Goals. They are important in all aspects of our lives, to save money, to go to college, to climb the corporate ladder, whatever your goal may be. Goals also play a crucial role in fitness, weight loss, or weight gain (yes, some people actually try to gain weight!!). No goals mean no direction...which means no success!
When setting your goals, take a few things into consideration...#1. your goal cannot change every week!!!! #2. your goal needs to be VERY specific and measurable! and #3. how much time are you giving yourself to reach this goal? I find women tend to be the most confused about what they would like to achieve at the gym, or maybe they aren't being honest with themselves and the trainer!! One day the client is dreaming of Madonna's sculpted arms, the next day they want to look like Nicole Richie?!?! Well...the 2 are like night and day...and so are their workouts!
The woman that is sculpting her body spends majority of their time in the weight room. Cardio will deplete muscle gains, so it should be limited. Women will NOT bulk up so please don't panic...instead they will scuplt and define their muscles creating a beautiful athletic body like Madonna!
The woman who is admiring Nicole Richie's tiny dancer-like physique will probably be spending less time lifting or strength training! Running, Zumba, Dance, Hooping will be more up their alley! Strength training should not be avoided, instead doing body weight exercises and light weight/high repetition exercises are perfect! It's a perfect mix of staying lean (cardio, cardio, cardio) and strengthening (light weight & body weight).
The problem comes in when the person has no goals or is going back and forth! The trainer will spend weeks working on a specific goal with their client, and then out of nowhere (maybe they saw an actress on the cover of a magazine) they want something else!!!! Now, that is fine, trainers can switch the entire workout to focus on your new goal...but please don't come back next week with different goal. It takes time for the body to adjust to a workout and for results of appear, changing the goal (and the workout) will take even more time! This is when the client becomes disappointed and discouraged.
Goals need to be set, followed, and tracked! If your goal is to gain or lose weight, taking measurements or getting weighed is very important! It makes it easy to track results! If your goal is to sculpt and define...YOU HAVE TO STICK WITH THE EXERCISE PROGRAM!!!! If you don't stick with it, you won't see results! When your trainer tells you to limit your cardio to 3 days a week only for 30 minutes, listen! Goals (correct goals) lead to fitness success :) Very simple! So, if you want Madonna arms, a dancer-like body, lose weight or gain weight, set the goal (and don't change it a week later), follow the workout program, and be patient! Rome wasn't built in a day :)
