New Year, New Fitness Goals?

We’re here to help you set some “realistic” fitness goals while striving to remain injury free.

The new year is often a time of reflection and planning, so whether you’re wanting to regain your pre-COVID fitness levels or run a half marathon in 2022, it is important to set small, achievable goals to help you remain focused on the long-term bigger picture and avoid injuries.

It is very common for Physio’s to see overload injuries present themselves early in the year, as people go from nothing to everything with their New Year’s resolutions. It is important to gradually increase your activity load, while ensuring you balance this with stretching / mobility exercises, a good diet for fuel and appropriate footwear (the old runner’s at the back of the cupboard that you’ve had for 4 years probably need replacing), this will help to minimise the risk of injury and help keep you on a steady pathway towards your goals.

SMART goal setting is a great approach to getting back into exercise if it has been a while. Be specific and set a goal such as “I want to walk / run 10,000 steps a day to improve my cardiovascular fitness” or “I want to go for three 30 minute runs a week”. You should also consider getting your sleep schedule back on track, we recommend a minimum of 8 hours sleep while you are increasing your exercise load.

For example, if you’ve been working from home for the last 9 months, barely doing 2,500 steps/day and only going for a 20min walk once a week, don’t try to run 5km 3-4 times a week straight away! Start with walking for 30 - 45mins a day, which with other incidental exercise should get you towards 10,000 steps. Then in a couple of weeks introduce a jog/ walk program 2-3 x week, which initially may be 30sec jog/ 30sec walk, for a total of 20min. Over coming weeks, you can build this up to 1min jog/ 30sec walk, 2min jog/ 30sec walk, 5min jog:30sec walk and eventually a 20-25min jog. There are some great apps out there, such as “Couch to 5km”, that can guide you with increasing your running gradually, or ask us to help write you a more specific and personalised plan.

Goals should be meaningful and motivate you towards the ultimate outcome. You might find recording results in an activity log helps you see your progress over time.

Achievable: set realistic, attainable goals, and be adaptable to changing circumstances. Be aware of any ongoing injuries.

Time-bound: ensure you are realistic with how much time you have to commit to these goals, and factor that into your weekly schedule to ensure it is prioritised and you build a routine. When setting time-bound goals ask “When will I do the exercise? What can I do today, What can I do in 6 weeks, and What can I aim to do in 6 months?”

If you have any questions or would like to speak to us about goal setting and cross training to minimise the risk of injury, please don’t hesitate to get in contact.