Training with a Goal

Setting goals is, of course, a recommended approach to many things in life and exercise training is no different. While there are potentially some scenarios where exercising without specific goals is beneficial (such as recovery from burnout or overtraining), setting goals is a crucial part of getting the most out of your workouts as well as being efficient with the time you put in. There are many different approaches and recommendations to goal setting, but a number of guidelines are common. Goals should always be specific and personal to the individual, realistic but challenging, and should include both short and long-term outcomes.

One of the more common mistakes in goal-setting is to focus too much on the long-term rather than setting series of shorter term goals as steps towards that long-term goal. For example, wanting to run the mile in a specific time (say 4, 5, or 6 minutes depending on your fitness, dedication, ability, and age) is a great long-term goal, but if you currently run the mile in 7:35 and you want to get down to 5 minutes flat you're gonig to need a lot of steps along the way with a specific timeline. Starting off by knocking 5 seconds per mile off your time every month might be realistic to begin with, but as you get closer to the 5 minute mark it certainly won't be. Anticipating this (making the goals realistic) is key to staying on task and not giving up hope. In addition, knowing that each month requires a new time provides short-term accountability. Dreams of one day running a 5 minute mile are likely to remain just that unless there are short term goals along the way. Typically in my own workouts I go quite a bit shorter term with my goals in that every workout will have a goal. This is a utilization of the Principle of Progression in that in theory each workout progresses you ever so slightly towards your long-term goal. And, checking off a goal at the end of every workout really makes a difference to getting motivated for the next workout. For most training goals it is not possible to actually progress with every single workout (i.e. run faster, lift a heavier weight, cycle further than the previous workout). But, if you have a plan for how many workouts it will take to progress to the next stage, then each workout is a milestone along that very specific progression.

Going back to the running example, it may be that you reach the point at which you are running a 6 minute mile, but you find you are only able to reduce your mile time by 5 seconds every 4 workouts. Each workout in that case becomes a progression of 1, 2, 3, and 4 towards the next reduction in time. In that way, each and every workout has an achievable goal, rather than spending a week training and hoping to check off a reduction in time at some point during the week.

I have typically found that a workout without a specific goal is a wasted workout. In the past I have often had categories of workouts (speed, endurance, threshold training, etc.) and cycled through them. But I've also often found that I become stagnant by only doing so. There is enough variation within the week of training to keep you interested and motivated, but from week toweek you often find yourself simply completing the same old workouts and forgetting about progression.

A great way to start setting up short-term goals is to write down your long-term goal, figure out where you are right now (by performing a specific type of fitness test appropriate to the goal), estimate how long it will take you to realistically achieve your long-term goal, and then divide the difference by the number of weeks. Setting up a computer spreadsheet can be really helpful in this manner as it allows you to fill in boxes as you go. Of course, in reality the progression of fitness is not linear, injuries, illnesses, and life in general all get in the way, and so you'll find that the progression varies from your original timeline. But it is still crucial to have the timeline to begin with and then adjust it as needed.