Go Deeper with Your Goals
Written by Kyle Ligon - MovementLink.FIT Head Coach
When asked about goals, most people starting out will say things along the lines of:
Lose Weight - What we should really mean is losing body fat. Regardless of if we are male or female, the amount of muscle mass we have is one of the main predictors of longevity and quality of life. There are many strategies that will help people lose weight, but unfortunately most of the strategies will have people lose both body fat and muscle. There are many reasons the MovementLink Method’s workout framework includes strength and muscle building workouts with one of those reasons being that they are vital to maintaining muscle when trying to lose body fat.
Tone - When people say “toning”, I think they mean that they want to get stronger and lose weight, but they don’t want to get bulky. Again, we need to consider that we do not want to lose weight without regard to what we are losing, but instead we want to target losing body fat. Additionally, here’s a little known training fact: The way to gain strength without putting on a lot of muscle is to do a lot of small-rep sets, lifting very heavy weights (always limiting how much you’re lifting by what your technique can handle). This is very evident in the teenage divisions of Olympic-style weightlifting and powerlifting where most athletes are rail thin and still stronger than 99% of adults. Gaining muscle mass and gaining strength are usually correlated and have cross-over benefits, but are not the same thing. If you want to tone, contrary to what most people think, you would actually bias your workouts towards strength as opposed to the classic “toning” workouts that include muscle building strategies of lighter weights for a lot of reps.
Gain Muscle - Some do want to gain muscle and the unspoken desire here is to also drop body fat, so that the muscle shows better. For them, strength training is still important, but the more muscle they want to put on, the more they should bias their training towards muscle building which is best achieved through moderate weights (relatively lighter than the weights we would use in strength training) and by performing sets with high repetitions.
Improve Cardio - When most people say this I think it is because they think cardio is the best way to lose body fat and if their cardio is improving it will mean they are losing more body fat. There are a couple of issues here: 1) Cardio being the best way to lose body fat is a myth and 2) I have worked with a ton of people who have developed absolutely incredible cardio and still have high amounts of excess body fat. Like we discussed in detail above, exercise is just one piece of the puzzle and by only targeting your exercise I can promise your performance will improve dramatically from where you started, but a holistic approach is always needed.
Gain Strength - We hear this one as another one with a correlation effect - people correlate gaining strength with gaining muscle. Like we talked about, they are typically correlated, but if your real goal is to build muscle, then we would actually bias our training towards muscle building exercises and not strength exercises. Again, just to re-emphasis, we would still do strength exercises, just would be biased towards muscle building. So, we really need to know do you want to gain strength or do you want to gain muscle, or both? All three may have slightly different strategies that all fit within the MovementLink Method’s workout template. Unfortunately, sometimes, after people have been working out for a few years and not getting the body fat results they were originally after due to their unwillingness to target lifestyle factors, they give up and put all of their focus on developing strength because a higher body fat does not negatively impact most strength exercises. This is why, in our benchmark week, all of our strength tests are done relative to body weight, so that we don’t fall for this trap of giving up on our fat loss goals.
Improve Health - Like all of these goals, there are hidden meanings and although I do believe that people want to be healthier, I think it’s second to thinking that if they are healthier, they will have lost weight. The good news here is that they are correct, so even if their real motivation is hidden, this is a great one!
With these general goals, most people will spend little to no time actually goal setting and lean on 2 or 3 of the above “goals” in their mind. I think a large part of this is a fear of failure. If they don’t clearly define their goals, they don’t have to risk failure. But, it’s vital to really dig to the deepest levels of your goals, so that you can be sure that your efforts can be maximally efficient at getting the actual results you’re after. As you can see from above, almost all the listed goals come with extremely common misconceptions about the goal and how to achieve it and only through conversations and research about your real goals will you be able to get on the most effective path. Hopefully, the above will help your journey and, in addition, there are always coaches who can help you develop your plans.
The MovementLink Method involves a modern approach to goal setting and can fast-track you onto a highly productive path.
