TWOD 1-1-11

Today, since it is a new year, I wanted to talk about the importance of setting goals and a couple ways to approach it. But first my food and training log.

Training:

Still feeling the effects of heavy deadlifts Monday and squats on Wednesday. Remember this week everything is 85% and next is 90%. Periodization with weekly blocks is for the advanced athlete. Periodization for intermediate athletes will be within the week. I.e. medium, heavy and light day within the same week. I posted a good article on per\iodization/adaptation last week. This is a topic I will get into more later, but check out Mark Rippetoe’s site, starting strength for more on the topic (on the right).
So today, instead of deadlifts as planned, I will sub heavy rack pulls but still do presses as planned.
　
Food log for 12/31/10:

For those who are curious, I will occasionally post what I ate for that day or for a meal. I follow a lot of sites and found that when these folks post their meals, it helped give me some ideas and insight.

Breakfast: 3 omega-3 enriched eggs scrambled with 3 oz left over ground beef
¼ cup berries
1 cup coffee

Snack:
2 oz raw spinach
1 carrot
3 oz steak
2 oz aged Kerrygold cheese (good stuff)

Lunch:
4 oz steak
2 oz raw chard
¼ cup pinapple
4 oz keefer yogurt
16 oz omega-3 enriched organic whole milk
1 tblspn raw coconut oil

Dinner:
4 oz salmon
3 large prawns
1 cup broccoli
½ med baked potato, lots of butter, no skin
16 oz omega-3 enriched organic whole milk
　
　
TOD (thoughts of the day)

Ok, on to today’s topic…setting goals. What’s the dealio yo? The importance of goals is that they simply give us a purpose for training. When it comes to training, and making progress its important we have some long term and short term goals otherwise we get burned out and are just spinning our wheels. I personally like to cycle my goals. Every year I usually have a 4-5 month block of strength, then conditioning and a maintenance phase. The maintenance phase allows me to decompress and re-evaluate. Occasionally I will set some short term goals such as better body comp, shave time of my 5k or max on deadlift. So with that in mind, my short term goal right now is to do 3000 push ups and situps this month. That’s not really a very large number, it breaks down to about 100 per day. My goal is simply to just get to where I can knock out 100 in a row, plus I’m using the push-ups as re-hab for an elbow injury. Now if I start having tendonitis or the extra work is effecting my performance on my strength block then I will back off. Again, common sense guys.

The point is I got a short term goal and something else to work for. I encourage all of you to set some goals and make a plan to reach em. Some of the best shape I have been in was when I was training for a contest or meet. So set some goals, make a plan and go forth! You wont be disappointed…and if you are, then you can only blame you. Here is an article on goal setting and competition...from Rip's site.

http://startingstrength.com/articles/competition_reynolds.pdf
　
I’ve taught lots of classes and given many lectures. One thing I can’t emphasize enough…along with the other 3,421 things I emphasize…is do not make weight loss a goal!! Always make improved performance your goal! More on that later, but for now just trust me. I hope everyone has a good new year and reaches whatever goals you may have. As this site progresses, some of things I plan on adding are audio podcasts, new articles and Q&A sessions. You can help out by either posting questions or emailing them to me at btswheels@yahoo.com  If you have any ideas or topics you would like to see just let me know. I am also available for training, consultation and group lectures.