Like in all areas of life, having and following a plan can help you achieve any fitness goal. Planning provides guidance and allows for confident execution as all potential problems already have a planned solution. In order to make a plan more likely to stick, research has shown that writing it down, whether on pen and paper or on your phone, will make a plan more concrete. This is why we always recommend our clients keep a food and exercise journal, and why we use Train Heroic to plan out client workouts.
Here are several factors to take into account when planning ahead for your fitness goals:
Determining Your Actual Goals
Before you can make an exercise-related plan, you need to determine what your goal is. Your goal is what your plan leads up to; the end result. You wouldn’t take and plan out a trip without knowing your destination; the same goes for fitness planning. Are you looking to make strength gains? Or do you want to lose weight? Maybe you are just looking to increase your fitness or train for a particular event. Determine what you want to achieve, and then create a plan on how you can get there. At UpFit Training Academy, our coaches take into account your goals and create a training plan for you.
Planning Your Meals
A huge part of health and fitness is nutrition. Again, depending on your goal, your nutrition planning is going to look different. Maybe you are looking to gain muscle, in which case it is important to plan out how you are going to eat a surplus amount of calories. If done properly, meal planning will help you achieve your goals faster while spending less money. Especially when living in New York City, eating out can be tempting due to its convenience and ability to save time. However, with a little extra planning, healthier and cheaper options can be prepared at home. Our coaches also provide nutritional guidance and workshops in order to help you determine a solid plan.
Other Potential Planning Areas to Help You Succeed
- Sleep is one of the most underrated aspects of any healthy lifestyle. Despite New York being dubbed ‘The city that never sleeps,’ sleep is arguably the most important aspect of recovery after training. So if you are training hard, which we know you are if you are training with us at Upfit Academy, you need to be sleeping hard, too.
- Are you drinking enough water every day? If you are someone who knows they don’t drink enough water daily, consider setting reminders on your phone to let you know you should drink more, or write time periods on your water bottle.
Final Tips
- Use a nutrition or meal tracking app to track macronutrients or calories; we use MyMacros or MyFitnessPal.
- Plan to work out at similar times during the week to create a habit.
- Plan to go to bed and wake up at a similar time every night. Even consider staying off your device for the last 30 minutes before bed in order to wind down.
For more information contact us today at Upfit Training Academy
