Latest / Your Strongest Body / Can You Have It All? Juggling Multiple Goals At Once

Transcript

Can You Have It All? Juggling Multiple Goals At Once · Your Strongest Body

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You are listening to your Strongest Body.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Betsy Foster, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutrition coach.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I've worked as a personal trainer for over a decade, helping people build strength, speed, muscles, as well as a deep appreciation for their bodies and confidence that helps them live their life to the fullest.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness, nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello, welcome back to your Strongest Body.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about goals.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Specifically, we're talking about can you have it all?
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Can you reach all the goals you want all at once?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I'm giving you tips for prioritizing the goals, figuring out how to attack each one, what you can expect when you're trying to accomplish multiple goals at a time, and some different kinds of goals to be keeping in mind so that you can appreciate your progress a little bit more and maintain that momentum, that motivation that you need to keep going.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: So that's what we're going to get into today.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I am going to start with some updates.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I don't think I have any.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: We're in summer mode here.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Kids are out of school, kind of just switching the schedule up a little bit.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: So that's sort of what the week has been so far finding my new workout times, figuring out the pickup times and figuring out all the pieces that go together as we kind of approach our new schedule.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: And part of what summer ends up being, at least in my family, is like we have different things happening at different times than our normal school year routine and I have experienced with my friends as well, that sort of like common change in the flow of things and I think we underestimate how the change in flow can create some new hurdles for you.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So you got to give yourself patience and time as you adjust to a new schedule.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: And if your schedule is changing and is going to kind of constantly be changing in the summer, interrupted by performances or getaways or obligations and things, it can just kind of throw a wrench into your plans and so sort of preemptively planning around.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: That can be really helpful.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So I've kind of reorganized my summer goals in some ways too and I'm excited about that and that might come up here in this conversation.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But other than that, you know it's hot here but I really love the heat in Florida and I am someone who appreciates the humidity.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I know that that is not the same for everyone.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: So yeah, of people, one singular goal is not what they're going for.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: In the gym, we have lots of goals.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe you have a performance-based goal, like you want to get a push-up or a pull-up, or you want to increase your squat weight.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Maybe you have a physique goal, like you want to build some muscle in certain places, or you have the goal of losing some body fat.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe you have a goal about getting faster.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: My husband plays recreational hockey and this question came up because he had some questions about his hockey performance and how he could train to reach some of his physique and strength goals, as well as his hockey performance goals, and so those kinds of goals are different.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: And then you may have some cardio goals.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So all of these things, you can have all of them all at once.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: The truth when it comes to training is that the more we can specifically work toward one goal, the more we can achieve in that goal.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Seems logical, right, seems very obvious, and yet we it's still kind of hard to wrap our brains around.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: But that is not to say that I don't think you can achieve multiple goals at the same time.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: In fact, I think having multiple goals allows you to approach your training and approach your workout regimen with some variety, which helps people stay stick to it.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: It allows you to see progress in different areas.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: When progress may have stalled in one zone of your training or one area of your goal setting, you might be seeing some movement in another area.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But we do have to be sort of.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: We have to be realistic about what we will be capable of and we have to realize that our timeline is also going to be a big dictator of how much energy and effort and focus we want to put into one goal at a time, because in some cases the goals that we have might be competing with each other.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I think about a lot is for folks who are trying to put on muscle and lose body fat at the same time.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: In some ways those goals are competing with each other.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Now, when we try to create a body recomposition goal where we're doing both of those things at the same time, we can achieve them both.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: We can do it very effectively.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: It just takes longer than when you are trying to do one or the other Same thing with speed or athletic performance and putting on muscle.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: You can do both at the same time.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: You just may not see the results as quickly and you may sacrifice something in one or the other.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So if you're trying to put on a lot of muscle, you might slow down a little bit because you're just in fact having more weight to move.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: They just showed these images from training camp.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: If you don't know already, I'm a very big Baltimore Ravens fan.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: They just showed these pictures of training camp of the league's MVP, also the Ravens quarterback, lamar Jackson, at training camp last year and training camp this year, and he is clearly leaner and smaller this year than he was last year and I believe that the suggestion is that because he's trying to get faster, he's trying to get more athletic.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Now, in different positions in football you might need more size or more muscle and we've yet to see his performance, so it may not have changed much.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: But if he's been training for speed and he's been training for power output and things like that, it is likely that he has sacrificed some muscle size and has tried to reduce his overall body weight and body fat percentage in order to reach those performance goals.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't mean that we have to choose one or the other.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: They just may compete with each other.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Some goals go really well together.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Some goals are more at odds.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: So our best plan for approaching multiple goals is to focus on a primary goal, to have a primary goal and then to have some supporting goals.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: The primary goal is going to be the one in which to have a primary goal and then to have some supporting goals.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: The primary goal is going to be the one in which you have the most energy and excitement to put focus toward and gear your training around, as well as the thing that you want to see the results in most quickly.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Now remember, when we're doing lots of things, it's probably going to go a little slower than if we weren't trying to accomplish many things, but if this is the thing we want to move the needle on faster then it's going to be our primary goal.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: It is probably beneficial for most of us to cycle these goals a little bit, same way that we look at an athlete's training schedule as an off-season, a pre-season, a in-season, a post-season, things like that.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: We put different energies and efforts toward at those times, given the demands of the sport and the training schedule, and for athletes, the game schedule, things like that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: So for us, we may do the same thing with our training in that we'll switch our primary goal based on the time of year.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I am thinking my summer training is going to be a little bit of an experiment because my training has always been sort of like athletic performance or just, you know, performance-based goals, so strength-based goals first, followed by these supporting physique goals, and I've had a ton of success with it in both areas.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going to experiment a little bit about flipping those and putting maybe a little more of the primary focus on the physique goals and the supporting energy and effort to the strength and performance goals.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Because of the kind of time that I have to train this summer and I'm going to use it a little bit as an experiment of if I'm pulling back on some of these bigger, more compound strength-based movements and I do this other kind of training, am I able to maintain that strength while I do this or am I losing strength and kind of seeing what I like about it?
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Also, because we're going to be kind of running around this summer and we have lots of things going on and I like being outside.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to mix it up and see how it goes and realizing that at any point I can switch it back, I can change sort of how my program is.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: But you do want to give yourself enough time, in whatever cycle you're in, to see whether or not the design of your program and your training schedule is going to work.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: So you might have a shift in that time.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I know that probably in the fall I'll be really interested in.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to my muscle up goal.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I really want to work on it, but I don't really want to work on it in the summer.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: So that's going to be my sort of fall focus.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: So you can focus on a primary goal, making it the center of your training, and then you can use those other goals as accessory work, whether that be like.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: You train those other things less frequently.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: You use them in supplemental workouts.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: You use them in supplemental workouts.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: You're going to look at your training as kind of like a pie chart and you're going to give most of the pie to this primary goal for however long.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I always suggest at least 12 weeks, but we might be longer.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about running this new program for about 16 weeks, with some natural deloads in the vacations that I have.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: So that's something I'm playing around with.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Then you got to give them long enough to work.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Just like I said, I suggest at least 12 weeks, but sometimes you might be doing this goal for a year or two years, and this might be the most important thing to you, and so you give it two years.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Years, and this might be the most important thing to you, and so you give it two years.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: The longer we can give the goal, the more success we'll see.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: We are so wrapped up in how quickly we can do it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: The more time we give the goal, the better off we are.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: We're going to focus, then, on measuring the primary goal mostly, if anything, I think you should.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: If you have secondary goals, tertiary goals, I think you should just pat yourself on the back if you notice a change, but they aren't the primary thing.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: We're measuring for progress, because anything we are gaining in those areas are almost happy accidents.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Now, this isn't to say that you can't accomplish and measure multiple things.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Just realize, for the folks who are trying to reach multiple goals at a time, and I would focus on one thing and then I would measure that thing, and then I would be happy with any gains and or progress in those other areas and then.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: So then, when you feel like you've reached a place where you're happy with it, you can switch the primary goal and you can kind of flop this in and out.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: This might be, you know, you do two different.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: You have two phases in your year, or you have a few years like this and a few years like that, or maybe you do three phases in your year.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't switch up the goal more than like three times during the year because it's not going to give you enough time to accomplish that goal, but that might be a possibility.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: And then you can kind of look at the goals and decide which are some might be more complimentary for others.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: So, like you know, power and speed, developing those at the same time you probably can Putting muscle on and losing body fat that's probably a possibility, a little slower, but that's that whole body recomp idea that we're talking about.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can kind of play around with that.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Lastly, what I think is very important is making sure that you also have process goals.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Now, the process goals aren't going to take away from any of these goals.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Instead, they are just focused on the actions that you're taking in order to reach these outcome goals right.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Our improved performance is an outcome goal, our increased muscle mass is an outcome goal, our decreased body fat is an outcome goal.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: But a process goal is about how many workouts you're getting in a week, how much time you're spending on your mobility training, how many steps you're getting in from day to day, how much protein you're getting in, how frequently you're tracking your macronutrients.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: All of those are going to be process goals and those are ones we have more control over, and they influence the outcome goal and allow us to see and have success sooner than relying solely on that outcome.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Sometimes outcomes take a long time and there are many reasons for that, whether that be the extremity of the goal we've selected, or where we are in our life cycle, or the amount of time we have to devote to our training, or whatever that might be.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: The process goal can be set just a step beyond where you are now, just a slight push to encourage you to take that next step and add something to your plate to tip the scales toward reaching whatever that goal is.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: You might not reach it right away, but you have reached the process goal by taking on what you've added and then you can slowly accumulate process goal after process goal, or increases in what you are willing and capable of doing in your process goal to ultimately get you to that outcome goal.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: So having both of those are really important.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: When you're taught as a trainer to build programs, you're always talking about starting with the end in mind, and while I think that's really useful, it's not all that geared toward real life.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: And when we look at process over outcome, we increase our opportunity to continue, increase our opportunity to sustainably maintain the behaviors that are required to reach that outcome goal whenever we can.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: So that is super important.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So, yes, you can have multiple goals.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: You are going to have to sacrifice some at some points, or you're going to have to at least realize that some things are going to move slower, if not, or if not even like take a backslide a little bit, so some things can kind of regress as you're working on something.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: But you're going to have a primary goal.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: You're going to be able to shift this whenever you feel appropriate.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Just make sure that you're giving yourself enough time to try to achieve that goal.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: And then you're going to focus also, in addition to these goals, these multiple goals, and in addition to having a primary goal, you're going to have some process goals so that you can focus on the behaviors and habits you need to ultimately get you to that outcome.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, I hope that's helpful.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: As always, I'm here to talk.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: You can email me, betsy, at BeFosterStrongcom.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: That's the letter B FosterStrongcom.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: That's the letter B fosterstrongcom.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: You can send me an Instagram DM at foster underscore strength.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And, as always, if you appreciate the podcast, if you get something from it and want to leave a rating review or share it with somebody you know it is always, always appreciated.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Until next time, go build your strongest body and I'll talk to you later.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Bye.