Are Your Goals SMART?

Goal setting is the foundation for all successful fitness plans. It sounds so basic and the concept is but goal setting is often over looked. Not setting SMART goals leads to disappointment, unrealistic goals, and possible injury. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.

1. Specific. What are your fitness goals?(loose weight,overall health, max muscle growth, etc.) Set a time frame for your fitness goal and actions required to accomplish this goal. (workout plans)

2. Measurable. You need a way to track your progress to your overall fitness goal. "I want to look better" is not measurable, but " reducing body fat by 5% in 12 weeks" is measurable. Another example is " loose 20lbs in 12 weeks" is measurable. I think you get the point.

3. Attainable. You need goals that will challenge you but are not too extreme. Not meeting goals can be discouraging and can derail even the best fitness plans so set your goals wisely. Also goals that are to easy may not push you enough to grow as a person because of the lack of challenge. You always want to keep challenging yourself to do better than you did last time. This will help with progression through your fitness journey and make you "hungry" for your goal.

4. Realistic. Often times people want to change there body right now and do not understand the amount of work that actually goes into it. It's do in part to the "I want it now" mind set that society has now days. If it was 75% of the American population wouldn't be overweight right now and that number is growing sadly.  Change doesn't happen overnight, its a long road but a rewarding one. So set goals that are attainable and dig in and get to work.

5. Timely. Goals should be set within a realistic time frame but not to far away. There should be many goals set between the start date and the finish date to help the overall progression.

Those are the five steps to set a SMART goal. This should be the foundation for all fitness programs. This is the basic outline for your goals. Something that I would recommend doing would be to reward yourself when you reach each short term goal in your program.  For example a new video game, gadget, trip to the movies etc.(something you enjoy).

I hope you enjoyed my first real entry on this blog. I am not any English major so I apologize for the grammar and spelling. I will be posting more awesome stuff soon so subscribe and stay TOUGH!