Goals are supposed to be inflexible and set in stone. You should never change the due date of a goal. Don't believe either of those comments.

Be Specific

Goals must be specific or they won't be effective. You need to be clear about what you want to accomplish. A clear goal gives your brain a concise target to aim for.

Be Time Sensitive

When aiming to complete a goal you need to make sure it is time sensitive. With no due date you won't ever accomplish a goal. The due date sets your brain into motion. You can increase the pressure through a due date.

Put It In Pencil

While you must have a due date, it must be written in pencil. There are legitimate reasons to change the date a goal is due. An injury can happen which will cause you to take longer to complete the goal. If you have the due date in pen you might never complete the goal. Put the due date in pencil and you will simply erase the due date and move it to a more reasonable date.

Having flexibility built into your goals will help you accomplish them as long as that flexibility does not become a crutch. Use flexibility for the right reasons and you will practically guarantee success.

Related Posts:

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I have been doing alot of thinking about goals and how to achieve them. I have gone back and reviewed some old resources from my past. Through it all I have taken notes and now believe I have come up with a great plan to attack my problems.

Taking It Down a Notch

Goals should be a stretch, right? This is something we hear all the time. This advice leads us down the wrong path. We begin to think in large scale ways. Our thinking gets so big that we create more opportunity for failure.

The answer is to take it down a notch. Look at the large scale goal and break it into pieces. Make it so it is harder to fail.

Eating correctly for the next 12 weeks can be a daunting task. Not eating junk food on Monday is easily achieveable. The 12 week goal is too large while the Monday goal is short enough to guarantee success.

Small Successes Strung Together

After you avoid all junk food on Monday you will need a goal for Tuesday. You could decide to avoid all junk food on Tuesday and to drink a gallon of water. By achieving Tuesday's goal you have strung together two small succeses and are on your way to long term success.

Be Honest

Don't fudge on your goals. If you fail to accomplish a goal try it again. Keep stringing together small successes. The honest reassesement of your situation will lead you to consistent success in the long run.

Related Posts:

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People fail at their fitness journey for alot of different reasons.  I could go on for days about why people fail and how they never even realize it.  However, I’d rather focus on how to achieve success in our fitness programs.  That’s why I want to discuss an idea I have that will help you with your success.  It involves doing something that anybody can master.

Discipline Over the Short Term

When you set about to be disciplined about something, what do you imagine?  Do you imagine a month straight of great days?  Do you imagine a long string of successes?  Well it is time to change your thinking because that’s exactly what is causing you to fail and not even realize it.  Discipline in anything is accomplished over the short term, not the long term.  Anybody can be disciplined at anything for a week.  That’s right.  If you set out to be disciplined, plan to do it for just a week.  Don’t go into it with the great idea that you will be disciplined for the next month. Don’t set a goal that says you will eat 3,000 calories a day for the next 30 days. 

Instead of this approach, plan to be disciplined for just the next 7 days.  Mark it in your calendar and then set out to accomplish it. 

String Discipline Together

Once you have achieved the 7 days of disciplined behavior, start the cycle again.  Strive for another 7 days of disciplined behavior.  Use the success of the previous 7 days to reach your second 7 days goal.  Keep repeating this process over and over again. Before long you will amaze yourself with how long you can be disciplined.  The string of successes will just lead to more and more successes.  At a certain point failure will no longer be an option.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Once you have successfully strung together a bunch of successful periods of discipline, stick to the methods you are using.  Only make changes where absolutely necessary.  The process is obviously working and changing it too drastically can derail you at this point.  Do not reinvent the wheel because that is just a waste of time.  Replicate your own success over and over again.

Eat the Frog in Small Bites

This is the same approach used with time management.  You don’t try to swallow the entire frog with one bite.  Instead, you take one small bite at a time until the entire frog has been consumed.  Do this with your discipline and you will see major changes almost immediately. 

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Okay, I admit it.  I am a closet TV sports fan.  But not basketball, football or baseball.  I am a car race fan.  And each weekend I faithfully set the PVR to catch the latest NASCAR race.  Most sports fans have their favorite athletes or team players that they follow.  I am no different.  I have my favorite drivers that I am always rooting for and over the years as drivers retired I have had to rethink who or what team I was going to support.   As the pole positions are announced, I waited to see where my favorite drivers were starting the race.

One of the drivers I have followed for a long time is Mark Martin.   This driver is one of the oldest drivers  at 50 years old.   This in considered old in the sport of stock car racing.  I have followed this driver for over 15 years.  I remember the first time I saw him interviewed.  He was speaking about the physicality of the sport of car racing.  I remember seeing his well muscled physique and was impressed with his dedication to his weight
lifting program, and this was at a time when strength training was not considered all that necessary except for the very physical sports such as football, etc.  It was certainly never viewed as a requirement for the sport of stock car racing.    He proudly showed off the gym he had in his home and talked at length about his training and his opinion of how it helped him cope with the demands of racing at 200 mph for 4-5 hours at a time, bumper to bumper with cars in front and behind.  I got to experience this in a very small way last summer.  Last July while I was in Las Vegas (at a conference of course), my husband and I went out to Las Vegas Speedway for a "ride along".  This is where you get to ride along with a professional driver in a stock car.  Speeds reached 170 mph with the passenger doors  being just inches from the wall.

To say it was a thrill is an understatement, but the ride lasted only 20 minutes.  I could only imagine how "in shape" you would need to be to withstand the rigors of a 4 hour race with 30 other cars all travelling in excess of 200 mph.   As I watched the cars roll out of the pits I thought of how long Mark Martin has been competing at such a high level and how important his training must be today to keep him not only driving in the Daytona 500 at age 50 against rookies 18 years old, but to be a contender to win as well. 

It also got me thinking of other sports and how other athletes prepare and in almost all competitive sports now, strength training has become an integral part of their overall preparation for their sport.  We all know that weight lifting is popular with athletes involved in sports such as football, rugby and even baseball.  But I think most people are now aware of how important strength training has become to athletes involved in sports such as golf, tennis, cycling and other sports that don't automatically lend themselves to the gym scene.

Most, if not all elite golfers today, strength train.  It is not just about being strong.  It is just as important to remain free of injury.  Take a look at Tiger Woods the next time you see him on T.V.  You will notice well muscled arms under that golf shirt.   Anika Sorrenston, probably the best female golfer in the sport was an avid weight lifter.  In fact, she regularly squatted over 300 lbs in her workouts, and yet she did not look like an overly muscled  bodybuilder.  She looked like a woman in shape and prepared for the demands of her sport.  More and more participants in any sport are beginning to realize the importance of strength training.  It is also nice to see that health magazines are finally beginning to tout the benefits of weight lifting for all women, regardless of age, occupation or activity.

It doesn’t really matter what your occupation or interest is.  Whether  a PGA Pro or the weekend duffer,  they will both benefit from strength training.  I would doubt that there is a sport now that doesn’t incorporate some form of strength training in their preparation.   And, we should all consider ourselves athletes.  Our bodies are designed to move and to be strong, no matter what the demands.

Till next time,

Narina Prokosch

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In a previous article (See Aug 19), I talked about the office portion of the assessment.   Basically this is the question and answer part, where I am looking for general medical history, physical problems, any aches and pains as well as discussing your exercise history and your fitness/health goals.  Once that is completed, we will head into the gym for the physical part of the assessment.  In this article I am going to go through the whole assessment process and hopefully help you to see what I am looking for and how we are going to address any issues that make themselves known.

The first part of the assessment is 1-2 minutes on the treadmill.   This is for gait analysis only.  It is not intended to gauge your fitness level, but merely to watch how your walk and your overall posture.    A lot can be deduced by just watching someone walk in the door or how they sit in my office.  Walking with feet turned out, knees not tracking over the 2nd toe, rounded shoulders or forward head posture all are clues to what we will need to address in the workout.   Pelvic position is important, as the positioning of the pelvis is due to weak and tight muscles.  An anterior pelvic tilt (common in females) is usually due to and sustained because of the tight hip flexor muscles, tight quads as well as tight spinal erector muscles.  Weak muscles that go with APT are rectus abdominis, external obliques (side of waist), glutes and hamstrings.  The goal with the anterior pelvic tilt is to strengthen the abs (reverse crunches), strengthen the glutes and hamstrings (romanian deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, good mornings).  Stretches for the tight muscles must also be included.  The posterior pelvic tilt on the other hand could indicate tight abdominals and external obliques, tight hamstrings and glutes.   Weak hip flexors, weak quads and weak spinal erectors are also present.  The goal with the posterior tilt is to strengthen the quads and spinal extensors (squats, back extension, lunges, bulgarians, conventional deadlifts).  Stretching for the glutes, hamstrings and abs must be done as well.

The next part of the assessment is the use of our blue foam rollers.  These rollers are used to determine muscle tightness or presence of scar tissue.  We test primarily the lower body.  As various parts from the hips down are rolled on the foam there may or may not be pain/soreness present.  If the rolling elicits only a feeling of pressure that is good, telling us we don't have any major issues to address.  If, however on a scale of  1-10, we get a reading of 3 or more we will then need to address this in the workout portion.

Ankle range of motion is tested next.  The ability of the knee to move past the toe 4" or more in a lunge position tells us the ankle has good mobility through the joint.  As we normally do ankle mobility drills as part of our regular warm ups at our facility, any deviations from this norm is addressed.  But, it is necessary for us to have a baseline ROM reading so we are prepared for any problems that may occur when we start to integrate squats and lunges into the workout.  The next two assessments are squat related.  One is the Overhead squat.  A squat is performed while holding a wooden dowel overhead.  A wide grip is taken on the bar and elbows are aligned with ears.   A squat is then performed.  We watch for a host of issues to show with this movement.  This is due to the need for the body to have good flexibility, a good ROM through all joints and core strength and stability in order to perform this movement.  Movement of the arms forward or bending at the elbow tell us that we probably have some tight back (latissimus dorsi) and chest  pectoralis major) muscles as well as weak trapezius (back) muscles.  The Overhead squat also requires a strong and stable core in order to stay upright and not lean or fall forward. 

The next squat exercise is a single leg squat.  This requires strength and stability through the pelvis and knee as well as down into the ankle and foot.  This is usually when we will see major compensations in movements.  Tight adductor (inner thigh) muscles along with weak glutes (gluteus medius and gluteus maximus) will allow the knee to move inward and the hip outward as you descend into the squat.  Along with this we will usually see the foot roll inward possibly indicating weak calf muscles.  If a weak core is present the opposite shoulder to the squatting leg will usually roll forward and inward as the body attempts to stabilize itself.   The single leg squat should be able to be performed with an upright and straight upper body.  Minimal deviation of the knee and hip is preferred.

The last part of the physical assessment is the push up.  Ladies do push ups on the Smith machine; men on the floor.  What I look for besides the ability to push oneself up, is the position of the body.  Again without a strong core (deep abdominal muscles, spinal extensor and stabilizers) the lower back will usually start to sway.  That is why I prefer ladies do push ups off the bar on the  Smith machine, as knee pushups put very little demand on the core.   I also look for head position, scapular positioning and naturally any presence of pain or discomfort.  If a client has a history of shoulder or rotator cuff issues this part of the assessment is not done.

The body is designed to move in a certain way and how it deviates from the ideal tells us as trainers what is out of sync (muscles imbalances, tightness, weakness, dominant, etc).    We all have muscles imbalances, asymmetries or weaknesses present.  The body will ultimately move because that is what life requires.   And the body is very proficient at compensating for muscles imbalances, etc by calling on other muscles groups to perform a function or firing muscles out of sequence.

What I strive for in the assessment is to determine overall or gross movement patterns, compensations that may be present and from there design a program that will address all the issues seen in the assessment.  How we go about that is what comprises for the most part, the bulk of the training programs.  Naturally, we try to make the workouts as fun as possible so we include such activities as rope bulgarians, sled pushes and pulls as well as all the myriad of lunges and push ups that we can think of.

I hope this helps to explain the assessment process and why I feel it is imperative that a thorough assessment be done prior to any strength training program being introduced.  Please feel free to ask any questions. 

Til next time,

Narina Prokosch

“Monitoring, Mentoring, Motivation”

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