resonates with you, I have some good news. Failing to stick to a New Year’s resolution has very little to do with your mental strength or willpower, and more to do with the resolution itself.

In order to understand where I am going with this, we have to first understand how to become a better goal setter. A good method that I like to use when setting a new goal is to follow the S.M.A.R.T principle. When broken down using this format, your new goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Over the course of this article, I am going to dive into each of these sections and provide you with the tools you need to become a SMART goal setter!

Specific

When setting a goal for yourself, it has to be specific to you and what you want to achieve in life. Furthermore, you need to be very clear about what your goal is and why you want to set that for goal for yourself. Simply saying “I want to lose weight” is far too vague. However, saying that “I want to lose weight so that I can feel more confident in myself and reduce my risk of health issues” is a lot more specific and gets to the root cause of why you want to make changes in your life.

If you play a sport and you are looking to set a SMART goal for yourself, this same rule applies. Wanting to become a better volleyball player is not a specific goal, but improving your vertical jump so that you can be a more effective hitter certainly is. Not only does this goal mention a specific physical trait (jumping) that you want to improve, but it is also an important skill to have if you want to be successful at that position.

Measurable

If your goal isn’t measurable, it’s hard to really know if you’re moving in the right direction or if you’ve ever successfully achieved it. If your goal is simply to become a better runner or a more skilful soccer player, how will you really know if you’ve succeeded in doing so? However, if you set a goal of improving your 5k time or scoring 10 goals next season, you now have a clear target that you can work towards. Having a numerical value which tells you that you are getting better can also provide you with a huge confidence boost. I can personally say that there is no better motivator than knocking a few seconds off your personal best run time or adding 10lbs to your bench press max. These little victories all add up in the long run to reaching your overall goal and keep you feeling positive throughout the process.

Achievable

This is the main reason why most New Year’s resolutions end up failing before you even reach February. Setting lofty goals for yourself may seem like a great idea at the time, but will only leave you feeling deflated if they aren’t realistically achievable. For example, wanting to work out at 5am multiple days a week is going to be extremely difficult to maintain if you are bartending until midnight or a mother of 3 young children. Your lifestyle stressors should not be an excuse to not set a goal for yourself, but you should be keep them in mind if you want your goal to be realistic.

The best piece of advice I can give when trying to set an achievable goal is that you’re not trying to conquer the world overnight! Success in many aspects of life is the product of consistency over a long period of time. Do not expect to get underneath a barbell for the first time and squat 400lbs within a few months. That is a goal that takes many years to achieve and is not conducive to your current ability level. Try to set smaller targets for yourself that are easier to achieve and then continue to build upon them over time.

Relevant

Your goal should be relevant to you and there must be a clear purpose for why you want to achieve it. In the period of time that you work towards your new goal, you will hit plateaus and have days where you lack motivation. During these moments, it is often the underlying purpose behind your goal that helps keep you accountable for your actions and decisions. Try to avoid setting a goal for the approval of others (i.e. getting likes on Instagram or making your significant other happy). If your goal doesn’t have any significant meaning to you, it will be so much easier to skip workouts or chose convenient fast food over cooking a healthy meal.

Time-Based

As the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. In order to successfully achieve your goal, you have to be patient and give yourself a realistic amount of time to achieve it. While many diet fads and supplements will offer false promises of immediate results, the truth is that significant changes to your body composition and athletic performance take time to achieve. By giving yourself a short window of opportunity to reach your goal, you are only setting yourself up for disappointment.

Conclusion

With the S.M.A.R.T strategy at your disposal, you can ditch your 2020 New Year’s resolution and start the year off with a goal that will help to add value to your life, rather than take things away. Whatever goal you choose to set for yourself, remember that the final destination is great, but the process of reaching it is way more important. Embrace the setbacks, cherish the little victories and enjoy the journey!

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT

Press Reset Today

I once worked for someone who savored Daylight Savings Time in the spring when he could move his clocks forward an hour and be given a “free” hour. I’m not sure why, but the meaning he got from that one extra hour has always stuck with me. I think we all enjoy getting that extra hour added to our day, but c’mon, this is the thing you look forward to every year?

Well, apparently, this was an extremely important day for him. He explained to me that it made him feel like he was able to operate within his day more well rested and with lots of time to spare. In just that one hour he felt he was able to reset (and reorganize) his life.

Today is Labor Day and most of us have the great fortune of having a day off from work. It’s traditional to have a barbeque and visit the pool one last time. Of course, while we’re all anticipating the shift from summer to fall and quickly into winter, it’s worthwhile to reflect on the status of your work and non-work lives. 

The origin of Labor Day stems from the need to help workers get more time off from their jobs. When this concept was introduced, it was commonplace for factory workers to put in 70 hours a week. 

Like many areas of life, I find I must diligently continue to prune ineffective uses of my time to help me maintain a reasonable balance between my work life and my home life and to ensure I’m still on track for my immediate and long-term goals.

Days like today are perfect for taking a stepback, doing some introspective thinking, and pressing the reset button on your life.

Here is an easy 3 step process that will help you maximize today for the benefit of your future:

1. Set/check goals: what are you working towards? 

2. Get organized: what systems need to be in place for you to be successful? Or rather, to make success more automatic? Automatic success sounds good doesn’t it? Well, get organized.

3. Execute: once you have your systems defined, it just becomes a matter of execution.

I’ll give you a couple examples of some simple processes I put in place over the past year that help automatically keep me working towards my long-term goals:

Example #1: More Time with My Family

Step 1 - Set the Goal: Not coaching during hours when my children are not in school. So, this means evenings and weekends. 

Step 2 - Get Organized: Make sure the SAPT coaches are fully trained and ready to run the show for sessions.

Step 3 - Execute: If the first two steps are done correctly, step 3 becomes a piece of cake. In this case, it’s been almost a year since moving to this system and it has had an enormously positive impact on my home life. Plus, the coaches continue to get the experience they need as they develop.

Example #2: Financial Diversification

Step 1 - Set the Goal: Amplify my savings plan and future returns.

Step 2 - Get Organized: Set up my investment account for automatic purchases each month.

Step 3 - Execute: This is about as automatic as it gets.

I’m sure you’re not here for my basic thoughts on how I am managing my home and financial life. So, what about making your health and fitness automatic? Well, it’s truly easier than you may think, but you need to press the reset button and really think about goals.

Improving your overall health

Step 1 - Set the Goal: what, specifically, do you want to measure? In my examples above I measure hours at home and returns on my investments. To be successful, you MUST measure something specific! 

Take a good, hard look at yourself and the direction you’re currently heading.

This can really be anything, but it must be meaningful to YOU.

Common measurables in the health category include: blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, body fat, and even something like servings of vegetables in a day. All of these will work, but only pick one (of define another that is important to you).

Step 2 - Get Organized: Overall health improvement almost always depends upon foundational habits. So, making sure you are feeding yourself nutritious meals at each meal, every day and ensuring you get at least 30-min of easy aerobic exercise daily (an evening walk will do the trick nicely).

How do you make those things happen? Meal prep on Sundays for the week leads to easy grab ‘n go for meals and setting an alarm for that evening walk are just a couple of ideas.

Step 3 - Execute: Time to put rubber to the road and follow your plan. Of course, if you feel you are lacking the proper knowledge or support to achieve your goal, hiring someone to guide and support you in this journey is always a very good idea.

Improving fitness or hitting a new strength record will require a different 3-steps, but in each case it is critically important that you choose meaningful goals that contribute to the things in your life that matter most.

One final note: plans often go astray. But continuing to take days like today to reassess and even reset will eventually, as haphazard as it may seem, get you further than if you had no goals and no plans.

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT

Five-Minute Actions

Believe it or not, we are officially halfway through the year. Today is July 1. And that marks the halfway point. I wanted to pause for a moment and recognize today, because it is significant. 

I know, many people are very cynical about the whole idea of setting new year's resolutions. And I am somewhat as well. But the change of the calendar year naturally marks a really great opportunity to reset yourself. It's also common that most people have some time off from work during the week or two weeks leading up to the New Year. 

So, whether you call them resolutions, goal setting, or just consider it a time where you take some time to see how things are going, I want to recognize that we are officially 50% of the way through to the next opportunity where most of us will again take serious stock of the status of our lives.

Often this time period of selfrelfection is minimized as being basic. Meaning it is fundamentally flawed because the action itself is too predictable and thus not meaningful over the long haul. Or so people say.

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As someone who thoroughly enjoys setting goals and the challenge of achieving them (or not), I don’t think we should ever minimize the ideas we come up with to better ourselves or better our lives. There are a lot of naysayers who may try to make us feel silly, embarrassed, or even guilty for being so brash as to think we can improve ourselves. I’m not the one who is going to say that though.

So, please take a moment to think back to some of the goals you’ve set for yourself in the past. No, this exercise is not limited to just the most recent New Year, think back to any goal you want to.

How are you doing with those goals? Where are things standing for you right now? 

It’s very easy, it's also very natural and traditional that people are able to hunker down for a couple weeks or a couple months and pound away at their goal. But then take their foot off the gas pedal. 

I’ll ask again: Where are you in your goal attainment? 

If things are going great, keep it up! If things aren’t going so great, please keep reading.

One of the hardest things is making progress and then trying to keep your foot on the gas and not let up. This is the natural ebb and flow of progress. It is uncomfortable. Learning to slowly move yourself forward when everything around you seems to be indicating otherwise is a skill that must be developed.

It’s easy to tie one’s own worthiness to goal achievement. But please try not to! Losing 10lbs or saving another $1,000 does not define who you are as a person and the sooner you can understand all goal achievement is tied firmly to systems and processes, the easier it is to untie YOUR SELF-WORTH from those goals.

So if you find yourself in the situation of thinking back to some of the goals that you set at the turn of the year and realize you’ve kind of forgotten those and perhaps swept them under the rug, or perhaps you're thinking “Oh, man, you know, like I made such good progress for the first three-four months of the year. What’s happened these last 2-months?”

Just know that this is all really natural, regardless of what situation you're in. 

However, I think it is important to remember and realize that at any moment in time, you can choose to take some action and reverse or improve your trajectory. I like to call these types of steps: 5-minute actions. 

A 5-minute action is simple and can be done today! It can be anything quick that gets you moving in a positive direction. We’re just after a bit of momentum. 

A few examples are: calling your doctor to schedule your annual exam, paying a couple of the bills that just arrived in the mail, setting aside 5-minutes for meditation, making a SuperShake, going for a 5-minute walk. Or, of course, something more specific to your actual goal.

5-minute Actions can literally be anything that makes you feel like you have achieved something positive and, guess what else… they add up big time! 

Once again, ask yourself, what are some of those things that you could do? Just by doing these little things regularly, you will get really positive momentum going. Even the slightest momentum is all you need to get started. 

I hope this nudges you to action, if you need it! I wish you the best as I double down on my goals for the year!

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT

Common Beginner Mistakes - Part 3

Part 3 of the "Common Beginner Mistakes" series is underway!  Like all the great series' out there (Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Star Wars...), it's important that you check out each and every single one.  Take a look back at Part 1 and Part 2.  I'm sure you'll find a hidden gem or two in there that will help you make better progress in the weight room. As you may know, I'm a creature of habit.  I tend to order the same meal from Taco Bell (6 crunch tacos), dry my body off in the same sequence after taking a shower (I know... I'm weird), and I always choose the color blue while playing Settlers of Catan. With that, let's check out a couple of videos of incredible feats of strength.

Mistake #7 - Program Hopping

"Programs Hoppers" are a severe annoyance to all experienced strength and conditioning coaches out.  They typically suffer from a mild case of ADD, commitment issues, and a severe lack of gains.  These individuals can often be seen at your local Crossfit gym, never performing the same workout twice.  These people need a lesson in the mechanisms of musculoskeletal adaptation.  Mentioned in part 2, a major principle behind strength training is called the SAID principle.  This states that you body will form Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands.  In other words, your body will adapt to the stimulus that you apply to it, HOWEVER, it's critically important that you apply the stimulus for a sufficient period of time. If you're constantly changing the stimulus, the training effect will be negligible, and your body won't experience enough of the same stress to adapt and grow stronger.

This is why most of the established training programs are designed in blocks.  The exercise selection inside of a single block is typically static, and each block typically lasts 3-4 weeks.  This way your body has enough time to experience and adapt to the method of training.  Now, I'm not advocating doing the same exact thing for 3 weeks straight.  Another important principle of strength training is termed the Repeated Bout Effect.  This principle states that as you apply a stimulus and your body recovers and adapts to it, the same stimulus will not elicit an equal amount of adaptation.  Your body experiences a point of diminishing returns, and this is the reason we apply progressive overload and increase the weight on the bar over time.  In this way, we're applying a slightly greater stimulus, but maintaining the movement and allowing our body to adapt to greater and greater amounts of the same stress, and grow stronger because of it.  Here at SAPT, we program our clients in 4 week blocks, increasing volume over time, which in turn elicits progressive and consistent adaptation.

Mistake #8 - Sticking to the Same Program Too Long

Now, this may seem a bit contradictory to our previous point, but hear me out.  I touched briefly on the Repeated Bout Effect above, and this point of diminishing returns applies to whole strength programs/methods of training as well. Eventually, if you continue to do the same thing over and over and over again, you'll reach a point where you just aren't making measurable amounts of progress.  Once this occurs, you need to change the stimulus that you're applying to your body.  This doesn't mean do 1 week of 5/3/1, 2 weeks of the Cube Method, and follow it us with another week of Starting Strength.  You need to stick to a program to actually elicit the adaptation you are trying to achieve, and then mix it up and change the program once you've gotten all that you can from it.

This is a tricky concept, but in reality, you should be grateful for these training principles!  They allow you to gain valuable training experience.  All these programs are created using different training philosophies.  They utilize different methods of manipulating volume over time to elicit strength gains.  We're all unique human beings, and, because of this, we respond to stimuli in different ways and to different degrees.  Some people respond better to high frequency training with low to moderate intensity loads, while others adapt more efficiently to lower volume, high intensity training plans.  You may not respond to a training program in the same exact manner as your best friend, and you also may not adapt as well the second time you perform a program.  As you become more and more experience in strength training, you'll discover what works best for you.  You'll discover the style of training that meshes with your personality, lifestyle, and preferences, and, with a little bit of patience, you'll develop a system of eliciting strength gains progressively.

Spurs Seven Virtues

Today we have a fantastic guest post brought to you by mental coach, Brian Levenson. Brian is a phenomenal coach who has helped/is currently helping countless different people from all walks of life to improve their mental game. He primarily works with athletes ranging from the youth to the professional level, but he also mentors business owners and even Jedi Masters, too. I think you'll really enjoy his post for today.

Spurs Seven Virtues

It’s been a week since the San Antonio Spurs were crowned champions of the NBA.  Since then, they have been celebrated as one of the best, most selfless teams in history.  Personally, I have never cheered for a team whom I had no allegiance/ties to, like I did for the 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs.  It wasn’t that I fell in love with the way one guy played, or marveled at the sheer talent of the players on the floor, instead I found myself grossly enamored with seven virtues that the team possessed.  As I dissect each virtue, think about your organization and how you may benefit from the Spurs way.

Virtue #1:  Can>Can’t

Of all the people in the Spurs organization, RC Buford may be the most underrated.  Buford is the architect behind a roster chalk full of what ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy called “heart guys”.  They are guys who are willing to dive on the floor for loose balls, take a charge, and be gritty enough to keep playing hard even when they are struggling.  When selecting those “heart” players the Spurs choose to look at what guys can do rather than what they can’t do.  As Buford reflects in this article about their draft process: “We get everybody in a room, and ask each other, ‘What can we do to help this player?’”  This not only crystallizes their decision making process, as they better understand a player’s potential, but it also helps them create an action plan to give that player the best opportunity for success.

Take a player like Kawhi Leonard, the recent MVP of the NBA finals, who was passed up by all the teams in the lottery, selected by Indiana at 15, and then had his rights traded to the Spurs.  The biggest knock on Leonard was that he couldn’t shoot.

From the well-respected NBA draft website, Draftexpress:

“Leonard is not only an average ball-handler, but he also struggles to make shots consistently from beyond the arc. His 0.743 points per shots on jumpers ranks 16th of 17 in the class, where he shot an abysmal 31% from the field. His struggles extend both to his catch and shoot jumpers (32%) and pull-ups (28%).”

But teams were forgetting one of the most important characteristics to acquire a new skill, Leonard was coachable; and the Spurs had just the coach to help him acquire the skill of shooting.  Chip Engelland is considered one of the best shooting coaches in the NBA, and he happens to be an assistant coach with the Spurs.  The Spurs paired Leonard with Engelland and the rest is history.

Spurs take can’t and turn it into can.

Virtue #2:  Honesty

Each player on the Spurs knows their strengths and weaknesses.  They are honest with who they are and are open to feedback from their lead general, Coach Pop.  Pop’s brutal honesty led to him writing, “DNP-Old” last year to describe why Tim Duncan wasn’t playing, admitting that during timeouts sometimes “I’ll say I’ve got nothing” as his players look to him for answers, and is part of the reason that he has the most brief in-game interviews with side-line reporters.

The honesty that Pop displays leads to accountability, which enables each Spur to get the most out of their potential.

Virtue #3:  Empowerment

The Spurs empower each of their players to step up and produce.  This was most evident in last year’s NBA Finals when Tony Parker walked up to Pop during a timeout to interject his opinion.  Pop gave Parker the keys to the timeout huddle and Parker started explaining to his teammates what he saw.  That empowerment to step up and make a difference is a hallmark of every player on the Spurs.

Pop explained the interaction in a press conference, "That’s not a rarity. While the coaches are out talking on the court, we do that so that the players can communicate and talk to each other because most of the time they know more what's going on than we do.  There will be times when Timmy will sit in that chair or Manu will sit there or Tony will sit there and they'll talk to the team if they have something they want to get across. That's just how we do things.”

Spurs don’t put people in their place; instead they empower each other.

Virtue #4:  Share

San Antonio had 1771 passes in the NBA finals compared to Miami’s 1299.  That’s 472 more passes, or about 95 more passes per game.  Pretty remarkable.  Pop constantly tells his guys that the ball can’t “stick”; meaning ball movement is paramount.

The players bought in to the sharing concept as well.  As Manu Ginobili pointed out in this article, “I think it can potentially be a game-changer, for other teams that don’t have as much talent to give (an individual) the ball and let them create like Kobe or Durant or LeBron. It kind of showed the way in the sense … if you don’t have as much talent, you still can do it. You can move the ball and put a lot of pressure on the defense."

Then, there are the salaries that each player makes.  The Spurs "big 3" all took less money to stay in San Antonio.  Parker made 12.5 million, Duncan made 10.4 million, and Ginobili made 7 million.  Those salaries combined are less than what Kobe Bryant’s salary was this year (30.5 million).

Sharing is a non-negotiable for Spurs.

Virtue #5:  Process Focus

“When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”  --Jacob Riis

That quote has been at the heart of the Spurs culture for years.  “Pound the Rock” has become the rallying cry for one of the best organizations in sports.  It’s become so popular that there is even a popular blog named after it (www.poundingtherock.com).  It didn’t matter if they had lost game 2, or were down 22-6 in game 5, the Spurs were always focused on executing and playing the right way for 48 minutes.

Regardless of the score, Spurs continue to chisel away at their opponents until eventually they break.

Virtue #6:  Something to Prove

The Spurs are filled with guys who have had something to prove throughout their career.  They are an eclectic, diverse group, highlighted by 8 international players, which led the league in that category.  Each player on the Spurs has had a different journey to the NBA, but only one of them (Duncan) was selected in the NBA Draft lottery.  The rest of the team is filled with late 1st and 2nd round picks, guys who were passed over because of weaknesses.  They are a resilient, gritty group of guys who constantly have to prove they belong.

Nothing has been given to the Spurs and that’s why so much has been earned.

Virtue #7:  Best Friends

Teams often talk about how there needs to be a mutual respect amongst each other, but that they don’t have to be “best friends” with their teammates.  Yet, as Patty Mills grabbed the microphone during the Spurs celebration ceremony, he introduced his teammates as his “best friends”.    He went on to talk about each and every player and how they brought something unique to the team.  He was genuine, funny, and comfortable talking about the guys he sweated with all year.  He mentioned their quirks, how they were better people than players, and how much he loved each of them.

It’s not good enough to just be a teammate, Spurs must love each other like best friends.

The word “virtue” has many different definitions, but the one that sticks out is “a good or useful quality or thing.”  When it comes to the 2014 NBA Champions there are plenty of good qualities to go around, and those champion qualities should be celebrated, admired, and duplicated by us all.

Planning Your Fitness Goals

Pop quiz! Who said the following quotes? -Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a seed a long time ago.

-A goal without a plan is just a wish.

-Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

-Man does not plan to fail, he just fails to plan.

-Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

The theme of the day (if you haven't guessed) is an often overlooked aspect of the fitness game: Planning. Coming up with a solid training program for long term success is a key component to reaching your goals.  Let's enlist the wisdom of some historical individuals to discuss the importance of planning for your fitness endeavors.

Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a seed a long time ago.

Answer: Warren Buffet

If fitness is your goal, understand that it is not an overnight pursuit. Developing a strong, fit, athletic body requires a ton of time and patience. If you haven’t started a training program yet, “plant the seed” now! The longer you delay starting on a training regimen, the longer it will take to reach your goals.

If you are a complete novice to training, get some help from a professional to put together a well thought-out plan individualized to your goals, your current levels of fitness, and any limitations you may have.

Those that are completely new to training can't just jump in to a program used by weight room veterans.  A necessary preliminary phase of "developmental" training must be administered to ensure that the trainee learns how to train.  During this phase the intensity will be low, the volume will be moderate, and the primary focus is to become proficient at the basic movement patterns.

A similar approach is often used for incoming freshmen in collegiate sports.  It cannot be assumed that they can just pick up a senior's lifting sheet and follow along.  During a developmental phase we will learn how to stabilize the spine, squat, hinge, press, and pull in multiple planes of motion.

This phase cannot be rushed.  It is always best to prolong a developmental phase and ensure that the trainee moves correctly before bumping up the intensity or volume.  Don't be too hasty to rush into heavier weights before proper movement patterns are completely ingrained.  The consequences may be severe.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Answer: Antoine de Saint-Expurey

What’s your goal? Do you want to be big and strong? Do you want to lose weight? Improve body composition? Destroy your opponents this coming season?

Define and specify your goal, and draw a road map of how you’re going to make it happen. You’re going to have to answer several questions, including but not limited to:

-How many days a week can/will you train? -Which exercises will help you toward your goal? -Which exercises can you do safely? -How will you track progress? -How many weeks/months/years do you have?

Write out your plan of attack and visualize the process toward your goal.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Answer: Abraham Lincoln, CSCS

My man Abe was obviously using this next-level metaphor to allude to the importance of taking the necessary amount of time to build the foundation and base for your fitness goals.

Often labeled “accumulation” stages of training, these initial stages of the training cycle utilize higher volumes and lower intensities, typically in the 50-75% ranges of your 1 rep maximum. These phases have been successfully used to improve work capacity, cardiovascular endurance, ability to recover, hypertrophy, and mobility.

Although these accumulation phases do not employ the use of super heavy weights, these phases “sharpen the axe” so to speak, and make your next stages of training more efficient.

Man does not plan to fail, he just fails to plan.

Answer: Frederick Douglas

Freddy D hits us with the truth with this one. Maybe summer came too early and you aren’t as ripped as you wanted to be. In fact you’re not ripped at all. Were you training consistently year round? Did you eat right even during the wintertime when abs are overrated?

Or maybe you expected to come into the next sports season stronger with some more size, but you show up on the first day underweight. Did you take advantage of the off-season to beef up and train hard?

You should always be thinking ahead in terms of preparation.  If you want to improve performance for the next season, understand that the off-season starts the day after your last game or meet.  Spend those precious weeks wisely.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Answer: Iron Mike Tyson

Plan on being flexible! Things will not always go “according to plan” and there will be sudden obstacles that you will have to face. You might get sidelined with the flu, or you might need to take a two-week business trip in the middle of your training cycle. You might even get injured. It happens, and you have to be able to work around it and adjust your plan. Stay calm and continue working towards greatness.

Bonus Link

For a very in-depth overview of detailed planning, check out this legendary two-part series by Dave Tate.

The Periodization Bible