Fitness goals

Setting clear fitness goals is one of the fastest and most effective ways of ensuring that you make progress with your workouts. Many people work out without ever setting themselves fitness goals - beyond the very general one of "I want to get in shape" - and as a result fail to make satisfactory progress. Disappointed, they often quit.

However, if you set yourself clear fitness goals, and regularly update them, you are using a powerful tool, proven successful in all kinds of fields. The key is to set fitness goals that are SMART. This means that they should be:

• Specific: Can you answer the W questions? Who, what, when, where, why. For example, "getting in shape" is not specific, but "going to the gym 3 times a week" is.
  
  
• Measurable: This usually involves numbers - thus "to run faster" is not measurable, but "running a mile in under 7 minutes" is.
  
  
• Attainable: Working out the steps involved in reaching a particular target will help you to figure out if it is attainable.
  
  
• Realistic: To be realistic, you must be working towards something that you are both willing and able to work for. This can be quite personal - for one person working towards qualifying for the Olympics might indeed be realist, whereas for another it might be a fantasy.
  
  
• Time-limited: Now you've figured out what you're going to do, the last step is to decide when you'll achieve it by. Having a time limit makes you much more focused on the end result.