Setting SMART Fitness Goals and Achieving Them: Empowering Your Fitness Journey

 Setting fitness goals isn’t just about sweating it out; it’s a strategic process that can define your success. In the dynamic landscape of fitness trends, aligning your objectives with SMART criteria ensures you're not just chasing dreams but creating a tangible, achievable plan. In this blog, we delve into the power of setting SMART fitness goals to empower your fitness journey.

Defining SMART Fitness Goals

1. Specific: Precision in Purpose

Specificity gives your fitness goals clarity. Replace vague objectives like "get fit" with precise targets like "complete 30 minutes of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) five days a week." Specificity enhances your visibility by resonating with focused fitness objectives.

2. Measurable: Tangible Progress Tracking

Measuring progress keeps you motivated. Incorporating quantifiable metrics such as weight loss or workout duration allows for objective tracking. Measurable goals create content relevant to online searches like "measurable fitness goals," ensuring your strategies align with trending topics.

3. Achievable: Ambition Meets Reality

Balancing ambition with achievability ensures sustainable progress. Setting realistic goals prevents burnout. Content about realistic fitness goals connects with those seeking practical, achievable fitness milestones.

4. Relevant: Goals Aligned with Passion

Relevance ensures your goals matter to you personally. Content about meaningful fitness goals connects with individuals searching for goals that resonate with their passions, enhancing your online impact.

5. Time-bound: The Power of Deadlines

Setting a timeframe instills urgency. Specific deadlines create purpose, encouraging consistent action. Incorporating terms like "time-bound fitness goals" ensures your content aligns with current online searches. 

Strategies for Achieving SMART Fitness Goals

1. Break Down Goals into Achievable Steps

Divide your SMART goals into smaller, achievable steps. Content about fitness milestones plans ensures your content reaches those looking for structured approaches, enhancing your online visibility.

2. Craft a Detailed Fitness Plan

A well-structured plan eliminates guesswork. Specifics in your plan, like workout types and meal details, appeal to searches for "fitness plans," increasing your visibility among those seeking detailed fitness strategies.

3. Engage Professional Expertise

Collaborate with fitness professionals. Content about fitness expert guidance connects with individuals searching for professional assistance, establishing your credibility and relevance.

4. Foster Accountability

Accountability is a powerful motivator. Content about fitness buddy support resonates with those seeking supportive fitness communities, enhancing your content’s relevance. 

5. Embrace Flexibility in Fitness

Flexibility ensures adaptability. Content about adaptive fitness goals connects with those looking for dynamic fitness approaches, enhancing your relevance in the ever-changing fitness landscape. 

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Celebrating Achievements and Setting New Goals

Every achievement, no matter how small, deserves recognition. Content about fitness goal celebrations resonates with individuals seeking positive reinforcement, increasing your visibility among those celebrating fitness milestones.

As you achieve your SMART fitness goals, remember, your journey is a source of inspiration for others. By focusing on your goals and journey, you not only shape your body but also contribute positively to the fitness conversation.

How to Make HIIT Work

How do I work a HIIT workout?

When I started getting certified to train people, I got certifications in the modalities of fitness that interested me. The first being CrossFit.

Back in the day, the components of CrossFit were unheard of to the majority of the population. The biggest of these being the utilization of HIIT in a workout routine.

Over the years, with the popularity of CrossFit and HIIT workouts growing, HIIT is one modality of fitness I train on a consistent basis.

It is also, arguably, the one that intimidates people the most. There’s hesitance to try it because it looks cool but also scary as hell, and the general thought of getting that uncomfortable during a workout doesn’t endear us to do the workout.

Buuutttt…while there’s great science behind its benefits, there’s also strategy behind how to start it.

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Here’s what I notice:

• If you’re new to it, it’s intimidating AF. You see those people making the burpees look easy and you’re like “well, that’ll never be me”.

• That breathless feeling sucks. You either come to love it or hate it but there’s often no in between.

• A lot of people train HIIT incorrectly. This is what I mean:

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You get into the interval and you push super hard right from the start, gassing yourself out in the first 10ish seconds. That makes you want to take a break, and when you do that, you’re not utilizing the interval in the way it was intended. 

HIIT work is not intended for you to break until the break is written in. You gotta earn that rest girl.

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Here’s my Top 3 Tips for Pacing Yourself During a HIIT Workout for Optimal Results:

• Find a comfortably uncomfortable pace. That’s the pace where you don’t feel like you need to take a break 15 seconds in but you do feel like you’re pushing your limits.

• Choose the appropriate weights. Heavy enough to challenge you and not so light that you feel like you’re breezing through the work.

• Take advantage of the rest. That’s why it’s written in. For you to use it to recover your breath and your heart rate so you can push just as hard on the next interval.

How Are Those Distractions for You Today?

Cuz I feel like I’m being pulled in a million different directions. Seriously. Good luck getting time to workout 🏋️‍♀️ when every SINGL B E I N G in your space needs something from you. Right now.

Grab Your Dumbbells!

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Seriously y’all let me down when I became a mom. You forewarned me about ALL the things. All the weird and disgusting things. You had stories on freaking stories. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated all of it, but dang could one of you have forewarned me about how busy the days are and how fast they go?

I seriously was NOT prepared for this. It’s like I blink and the day is over and I’ve done abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

I’m just saying, a heads up would’ve been nice. Like hey make sure your time management skills are on point or you’re going to be late to everything all of the time.

I never knew life could be this busy, nor did I know that I could have my attention be pulled in so many directions as the same time. I swear, sometimes I get to the end of my day with NO idea of how I got to that point because I’ve been moving THE WHOLE DAY.

Trying to add in a workout to that mix can be crazy making.

That level of time insanity makes me completely understand why people let their workouts slide down their priority lists. It’s not just like you workout and you’re done. You workout, then you have to factor in eating and getting ready after the workout. When the day is already going by so fast, even another hour devoted to something else can lead to a nervous breakdown.

It’s not like those distractions go away just because you’ve decided you’re going to workout.

I know you need some hardcore tunnel vision and focus to make your fitness game be fire , I also know that’s easier said than done. Especially when you’re now working from home and a school teacher.

Here’s my Top 3 Tips for Shoving Your Distractions Aside so you can actually workout:

1. Make sure your workout 🏋️‍♀️ is clear. There’s nothing worse than starting your workout and seeing all your kid’s clutter in front of your face. Take 5 minutes to clear it out or go somewhere else.

2. Schedule your workouts. In your calendar 📆. Like an appointment with your doctor. Then have a back up time in case shit hits the fan and your initial time doesn’t work.

3. Plan your workouts. Know what you’re doing before you even get started and have a back up plan in case shit hits the fan. There’s no bigger distractor then having the time to workout and spending 15 minutes figuring out wtf you’re actually gonna do.

Why Do HIIT Workouts Work?

When I first started going to a CrossFit box in 2007, I went because I wanted to prove to myself that I was still strong after my injury knocked me on my literal ass. After working out at an insane pace for so many years, just to land myself on bed rest, and then to be denied by the community I thought was my family, I was LOST. That’s putting it mildly. I was flailing.

I remember a friend telling me about this CrossFit concept of working out. Olympic lifting, hardcore interval training, body weight work, and gymnastic style exercises that could be done quickly. 

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Grab Free Workouts!

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It worked perfectly with my work schedule, but more importantly it worked perfectly with my heard. I needed a mindset reset so I could regain the confidence I lost, and also find a place where I felt like I belonged.

Back them, CrossFit and this HIIT style of workout was not a thing. There was ONE box in San Diego, in a not so safe neighborhood. But damn did I fall in love with it.

I loved being able to move heavy things. I loved being able to move quickly, I loved the community I was in, and mostly I loved the results I was getting.

I felt strong.

I could do things I never thought I would be able to do, and never thought I would be able to do again after my injury. It helped restore my sense of self.

But no one around me understood how I could get results from a workout that was 7 minutes long.

HIIT now is a trendy workout. CrossFit is trendy af.

People love it because they see the same results I saw all those years ago, but don’t quite understand the science behind it. My current clientele included.

Here’s a basic way to explain it:

You know when you workout, your heart rate increases. HIIT training exploits the increasing and decreasing of your heart rate as a means to build muscle and burn calories.

Think of it like this: you know in that HIIT workout when you get breathless and you feel like maybe you might just barf?

That’s your body going into an oxygen deficit.

When your workout is complete, your body is determined af to restore it pre-exercise state. 

It does this through increasing your metabolic state. Increasing your metabolic state means you’re burning more calories. Burning more calories means you’re going to see better results.

Granted, this rate at which your body can restore its pre-exercise state is different for every body, it does work for every body. 

The way to make this work more efficiently is to make sure you’re pairing your nutrition properly post workout. That way you can maximize the caloric burn post workout, seeing even better results. 

Give Me Your Best Excuse

I’ve come to really enjoy hearing the sheer amount of excuses that keep a person from working out over the years.

Seriously, come at me with your best excuse. I bet I’ve heard it before.

Don’t get me, I’m not referring to excuses as the valid reasons as to why you can’t do something. Those valid reasons are usually medically related and due to injury. Even those valid reasons are things we can work around. 

Back to the excuses…

This is actually a legit internal monologue I have all the time. It’s really hard for me to understand why someone would let their workouts fall on the back burner when they know the benefit they get from working out. Conversely, they also know how poorly they feel when they don’t work out and how frustrated they get when they stop working out and have to do all this work to get back to where they were before.

I understand that the fitness industry puts emphasis on crazy results that happen in a quick amount of time, and that’s what we want. I also understand that most of us, generally speaking, don’t want to or don’t like to workout, so it’s easy for our workouts to fall low on the priority list.

We want to look good naked with the lights on to ourselves, with minimal amount of work, without understanding that the work we put into our bodies now insures our health over time. We just want to look good. I’m here for that, because duh I do too. There’s something to be said about the confidence you get when you’re feeling yourself.

Today’s Workout

Tabata

10 rounds

Kettlebell swings

I was lucky though because when I got hurt, I had a group of people around me advocating for my health and encouraging me to think about the longevity of my health. To be proactive about taking care of myself so I don’t end up back in a place where I needed to lose a ton of weight or get over a debilitating injury.

Because I know being in that place is more frustrating and more demoralizing than figuring out how to schedule in a quick workout.

The focus for me became how I could workout safely to continue seeing results, so I could not only look good naked with the lights on to myself, but also FEEL good

Knowing that about myself, it kills me even more to know that most of the time the workouts aren’t happening because you’re getting stuck wasting your time on BS like refreshing your email or getting stuck in the scroll hole on social media.

If you have 20 minutes to spend on IG or scrolling through TikTok, you have 20 minutes to workout. You have the time, it’s just a matter of how you’re spending it. Trust me, you can scroll TikTok again after the kids go to bed.

I know we use those outlets as a means to let go, decompress and not think, and I’m here for that, it has it’s time and place, but it needs to be after you’ve taken care of your health. After you’ve given to yourself, go for it, lose yourself in the scroll hole. But get the workout done first.

Make the Change

I had to make a change because I was over having to suck in my tummy ALL THE DAMN TIME. Seriously. My abs hurt 😔 .

I didn’t feel like I was asking a lot to feel comfortable in my own clothes. Much less my own skin.

But dang girl, how do you even take accountability for your health when you’re responsible for EVERYONE AROUND YOU and that To Do List isn’t getting any shorter?

Here’s my Top 3 Easy Changes to Start A Healthful Life NOW:

1. I was realistic with my time. We all have demands on our time that can’t be changed. Don’t put extra pressure on yourself to workout 🏋️‍♀️ on a day when you know it realistically won’t happen.

2. I checked my portions. I’m not one to cut out anything unless it’s due to a medical necessity like an allergy (I mean we only get one life, so I’m gonna eat the chocolate 🍫 and drink the wine 🍷), but life is best lived in moderation so I had to learn how to cut myself off of the things I adored. (Extra PRO TIP: portion out your snacks or meals and then put everything away. That extra level of effort to get more will have you thinking 🤔 twice before you do it).

3. I increased my water intake. Most of us live in a state of dehydration without even realizing it, making us feel sluggish or hungry when we’re truly not, so I invested in an awesome reusable water bottle that I could cover with stickers and I take it with me everywhere. That way I have no reason to NOT drink water.

Mental Fitness

I didn’t always approach my fitness as a means to grow mentally stronger. Fitness for me initially was a means to get past trauma. Be it the trauma from my foot, the trauma from delivery, the trauma of injury…it was always my way to push past something negative so I could regain my strength.

Working out is the place where I can focus my emotions and tune out the rest of the world. Let’s be honest, sometimes all that noise can be overwhelming AF, and deserves to be pushed into a corner so you can focus on YOU.

However my journey with my strength continued and the injuries became a thing of the past, I began to use my workouts as a way to push my own boundaries. I adapted with my strength as my body adapted to being strong.

I figured that no little hour long (or whatever) workout was going to own me, so I might as well see what I can do. Like a scientist in a lab, I started pushing my boundaries so I could see where my strength truly rested. Sometimes I succeeded and felt like a freaking olympian. Sometimes I failed. Even in those moments of failure, I took it as an opportunity to see where my starting point was and what I needed to do to get to the next point.

I began to push my boundaries. In part because I know my workouts are a safe space TO push my boundaries and in part because I was curious about my own strength. 

Mostly, I pushed my boundaries so I would know on an intrinsic level that I am not limited by my boundaries. I know that I can continue to expand the limits of those boundaries, I can push the edges until I am eventually where I want to be.

I also know that if I can push my own limits, I can move mountains for everyone around me. If I can show up for myself, show myself how resilient and mentally fit I am, then everyone around me will benefit because I’ll be able to show up in a bigger way.

So don’t stress about the workout not being cute or comfortable. Don’t stress if a complicated exercise gets the best of you this time, don’t stress if your workout leaves you feeling occasionally frustrated. You’re growing, you’re changing and you’re getting stronger, and as you adapt and change, so will your fitness.

I Know You're Busy

I know you don’t have all the time in the world.

That’s why now that post baby weight you’ve been aiming to lose since you had your baby is now just extra weight because your baby is 10 years old.

It’s not because you didn’t want to lose weight or be able to get those skinny jeans on without laying on your bed to zip them up, it’s just because life got crazy and you didn’t know how to fit all those things to get yourself healthy into your day. You juggle so many things, you do so many things for so many people and you also need to sleep at some point so aspects of your own journey get put on the back burner.

Given that you don’t have endless amounts of time, you have to figure out how to maximize what little time you have to workout, meal prep, have balance and all the things. 

Everyone’s day and everyone’s schedule, as well as the demands that are placed on them look completely different, so how can you do this for yourself?

1. Pre-plan your workouts. If you have to wing your workouts, you’re going to waste what little time you have TO workout. Sit down with your schedule once a week, and plan your workouts into your week.

2. Keep the workouts short. If you know you’re not going to have 2 hours to spend on a workout, be realistic with the length of workout that fits into your day. Save the longer workouts for the days you know you’ll have more time. Ultimately you shouldn’t be stressed that the workout will take too long and will mess up your schedule for the rest of the day.

3. Factor in your shower/get ready time. When I break down my day and figure out when I’m going to workout, I also take into account that I’m going to need to shower after my workout. If I know I’m only going to have an hour to workout but I’ll also need 30 minutes to get myself presentable afterwards, I do a 30 minute workout (or maybe even 15 minutes of HIIT) so I have time to get ready without feeling like I’m being rushed.

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