Happy 2015!
I’ve titled this post as ‘making a new start’ instead of something to do with the new calendar year because every day, even every moment is an opportunity to make that decision to change things in your life for the better. It’s just that people get so caught up in tradition, that they can jeopardise their chances of success by waiting for the right moment, feeling or time of year to change. Breaking this habit is one of the most powerful things you can do in life.
As for health and fitness goals, it’s like it becomes a joke in gym environments that people will have a new year rush in joining and then after 2 weeks completely give up.
This happens for many reasons but most often because they’re following a tradition which really has no importance to them and if that person got clear on what they really want, made strategic goals with realistic time frames and sought help where needed, they’d have a much greater chance of success, not just for a new year resolution but for life! Now I don’t mean to be preachy but I’ve seen so many people making these mistakes in the past and it doesn’t need to be that way.
I go into this in far more detail with clients but here is a basic and effective method of setting goals:
1: Only set 3 goals at a time! Any more than that and you’ll get lost in them. You need focus and that’s not happening when you get all excited and write 20 or more goals down, then nothing gets done! Believe me I’ve been there.
2: Each goal should represent something very specific. Noting down “I want to lose weight in 2015” is a total waste of time. You need to set a body fat percentage, weight goal and anything else that goes with your main goal.
3: Mini goals. Set smaller goals that will help you get to the main one. It’s like plotting your journey on a map with stop off points.
4: Be time specific. If you don’t set dates on when certain things need to be achieved, research shows that they won’t get done. So if you need to be able to run a mile under a certain time by the summer, setting mini goals with training on certain dates that are calculated to get you where you need to be by summer works very well, as it’ll show you if you’re on target or if you need to take things up a notch!
My passion is health and performance. Mental and physical. It really is a life long journey and although I have many interests outside of this, health and performance will always be there for me. I get down to what really drives us mentally and how to get this amazing human body to be at optimal performance. This could be correcting the skeletal structure to help someone with their joint pain or taking someone through a powerful training regime for high performance in a sport.
For my own training, I concentrate more on being fast, powerful and in as best condition I can be for my sports (and being able to keep up with any athletes I train ;)). Although I personally don’t train specifically for body composition, you can see from the above picture taken two days after eating more than everyone else on Christmas day, it enables me to keep that fat off!
Here’s a few shots of me in my element…
I used to do these backflips in the surf all the time, so was glad I still could after a long break a few weeks ago
This was before I started getting a bit cocky on this day and took a beating on the rocks with these forward flip airs
The Tornado ball is one of the best core conditioning devices ever made and carries over well to sport
Olympic lifting
Pratting around
Freezing my arse off with sprints in the park this winter
Deadlifting. One of the best foundation moves for full body strength
So as you can see, there’s many exciting ways to train your body and you just need to find the best variation for you. Remember to keep it interesting and effective!
Have an amazing 2015!
Rupert Hambly
