Goal Setting

This is the first of a couple blog posts that I am reposting from an old blog I had a couple years ago.  The material is still applicable and will help coaches and athletes alike. The first is on goal setting:

Goal setting is a simple concept that seems to escape everyone at some time or another. There are two main facets of a goal for training purposes. First, the obvious accomplishment that we are trying to achieve, but the other which is equally if not more important is maintaining focus during the lead up to the performance. The goal will help you remember what you are training for along the way and keep you motivated to continue to push harder. Without a goal you will find yourself without a clear focus, and possibly just plodding along with your workouts.

Now comes the part of determining what a good goal should be. If you are new to sport you probably shouldn’t set a goal of running a sub 4 minute mile or bench pressing 300 lbs. Often times, even for seasoned athletes, goals are set impossibly high and will only set them up for disappointment. By the same token, sometimes goals are set too soft and are easily broken well before the planned peak period. While this is not necessarily a problem, if you realize that a goal will be broken on the short-term, you should set up multiple goals that can be achieved in sequence to help keep you motivated and on track.

A good way to set a goal for a seasoned athlete is to look back on their training (I highly suggest training logs be kept for multiple reasons) and determine if they are willing to put in the amount of work required to achieve that same training stimulus plus more. If it seems plausible, then one could set a goal of perhaps a 3-10% performance gain from the last peak period. Remember, the goal should be difficult enough that you have to work hard to achieve it, but reasonable enough that you can do it within the given timeframe. For runners this may mean taking your 5 kilometer time from 17:30 to 16:55 or for a lifter to get their one repetition maximum up from 250 to 260 for the bench press. As long as the goal is something you know you can achieve it is a good goal. Now when it comes to older age groups, a perceived increased training stimulus may be to maintain the status quo of their training, or even attempt to decelerate the decline of the performance due to age.

A good way for a beginner athlete to set a goal is to complete an event, or reach a certain threshold in their training. This may be to finish a sprint triathlon or be able to do a certain amount of push ups. A good rule of thumb for beginners is to not use any preconceived notions of what you can or cannot accomplish. It is very easy to get discouraged by looking at the performances of athletes who have been training for years. Understand that you can achieve great results by maintaining consistency in your workouts and to keep reminding yourself of the goal you have set.

Goals will come and go. You will achieve some, and other times you won’t. This is where you must adapt and determine if you training program was too easy, too hard, etc. And if you get bored in one arena, try spicing up your training with new exercises you hadn’t used before and set goals for those as well. Happy training!