As a rule, New Year’s resolutions are notoriously prone to failure. Every year, so many of us set goals for ourselves with great intention, only to find them unfulfilled when the end of December rolls around. For whatever reason, the fiery motivation and enthusiasm felt in January begins to wane and we fall off the wagon.

Many resolutions have something to do with fitness, health, and physical improvement in general. This is abundantly evident by the wave of new people flooding the gym each January and the endless television commercials pushing the latest piece of fitness equipment promising that with their product, your body transformation will be a piece of cake (no pun intended).

The problem with many New Year’s resolutions, especially pertaining to fitness, is that people set goals that are either not specific enough, not sustainable, or based on unrealistic expectations.

In this article, we are going to breakdown some of the more common fallacies regarding fitness goals that will hopefully set you on the right path to sticking to your fitness resolution this year!

setting achievable fitness goals in 2021

Baby Steps Are Okay

So, you are all geared up to charge headfirst into a year full of quality workouts, clean eating, and endless workout selfies on social media. You have purchased a shiny new pair of trainers, armed yourself with flashy gym outfits, and maybe even acquired some sleek new headphones.

There is nothing wrong with any of these things but let’s hit pause for a second and talk about your plan for structuring your new workout and diet routine.

Often times, the enormous amount of motivation felt when starting a fitness routine leads to attempting drastic changes to an individual’s lifestyle.

People try things like being determined to go to the gym seven days per week or immediately cut out every bite of junk food from their diet. The problem with this mentality is that it is not sustainable.

Any kind of change is hard; therefore, it is important that you ease into the process. Start small with your plan and go from there.

For instance, make it a point to workout 2-3 times per week, only give in to that bowl of ice cream on the weekends, etc.

Fitness Requires Playing The Long Game

The media makes it seem like physical transformations should be an expedited process and that noticeable results can be an overnight process.

This notion is far from the truth. Buying into these ideas will only leave you discouraged and burnt out in a short amount of time.

It is crucial that you understand that transforming your body can certainly be an enjoyable, fulfilling process, but it takes a lot of time and effort!

The people that you see on magazine covers and infomercials didn’t get their physique by knocking out a few sets on whatever product they are pushing “15 minutes per day, twice a week.”

Having a sound understanding of the investment required to achieve your fitness goals is a must if you plan on sticking with your resolution and avoiding the disappointment of not seeing the results you are looking for overnight.

Enjoyment Promotes Consistency

The biggest determining factor of your success in any goal you set for yourself, especially regarding fitness, is consistency. Without it, the workout routine you choose, and the diet plan you follow doesn’t mean a thing.

That being said, your fitness journey needs to be one that you enjoy. Human nature is inherently prone to avoiding unpleasant experiences and seeking enjoyment whenever possible.

Going to the gym and eating healthy can’t be a miserable endeavor, or you will not be consistent. Having fun while being disciplined and working hard can undoubtedly happen simultaneously!

So, those are the steps to setting achievable fitness goals in 2021, remember to be yourself, enjoy the process, and play a long time game.

A word that gets thrown around a lot at the moment when it comes to working out is ‘functional’. What is ‘functional’? Well essentially, this term refers to the idea that some types of exercises provide real-world and usable strength, whereas others do not.

One of the exercises often called functional is the deadlift because it involves squatting down to pick something heavy up off of the ground using all the muscles in the leg in unison as well as muscles in the back. For other machines and medical equipments to stay fit and healthy you can checkout veterinary anesthesia machine for more information.

We pick things up off the floor all the time in real life and every moment is compound in this sense – meaning that we use all the muscles together rather than in an isolated fashion.

An exercise that isn’t functional is the bicep curl. Or at least that’s how the story goes.
Except that’s not quite true in reality. Because in the wild, how often would you actually be required to pick up a perfectly cylindrical bar with a perfect technique from standing? Never.

The only times we’d have lifted things in the wild it would have been the carcass of our prey or a boulder we intended to use. The rest of the time our muscles were used for running and climbing and fighting.

And guess what? We never used correct technique. We’d have grabbed things off the ground at an angle and landed awkwardly. And we’d always have gotten back up.
What’s more is that we’d never have done the precise same movement more than once. Every time we picked up something, we’d have been at a different angle and the item would have been differently shaped.

And this is why training outdoors with bodyweight is the perfect solution.

How to Keep Challenging Your Body

As soon as you move a press up from indoors to outdoors it becomes more difficult. Suddenly you’re training on uneven terrain and one hand will be slightly higher than the other. At the same time, you’ll be training in the cold and your lungs will be working harder to supply oxygen.

The same goes double for doing a pull up from a tree branch. Every branch is a different width, meaning you have to use different amounts of grip strength and one hand will always be higher than the other.

You can make this tougher too by lifting logs and doing other non-bodyweight exercises.

But to start with, your usual bodyweight routine moved outdoors is more than enough. And this alone will be enough to start building up a lot more toughness and resilience in your muscles, as well as much more useable strength and power.

And once you start doing this enough, you’ll find that you quickly become much hardier and everyday tasks start to feel a lot easier and less challenging.

Sure, it won’t feel very nice at first and you’ll get muddy and cold. But that’s the point! It’s time to stop being domesticated and to get a little wild!