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The Six Steps of Effective Goal Setting for Strength Training

Practical guidelines to get you focused on success

“Change” was the buzzword of the 2008 presidential election, and the promise of the Obama platform to solve this country’s problems was undoubtedly a major factor in one of the most remarkable political successes in history. Such a huge goal requires an equally serious commitment. Likewise, to make changes in athletic performance or body composition or just because you’d like to be stronger, you need to take a serious look at goal setting.

Billionaire Sir Richard Branson and I are both big believers in goals, but we prefer to call them “challenges.” Whether it is about building a fortune or building Herculean strength, challenges are essential. You have to stretch the envelope to get ahead. Call it semantics or splitting hairs, challenges are more motivating than goals. We both find “I bet you can’t do it” very motivating words. Throughout my career I’ve always put bonus clauses for medals in my letters of agreement with national teams; they’ve always overlooked them when signing. It’s always been a pleasure cashing in on them at the end of the season…especially when they have forgotten about agreeing to them.

Effective goal setting goes beyond simply jotting down a wish list of how much you want to lift and posting it on your refrigerator. You will have to put some work into it and understand that it is an ongoing process. To get you started, here are six basic steps that will enable you to set goals that can be achieved and help you outline a plan to achieve them.

Step 1: Determine the goal in a specific and measurable way, and set a deadline
Here’s a motto for you: “The more precise you are, the better.” Just saying some positive affirmation such as “I want to be the biggest and strongest I can be” is worthless because it is 1) not specific, 2) not measurable, and 3) doesn’t contain a deadline. Instead, make a specific goal such as “I’ll bench press 300 pounds with a close grip by December 1, 2009.” The date is especially important, because if there is no deadline, you will procrastinate.

Step 2: Assess your starting physiology
You should determine where you are physically so that you can determine what might be limiting your progress. For our example, if you have the testosterone count of a third grader, don’t expect to move up a weight class. Or if your zinc status is lower than the ethics of Enron executives, there is no way you will be able to manage your excessive inflammation and have enough androgens to achieve your goals. An adrenal stress index, a hormonal profile and a comprehensive metabolic profile are all good assessments to use at the start. There are people well trained in biofeedback devices and techniques, such as applied kinesiology, that can give you great starting points.

Step 3: Ask, “What are you willing to do?”
Make a list of what you need to do to achieve your goals, and then make a list of what has to go in order to reach those goals. And consider that no worthy goal is ever reached without making some kind of sacrifice. For the 1992 Albertville Olympics, we had a guy trying out for the Canadian Bobsleigh Team who had tremendous talent but drank like a fish every weekend and engaged in various other (as the Father of American Weightlifting, Bob Hoffman, was found of saying) “dissipations.” This guy used to be so hung over that only his Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were productive. He ended up losing his spot to a naturally slower guy who edged him out on testing day because the slower guy never missed a workout and showed up in better athletic condition when it counted most. It was a classic case of the turtle beating the hare repeating itself.  Don’t underestimate how lapses in discipline can affect your training. For example, if you smoke a joint every Friday, your testosterone is suppressed till the next Monday.

Step 4: Determine the behaviors that go with Step 3
Because your subconscious does not recognize the past or the future, positive behaviors should be written in the present tense. So rather than writing, “I will consume two grams of protein per pound of bodyweight daily,” you should say, “I consume two grams of protein per pound of bodyweight daily.” Here are a few more examples:
    I take my insulin-sensitizing supplements three times a day.
    I alternate one squat workout with one deadlift workout.
    I take 30 grams of Omega-3 a day

Step 5: Make a list of intermediate goals with deadlines
You have to be able to repeat your physiological assessments on a frequent basis to determine if you are on the right track. If you’re not progressing as quickly as you want, you need to change your approach. For our example, you may find after testing that your protein intake is fine but your carbs are too low. Or that the intensity is too high and that you need to take the Yin stack to calm down at night.

Step 6: Keep a detailed training and dietary log
Keep a detailed logbook of your training program. According to Tommy Kono, a two-time Olympic golf medal winner who set world records in four different weight classes, there is no single better training aid. Says Kono, “The palest ink is better than the best of memories.” A well-kept training journal allows you to monitor and evaluate the efficacy of your training program and helps you to set short-term goals.  No matter if your arms are 13 inches or 19 inches in girth, a training log will keep you on track for long-term success.

When using the training diary as a tool, make sure that the training conditions were the same. For example, rushing through a workout shortens the rest intervals and thus makes a comparison with a normal workout difficult. Also, consider that honesty is critical to derive success from a training log, and this means that you should record only the reps done in proper form. An intern trainer once asked me to go over his training log to help him design better training programs for himself. I would see things like 100 pounds for 9.3 reps. I asked him how he could do 9.3 reps. He replied that he did 9 complete reps, and then only a third of the rep. I then asked him, with a serious look on my face, “How can you be sure it was not 9.32 or 9.38 reps?” I could instantly read the anxiety in his eyes, indicating a ninefold increase of cortisol from the perceived screwup. Needless to say, once I related the story to my hockey star client Al MacInnis, he promptly assigned the intern the nickname “9.2”, which has stuck to this day.

The training diary helps me tremendously as a strength coach in deciding how to orient the training from phase to phase for every single client. At our training centers, our training diaries are computerized so that we can produce ongoing statistical analyses of the training progress and effectiveness for each client. This methodical log keeping, along with the help of a brilliant statistician, has helped me develop structural balance norms and optimal and precise volume and intensity prescriptions for specific lifts. You can learn to use this log and program design at any of the PICP certification programs.

By following these six steps you might not gain a high political office, but you will maximize the odds of reaching your goals because the steps will give you the right tools. Give these steps a try – for a change!