It can always be a challenge when making yearly fitness goals. Ideally you want to make your goals hard to obtain, but still realistic to achieve. Ultimately, but the end of the year, you will either succeed and reach your goal or fail to reach your goal.
However failing to reach your goal in a given year cannot be considered a failure. The reason failing to reach your goals should not be considered a complete negative is because of the positive strides towards your goals you have still made.
All the positive strides you have made, even if you failed to reach your year’s previous goal can be used to create new goals the following year, that you will hopefully succeed and surpass in accomplishing.
In 2015 I failed to accomplish my goals. Some I came close to meeting, just missing by a few pounds or reps. Others, I did not even come close to accomplishing. That being said, I did set multiple personal bests in several different lifts and will look to build on that progress in 2016.
In this article I will do my best to attempt to explain my goals and reasoning behind them. Hopefully when you add up every individual goal you will be able to see what I am attempting to do with my body.
For years, I have been attempting to get my body fat percentage into the single digits; unfortunately I have no way to measure my body fat. However, just looking at my body I know I am nowhere close to my goal and always find myself looking at ways to accomplish this goal.
My weight peaked last year, getting as heavy as 225 pounds. However, it must be said the one scale I have is horrible. You can step on it and see one weight and then step on it again and see your weight jump or drop 15 pounds. Ideally I would like to get under 200 pounds, but would be happy if I was at 205 by years end.
Last year I had the cardio goal of running 1000 miles. At the time when I stopped counting, I was just short of 400 miles and was not going to come close to accomplishing my goal by the end of 2015’s third quarter. Before getting sick for three weeks and completely changing my cardio focus.
This year I have decided to attempt to use time as a method to track my cardio goal. This year the goal is to do 20 minutes of cardio, six days a week. For those 20 minutes on the treadmill, I will run a minimum of two miles. However, inside that 20 minute period I have a secondary goal. I want to run those two miles as fast as I possibly can. For the first few days of the year, and the end of 2015, my two mile time sat somewhere between 16.5 and 18 minutes. I have no set goal as to how fast I would like to complete those two miles, but why not 15 minutes. I think I can accomplish that goal and get even lower.
On the bench, I came to closest to accomplishing my goals. I set a new personal best for a max and did 10 reps at 225lbs. As with last year, I am still striving towards that three plate bench press. Ideally I would be able to get three reps done at 315lbs. At 225lbs, I would like to complete 15 reps.
For deadlifts I again came close, but ultimately failed to complete last year’s goal. This year, I would like to complete 12 reps at 315lbs and max of 405lbs for a couple reps.
Power cleans was last year’s goal that I poorly set. I did not come anywhere close to accomplishing the goal. This year is focused as much on weight as it is on form. I noticed last year that I was able to get weight up, but my form was not great. My elbows were in close and tight to my body instead of being high and away from the body with the elbow being at an equal level to the shoulder. This year, I would like to get 8 reps of 185lbs with good form complete. Again, this could be a complete miscalculation on my part, but I want to be aggressive with this exercise.
Squats are always a love hate relationship. When you have an amazing day in the squat rack there is no more satisfying experience in the gym. When you just don’t have it that day, it can be dejecting and disappointing. As with last year, I still want to hit that 5 plate max and hit 495lbs. In addition to the max, I would like to get 12 reps at 315lbs, 8 at 365lbs and 5 at 405lbs. It’s hard to say if I have been aggressive enough with my squat goals. Personally, my legs have always been my strongest part of my body, but have also been the fastest to decline in power. It is very possible that I could surpass some of these goals.
I can’t remember if shoulder press was included in my 2015 goals or not. I feel like I could get 20 reps at 135 done with using a barbell behind my head variation. However, I’m not sure if I could get 15 reps with the bar in front of my head. Just for fun I will also say 185lbs for 8 reps and 225lbs for 4 reps. The last two goals maybe aggressive, but failure isn’t always a bad things.
New to my goals this year will be adding pull-ups to my goals. For the sake of consistency all pull-ups goals will be done using bodyweight. I would like to get 13 reps of wide grip pull-ups, focusing on form making sure my elbows are back and that I reach full depth. For a regular pull-up I noticed that my elbows were going forward which is not correct form. So this year, I am focused on my form, keeping my elbows back and hitting the proper depth. 15 reps seem like a reasonable goal, but one that may not be aggressive enough.
Nutrition is a frustrating area for me and by far the weakest aspect of my fitness game. I always take the easy way out and eat what is available, not what is best for me. I am horrible at counting macronutrients and calories. My goal is simple, eat as clean as possible. I feel like this is an achievable goal, but may also be the hardest of any goal to accomplish. Additionally, I would like to eat smaller meals. I think the best way to do this is by adding additional meals to my daily diet as the year goes on. Hopefully this will help me be successful.
By the end of the 2016 or hopefully earlier, I would like to lean out and have nicely defined muscles and six pack abs. I have been happy with my muscle definition everywhere but my stomach. For the past decade maybe a bit less, I have hated how my stomach has gone from an athletic six pack to a flabby rolls that are very depressing. In fact, its embarrassing. It is true, you never want to take your shirt off. When I am standing you can’t notice how much I hate my lack of abs as it looks decent when upright. But bending over, or sitting down, it is a fat disgusting mess that I just hate.
Here is hoping that 2016 is a successful year for everyone.
Adam Stocker 