How to Set Fitness Goals
Patiently building a habit and consistency are the keys to lifelong fitness.
"Goal!" by ekkebus is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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Although I am not a natural athlete in any way, shape or form, I have been training consistently multiple times a week for almost 30 years now in my spare time. This week’s essay will share some hard-won lessons on how to set fitness goals for healthy living, based on my experience and research.
One common mistake I see is someone setting a big, scary goal and then failing to break it down into a series of smaller goals. Imagine a sedentary office worker, who hasn’t run since childhood, suddenly announcing that he or she is going to run a marathon on a certain day. Running long distances is not a goal that personally interests me, but it is a common one and you have to respect other people’s aspirations. It should be achievable safely within, say, five years of consistent training.
The problem is that the person who sets this goal wants to do it now. It is very easy to overdo speed limping with appalling form while blocking out the feedback from your long-suffering body. There are clear risks of hurting yourself badly by chasing a goal that is too advanced for your current level, and then giving up running for good after limping to the finishing line in one marathon once.
It is worth mentioning that research shows that regular runners reduce their risk of premature mortality by 25% to 40% compared to non-runners. However, around a third of marathon runners hurt themselves on race day. Research shows that injuries are the main reason that people stop running. Why bother going to the trouble of getting fit if you are only going to hurt yourself? Injuries can be for life and any of the health benefits of running in middle age are only available to those who keep at it (or start/restart running in middle age).
Research also shows that the benefits of fitness for heart health can plateau after a certain level and then decline - long-term marathon runners might actually increase their cardiovascular risk factors compared to sedentary non-runners. If you really insist on running very long distances with big groups of strangers on a particular day, fine, but there should be no particular reason to rush to get there; or to turn it into a regular habit after you do. In fact, I think it is probably better for most of us to frame the issue in terms of the health risks of never running rather than the health benefits of running regularly.
A much better way of going about it would be to set the goal and then park it. Now set a much smaller goal to get going. All physical training has a biological element, which is why progressive routines (which slowly build physical qualities over time) work so well. If you do the work with patience and trust the process, the benefits should come eventually. When the benefits do emerge, you can push forward with another goal that gets you a little closer to the big goal. There is no need to rush.
A good first goal might be to run for half an hour nonstop within a year without hurting yourself. Not hurting yourself is more important than hitting your goal within a year or even hitting it at all. The first steps to prepare for this goal should be to buy some good running shoes and some gym kit. Learn a dynamic warmup for runners and some stretches to do afterwards (try YouTube). Then go out to a park or a track three times a week with a stopwatch; do your warmup; then just walk fast for half an hour; and finish up with some stretching. It is important to keep track of the work you are doing in a journal – it is a way of supporting your progress towards your goals.
Once walking fast after a warmup becomes too boring, start adding a burst of jogging within the 30-minute walk. After that, every once in a while, jog for a little longer, or put more jogs into your walk. Don’t force it. Let your fitness build slowly without being impatient. Do the work and trust the process!
After several months, once you find you can easily run for half an hour without stopping, test yourself at the track and pay attention to details. Do you need a hand developing a more sophisticated warmup routine? How fast did you run? What was your form like? Do your feet move fast enough? Is your posture good? How is your stride length? Are you moving your arms in synch with your legs as you run? Would more stretches afterwards help with the soreness? Are there any aches or pains that need some attention?
Hitting the first goal would be a good time to get a lesson or two from a running coach, who can help you set your next goal. Joining a running club would also be a good option; or finding some like-minded people who are on a similar journey.
Your next goal might be to run faster, say, doing five kilometers (5K) in 30 minutes in a road race; or working towards a respectable level in a 12-minute Cooper’s test (steady 36-minute runs, or three times the test distance, alternating with faster runs on other days is where the magic happens, in my experience - I pushed myself up to the “excellent” level for my age group recently). Give yourself another year or three to hit a semi-decent level. A marathon can wait while you slowly and carefully build the running habit and let the fitness come.
As you can see from the running example, the trick involves consistent training over the long term (and, yes, there are clear parallels with personal finance). In fact, I believe in consistency so much that I actually prefer process goals to “normal” goals. A process goal might look like this: run three times a week for three to five weeks; do a deload week based on active rest after each block; and repeat this sequence throughout a whole year; while paying attention to good running form and avoiding overuse injuries; with one week of full rest on holidays every few months. As you can see, process goals tend to be significantly wordier than “run a marathon this year!”
We can see how process goals might work with strength training. We all know that the first week of January is the busiest time at the gym, with lots of new people with New Year’s resolutions. Within a fortnight, a surprisingly high number of them will have stopped going. The solution should be obvious: set a process goal of getting changed into a sweatsuit, going to the gym, doing something physical without hurting yourself, having a shower afterwards, and then getting changed back into normal clothes. Do this three times a week.
What you actually do at the gym at the beginning is much less important than just building the habit. On the first day, why not ask a personal trainer to show you a dynamic warmup? Go through it once, then have a shower, get changed. and go home. In your second session, ask the trainer to check when you do the same warmup. Repeat this for a few sessions. Once you’ve done, say, five easy sessions and are beginning to get to grips with the warmup, ask a trainer to show you how to stretch afterwards (research shows a correlation between flexibility and longevity, but again I would frame this as the health risks of being stiff and having poor posture rather than as the benefits of stretching).
After a few more sessions that start with a warmup and end with stretching, ask a trainer to show you one main exercise (front squats, which involve fully bending your legs while holding a bar over your chest and maintaining an upright torso, would be a solid choice). Work on this exercise with an empty bar for a few sessions after the warmup and before stretching.
As you get better at front squats, you can maybe add a little weight to make it more interesting and also ask for a second exercise. Build your new exercise regime slowly and carefully without ever overdoing it. After 140 sessions (three times a week for a year, not including holidays), you will be amazed at how far you have come and the momentum you have managed to build. The health benefits of strength training will come if you keep at it. It is worth mentioning that regular strength training gives older adults a lower risk of dying; and the benefits soar when going to the gym is combined with aerobic exercise, like running.
There are also parallels with running and flexibility, in my mind at least. I think it is worth framing the issue in terms of the health risks of never lifting heavy objects off the ground rather than in terms of the benefits of going to the gym on a regular basis.
What exercises should a newbie concentrate on as he or she gradually adds more elements into the mix? Strength coach Dan John describes six fundamental human movements in a book called Intervention: hinges (look up the starting position of a deadlift on the internet), presses away from your body, pulls towards your body, and squats, plus groundwork (such as breakfalls or crawling) and loaded carries (moving with weight). This matrix helps us assess imbalances in strength-training routines.
A power clean (moving the bar from the ground to chest height in one athletic movement) is a powerful choice of basic exercise because it contains a hinge and a pull. It can also be used as the base for front squats and various standing presses, which start where a power clean ends. If you do some breakfalls as part of a dynamic warmup (find a judo or parkour coach for a couple of lessons) and finish with some loaded carries before stretching, focusing on power cleans, front squats and military presses would be a sensible approach for any beginner.
Of course, if you do stick with the exercise habit, you will want to test yourself once in a while. How much weight can you front squat or power clean or press above your head? How fast or far can you run? You will soon find out that your brain is very conservative about letting you get too intense too often. Working too close to the limit can be mentally challenging. Let me tell you a personal story to set the scene.
One of the nice things about living in the outskirts of Barcelona is that I can train outdoors all year round. I have slowly built a rather good backyard gym, with a pullup bar, lots of kettlebells, some barbells, and a bunch of plates, plus a few toys, mostly stowed away in handy corners. I also have some “Plan B” sessions I can do in heavy rain without slipping and hurting myself. Unfortunately, I had to close Gimnasio el Patio for a few months at the beginning of the year due to some construction work on the block of flats where I live. I had to come up with a temporary plan to train in local parks without any equipment.
A few years ago, I did a Spartan Race (an obstacle course) with some friends. The penalty for missing any of the obstacles was 30 full burpees. I got pretty good at burpees beforehand - I could do 120 or so broken into sets of ten without too much fuss. However, I missed a bunch of obstacles and doing lots of burpees in the mud while I was tired and thirsty was much worse than I had been expecting. I made myself a mental note that I should get really good at burpees at some point in the future. I then rarely did any at all, preferring to do less mentally demanding exercises as a “finisher” to strength work, like two-handed kettlebell swings with a very heavy weight (my kettlebell collection goes up to 48 kilos).
What, you might ask, is a burpee? The name comes from physiologist Royal H. Burpee, who invented a twisted test of fitness in 1939. It involves what is now known as a four-count burpee: a squat, a squat thrust into the plank position (hands and feet on the ground, legs and torso in a straight line), returning to the squat, and standing back up at the end.
Burpee taught his self-named exercise to the United States (US) Army. Military fitness experts thought that conscripted troops should be able to do 40 to 50 four-count burpees non-stop with an easy rhythm in order to be ready for combat. In my experience, one non-stop set of 50 four-count burpees is roughly as difficult as one set of 15 full burpees, which we will discuss next.
Burpees went underground after World War II, but were kept alive in environments where people valued high levels of fitness but lacked equipment. This was particularly true of inmates in high-security prisons and members of elite military units who wanted to keep training in difficult circumstances.
Over time, the exercise mutated. What most people think of as the “full” burpee now includes a pressup (also known as a pushup) at the end of the squat thrust and a jump into the air at the end of each repetition (or rep). It has become much more widely known in the 21st century as strength training has entered the mainstream, with obstacle courses in particularly promoting the full version.
When I had to close my home gym earlier this year, I decided to work up 100 full burpees within ten minutes after a warmup based on breakfalls and jumping rope. This would be followed by a run and some stretching. In sports science jargon, this is “aerobic base” training.
The goal works out about one burpee every six seconds. I have to do pressups on my knuckles because I can’t bend one of my wrists. An old pair of cycling gloves allow me to do the exercise in a rocky Mediterranean park without cutting up my hands. I touch my chest on the floor with every rep; and my feet leave the floor with every jump, combined with a clap above my head, just for fun.
I soon found that the challenge put the goal-setting part of my brain on collision course with the more primal part of my brain that likes to have enough oxygen in my lungs! The mental part of the challenge turned out to be significantly harder than the physical side.
Luckily, I did some amateur research of sports science when I first set up my home gym in the early 2000s. One number kept coming up in my literature review: 70%. If you can lift a heavy weight once with good form, this is your one-rep maximum (or 1RM). Strength authors often stress that the magic happens with multiple sets of five-ish reps around 70% of your 1RM. At the same time, fitness experts often stress the benefits of keeping most of your cardio training around 70% effort. This level appears to be high enough to coax any benefits to emerge, but low enough to be sustainable.
So, I built a base by regularly doing 80 burpees in ten minutes (80 burpees is less than 70% of 120). My original goal was doing this three times a week, but I found one of the sessions too mentally hard. I switched out the second session for some stone carrying instead (I live near some countryside with lots of conveniently sized boulders). This was refreshing and fun. Also, using the Intervention matrix, we can see that burpees combine a press and a squat, so hinges, pulling and loaded carries were all missing from the first version of my routine (I covered the groundwork with breakfalls in my warmup). A little stone lifting and carrying filled the gap nicely.
I originally planned to hit my goal with ten sets of ten reps in an every-minute-on-the-minute (EMOM) style, but I soon realised that this wasn’t going to work. It takes me about four seconds per full burpee for the first sets when I’m fresh, but that soon goes down to four and a half seconds when I’m tired and gasping for breath. The rest periods got very short when I pushed above eight reps - I would only get 15 to 20 seconds breathing time between sets. My brain also found it too hard to jump back into the next set of burpees without enough oxygen in my lungs.
As a result, I pivoted my plan to do as few sets as possible with longer rest times. That meant doing more reps per set. I worked for a while on seeing how many reps I could do in one set. I found I could get up to 35, but my speed went down too much after about 30. I settled on four sets of 25 as a good goal (25 is just over 70% of 35), with some deep breaths on the bottom of the pressup every fifth reps; and worked on that for a while. I soon worked out that I needed a long rest period between the third and fourth sets to cope with the mental effort of not having enough oxygen in my lungs, but shorter rest periods were doable between the other sets.
When I eventually hit the goal, I made sure I began my last set at the start of the eighth minute. After hitting the goal twice in one week (at the age of 55), I dropped back to four sets of 20 for maintenance as I waited for the builders to finish working in the block of flats where I live. It almost felt like cheating!
Rather than showing off, the point of this example is to give you an example of working to a goal. Set a goal; make a plan to hit it; do some sustainable work around 70% of maximum effort; get some information through the work; change your plan as needed as a result of the new information; do more work as you wait for the benefits to come; and test your limits rarely after doing lots of easier work to build a base. If your final goal seems too far away, set easier goals as milestones on a long journey.
Of course, double-loop learning applies in fitness too. If you begin to doubt your big goal as you gain experience, feel free to reconsider it. There is no shame in deciding not to do a marathon, but to become an excellent runner of 5K races instead. In fact, running shorter distances is generally a much more sensible goal for people who want to do a little cardio for their heart health without hurting themselves, as we mentioned before. Why take something as healthy as regularly running short distances and turn it into something as dangerous as trying to run distances that are much too long for your body’s capabilities?
Please note that if you have never done any bodyweight training before, burpees are not a good starting point for beginners: I would start with pressups and squats instead. Pressups can be scaled - you can start on your knees instead of the plank position if necessary. If you want to see how you compare to others, Kenneth Cooper, the sports scientist who developed the 12-minute running test, also has standards for pressups, which are widely used in law enforcement.
Indian wrestlers used to say that every pressup creates a debt of two deep squats. This is an excellent principle: doing multiple sets of X pressups and double-X deep squats can easily form the basis of a lifelong backyard strength-training habit. If beginners have access to a pullup bar, they can work on doing a first pullup alongside these easier exercises. If you want to make this routine more complete, you can add breakfalls to your warmup (again, find a judo or parkour coach for a lesson or two), buy a kettlebell or two and learn to swing it to chest height with two hands (a hinge), and also carry it around a bit afterwards (a loaded carry). Stretch afterwards.
Burpees can wait until you get good at this basic backyard routine. In fact, even the gym can wait! Spending six months working with your bodyweight and a kettlebell or two in your backyard or a local park before joining a gym and learning to lift weights would be an excellent idea. You also have my full permission to keep doing variations on this routine for your whole life if you prefer backyard training to the gym.
Hardcore fallacy
In a previous essay on breakfalls and fitness, I talked about “the hardcore fallacy.” Young men who get into physical training will often give staggeringly bad advice on the internet. Rather than emphasising sensible goal-setting, consistency over decades, 70% efforts in most training sessions, and combining fitness with strength and other activities, all while avoiding injury at all costs, the men of the internet will promote the most hardcore iteration of every single activity.
“I am thinking of doing a 5K.” “You should do ultra-marathons in the desert! Anything under 100 miles is for wusses!”
“I’m thinking of going to the gym and using some of the machines to get a bit stronger.” “You should compete in elite-level raw powerlifting!”
“I took a free tai chi class in a park and enjoyed it. I might join the club.” “You need to compete in cage-fighting!”
“I’m thinking of going vegetarian once a week.” “You should become a fruitarian every single day!”
“I thought I might start cycling to work three times a week.” “You should cycle across Asia!”
I think the hardcore fallacy is a problem with goal setting. It is easy to fall in love with a certain activity and then to set yourself increasingly challenging goals while losing sight of the bigger picture (in this case health and injury prevention). Of course, Mount Everest is full of the corpses of goal-orientated people who failed to add the words “…and get back down safely again” to their personal objectives.
One big problem with exercise is that it is easy to get addicted to hardcore challenges, particularly if you don’t have other projects to give meaning to your life. If you do get addicted to pushing your limits every single time, regular, productive training will begin to seem boring. People who go down this route find it hard to empathise with beginners, or people who want to balance multiple goals, or those of us who add safety clauses to our personal goals, as I recommended above.
Of course, the risk profile of pushing yourself to your absolute limit on a regular basis is very different from the risk profile of staying fresh, paying attention to your body, and keeping most sessions around 70% effort over several decades.
Let me deal with a few final issues to wind up this week’s essay. I can guarantee you that at least some readers have read up to here and are thinking to themselves that they should take up a sensible exercise routine to lose a little weight. Unfortunately, this is completely wrong.
Research clearly shows that there are serious health risks to being overweight. Exercise can support weight loss, but, as we mentioned in a previous essay on nutrition, you will have to eat less if you are serious about losing weight. Fasting regularly is one of the best approaches as it teaches you to cope with hunger and has health benefits. If you want to get into running, losing some weight before you begin is more sensible than running to lose weight.
Some readers will be thinking that highly muscular types can support a bodyweight that doctors might classify as being overweight. I can only suggest checking your blood-sugar levels regularly if this argument appeals to you. There is an obvious reason for my warning: the easiest way of building muscle is to add some fat too. If you try to maximise your muscularity over several decades, the belly fat can easily build up without you necessarily realising how bad it is getting. Your healthy bodyweight might be lower than men who enjoy going to the gym realise.
Also, staying hydrated by drinking water is almost too boring to mention, but it is important too (as is avoiding tobacco, illegal drugs, and excessive alcohol). Getting enough sleep helps, obviously. I can only apologise for giving such basic advice!
One of the big themes of this blog is the way that foxes (people who balance multiple models of reality) tend to get better results than hedgehogs (people with just one model of reality). This is true in fitness too, as you will have probably guessed by now. We should strive to combine strength, fitness and flexibility while learning how to fall safely and maintaining a healthy bodyweight.
We need to beware of hedgehogs, whether they are overweight Americans who can bench press a house but can barely walk for 12 minutes, let alone run; or a weedy marathon runner, who would struggle to do a pressup or three even if his or her life depended on it. Why settle for diminishing returns and an increased risk of injury in one domain when we can have fun balancing multiple domains at once?
If you’re training for health, knowing how to fall safely; being stronger than average while staying lean through fasting regularly; and also being fit and flexible while striving to improve your skills at an activity you enjoy would be a very worthy and multi-faceted goal. A Swiss army knife is a good metaphor for this approach.
As foxes, we will need to think hard about how to combine multiple activities. Training in a sport (or martial art or other skill-based activity) that you enjoy is a good idea – seeking to improve your skill level will help you set appropriate goals and keep you motivated over the long term. This can easily be combined with strength training, running (or other cardio alternatives), and mobility work. How should you plan your week if you want to combine a skill-based activity with two or three gym sessions per week plus a little running/cardio and stretching?
Sports scientist Thomas Kurz has published plenty of material dealing with this very question. He strongly recommends beginning each session with a dynamic warmup and ending with static stretching, as we have mentioned thoughout this essay. He also says that you should put skill sessions before strength sessions in your weekly plan, strength sessions before endurance sessions (long runs), and rest days (or active rest days) after an endurance session. Explosive strength (power cleans) should come before grinding strength (front squats), as a rule of thumb. The same principles hold true of hybrid sessions, as we saw with my example of breakfalls and jumping rope before burpees, and burpees before a run.
While Kurz outlines a great principle, I think that for amateurs who are also juggling careers and family life, it is worth bearing in mind that logistics can often trump sports science, particularly if you keep most of your training around 70%. Having said that, keeping this rule of thumb in mind, along with training progressively most of the time and avoiding unnecessary injuries, is always going to be better than the random or semi-random “workout of the day” nonsense that is sadly common on the internet.
If you are interested in improving your level at any physical activity, please be aware that much of the information you will see on the internet is sponsored by supplement makers. Caveat emptor! If you eat generally healthy food and fast regularly, you should be able to get much stronger and fitter than most, while maintaining a healthy weight, without wasting your money on any supplements, other than maybe a little fish oil for your joints. Be particularly wary of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), which are associated with an increase in mortality. Why take something as healthy as lifting heavy objects from the ground and turn it into an unhealthy activity?
Rather than relying on magic potions, visualisation can be a powerful tool for people who want to work towards goals in one or more physical domains. Jason Selk has written an excellent book on the subject, which I wholeheartedly recommend. You can use the techniques he suggests before a dynamic warmup to get your brain ready for the physical work that is to come.
Finally, it is worth adding that non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), like a daily walk, regular gardening, or running errands on a bike, is also massively important for health. You don’t necessarily need to change into Lycra and get covered in sweat to improve your health. Just move around a bit more while eating a bit less and staying hydrated! The comments are open. See you next week!
Previously on Sharpen Your Axe
Breakfalls (also, the hardcore fallacy)
Further Reading
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
Intervention: Course Corrections for the Athlete and the Trainer by Dan John
Science of Sports Training: How to Plan and Control Training for Peak Performance by Thomas Kurz
10-Minute Toughness: The Mental Training Program for Winning Before the Game Begins by Jason Selk
Life Without Diabetes: The definitive guide to understanding and reversing your type 2 diabetes by Roy Taylor
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