Does your typical fitness program look like this after a break from exercise?
- Day 1: Try to run as far and as fast as I can
- Day 2: Go to the gym, lift ALL the weights
- Day 3: Take a break to recover a bit
- Day 4: Back at the gym, ignore sore muscles
- Day 5: Round out the week with another intense run
After a week or two, you feel exhausted and burnt out on exercise. Not to mention, you’re contemplating canceling your gym membership again.
You’re not alone if that sounds familiar.
It’s easy to go too hard when you build an exercise routine, especially if you start exercising to see results quickly.
However, the secret to a long-term fitness plan isn’t intensity — it’s consistency.
3 Questions to Ask When Creating a Long-Term Fitness Plan
Building a sustainable fitness plan designed to make incremental progress is essential before you lace up your running shoes or head to the gym.
Take some time to answer these questions to set your gym routine up for success:
Why Am I Working Out?
Discovering your “why” behind exercise will lay the groundwork for everything you do when it’s time to work out.
If you’re exercising to improve your heart health, a cardio-focused routine focused on exercises like walking, running, or cycling will improve your cardio wellness.
If more strength is your goal, you may want to plan out a detailed weightlifting schedule that leverages progressive overload to get stronger.
How Much Time Can I Dedicate to Exercise?
Your schedule plays a significant role in the sustainability of your long-term fitness plan.
Figuring out if you have time to go to the gym or need a time-saving home routine could determine whether you see extended success or have a plan that fizzles out.
It’s also important to understand that you don’t need hours-long gym sessions to see results over time.
Shorter, thirty-minute workouts can help you make strides in achieving your exercise goals.
Do I Want to Exercise on My Own?
Some people have the motivation to establish a sustainable fitness plan and hold themselves accountable for consistent exercise.
However, you may not feel that way.
If you struggle with sticking to your exercise routine, consider working out with a buddy or attending group classes to achieve success on your fitness journey.
One deciding factor between steady progress and failure is the motivation to keep going once you start, and a fitness community that has your back is an excellent motivator.
How to Set Realistic Fitness Goals
To get the most out of your long-term fitness plan, you need achievable goals to motivate you toward success.
Focusing on incremental improvements and being realistic about your potential achievements will give you the best chance at creating an exercise routine that sticks.
Establish an Exercise Baseline
Before you set goals for yourself, it’s important to understand where you’re beginning.
Say you want to focus on strength training and getting stronger over time.
First, you need to figure out how much weight you can lift right now before you can plan for the future.
Taking a week or two to test yourself through sets that gradually increase the weight until you can’t lift it will help you find your max weight and show you how to improve.
Build a Realistic Timeline for Progress
Let’s continue to use the weightlifting example when talking about your timeline.
If 50 pounds is your limit for a bench press right now and you want to double that limit, you need to establish goals that give you incremental improvements.
You shouldn’t expect to lift twice as much weight next week than this week, but you can lift 2.5 or maybe even five more pounds the next time you go to the gym.
If you lift an extra five pounds every week, set a 10-week goal to hit your 100-pound mark.
If you miss the target, take time to analyze how you progressed and what you can change to realistically hit that goal in the future.
Focus on Small Victories
Dedicating to a long-term fitness plan is a victory in itself, but you want to set larger goals and hit benchmarks along the way.
Maybe you want to lose 20 pounds over the next six months. If that’s your goal, don’t focus on losing that weight all at once.
Focus on losing 3-4 pounds weekly through diet and exercise, and celebrate when you achieve those small victories.
You may not see progress right away, but in 6 months, you will!
Fit Body Boot Camp Can Drive Your Long-Term Fitness Plan
Whether you have a good idea of what you want out of your fitness plan or you are still figuring it out, we can help!
Our fitness team at Fit Body Boot Camp dedicates itself to every member who signs up to exercise with us.
The workout and nutrition plans our fitness coaches build for you will help you achieve incremental gains with larger goals in mind — and we’ll celebrate every victory with you along the way!
If you’re ready to break free from the cycle of inconsistent workout plans, visit your local Fit Body Boot Camp today.
