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Monday, January 03 2011

Don't Chase Rabbits: How To Set Goals For 2011

Christmas is already a distant memory. New Year's Eve is done and dusted for another year. 2011 lies in front of you and it's time to write down your resolutions for the year.
But for a lot of people, the list will be more or less the same as the one they wrote last year!

Setting goals is an important first step when it comes to building a better body. However, as the weeks and months go by, it's easy to start chasing every rabbit that crosses your path and get distracted by all the new training programs and diets that you read about.

When you're too vague or general about what you want, or you're focusing on too much at any one time, your energy becomes dissipated and you end up getting nowhere.

If you want to set a “get in shape” goal that you stand a realistic chance of achieving, the most important piece of advice that I can give you is this:

Just. Choose. One. Goal.

I get a lot of e-mails, especially around this time of year, from people who tell me that they want to get a six pack, do a triathlon for the first time and put on 20 pounds of muscle. All at the same time. And please can I drop everything and put together a training and nutrition plan for them. Immediately.

Unfortunately that isn't one goal, but three. And outside of the genetic elite, most people simply can't train for three such diverse things at once and expect to see decent results.

Unless you're absolutely clear about the one thing you want to accomplish, you’ll end up with a training and nutrition program that isn’t fit for purpose. As a result, your progress towards each goal will be so frustratingly slow that it won't be long before you throw in the towel.

Maximising muscle growth, for example, requires a surplus of calories. The size of the surplus will vary from person to person, but the fact remains that you must consume more calories than you expend.

Conversely, if you want to lose fat then you need to underfeed — to consume fewer calories than you burn.

Of course, that's not to say that the cardio you do to lose fat isn’t going to improve your fitness. Or that the resistance training you do as part of your fat loss program won't cause you to gain some muscle.

But for maximum progress, especially if you have a few years of training under your belt, you have to focus on one major goal to the exclusion of everything else.
Set a goal. Stick with that goal long enough to see results. Then set a new one.

Don't, for example, decide to bulk up and then give up after three weeks in a panic because you can't see your abs anymore.

If your primary goal is to build muscle, then it's quite normal to gain a little fat at the same time. Don't expect to stay extremely lean AND add large amounts of muscle tissue at the same time.

Conversely, it's unlikely that you'll lose large amounts of fat while simultaneously gaining a significant amount of strength and size. These things just don't happen unless you're a beginner, returning to exercise after a layoff, very gifted genetically, or using drugs.

How do you decide what your goal should be?

If your body fat percentage is 20% or higher (25% for women), I'd suggest that you make losing fat your primary goal.

When your body fat levels are high, your fat cells are already full. If you start gaining even more fat as part of a "bulking" plan, those fat cells get stretched. This leads to the creation of even more fat cells, which is going to make it harder for you to get lean.

If your body fat level is 15-19% (20-24% for women), then you have a couple of options.

Some guys can carry a relatively high level of body fat, particularly around the belly, yet still look skinny. If you suffer from this "skinny fat" syndrome, then some kind of "re-composition” program in order.

If, on the other hand, you're 15-19% body fat but carrying around a decent level of muscle, then focusing solely on fat loss is probably going to have the biggest impact on the way you look.

With a body fat level of 14% or lower (19% for women), then your choices are increased still further.

You could bump up your carbohydrate and calorie intake only on the days that you train with weights. Although this will lead to a slower rate of weight gain, there’s far less risk of gaining fat along with the muscle.

You could also take the opposite approach focus on getting ripped by dropping your body fat percentage into single digits. Once again, decide in advance what's most important to you, and then let that decision guide your actions until you’ve achieved what you set out to. You can also make use of an efficient fat burner for a initial period of time.

How long will it take to reach your goal?

Once you've set yourself an "outcome based" goal, such as dropping 20 pounds of fat, the next step is to give yourself a reasonable time frame within which to achieve it. In this case, 12 weeks sounds realistic.

However, don’t worry too much if you don’t get the timing exactly right, as it’s notoriously difficult to predict exactly how your body will respond to a particular program of diet and exercise.

The simple part is figuring out the direction of change (i.e. fat loss or muscle gain). What’s not so easy is putting a precise number on the rate at which that change will take place.

Some studies, for example, show up to four times greater muscle growth in high vs. low responders, even when factors such as training, diet and initial lean body mass are controlled. So don’t worry too much if you don’t hit your target by a particular date. It’s far more important that you’re heading in the right direction.

Next, set up a number of “process based” goals, such as eating X number of calories per day, exercising for a total of 200 minutes per week, eating at least 500 grams of fruits and vegetables per day, and whatever else you think is important.

Then create a daily checklist and tick off each goal at the end of the day. Aim for 90% compliance. So if there were 5 goals per day, you’d have 35 goals each week (5 x 7 = 35). A 90% compliance rate means that you’d need 32 ticks each week to stay on course.

Once your goals are in place, you need to act, measure and adjust your approach based on the results you’re getting. Although it's important to stay committed to your goal if you ever want to reach it, you'll also need to retain a certain degree of flexibility in the methods you use to get there. Don't stay wedded to a certain way of doing things if it's not working. It's the end result you're after.

Finally, make sure to distinguish between the goals you're interested in and the goals you're committed to. Don't let yourself get distracted and confused by too many choices. If you chase two rabbits, chances are that both will escape.

Posted by: Christian Finn AT 05:34 am | Permalink | Email

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