You Need a Blueprint

Welcome to afitnewyou!  This week I would like to explain the importance and need of having a plan to aid you in reaching your fitness goals.  Just as an architect would need a blueprint, or an engineer would need plans to build something of significance, so to do you need to have a plan in order to reach your fitness goals.  Whether it be a design that a builder has in his eye, or the way you see yourself when you have reached your fitness goals it all starts with a vision.  However, that vision is what we see as the end result.  And in order to get to that outcome, we need to have sound plans to get there.

My friend John Buatsi is a friend of mine who I have referenced before as one of the best personal trainers around.  He is the personal trainer that many other personal trainers go to train with.  And although he has imparted many lessons on me, one that I have heard from him many times starts with him asking me the question “What are your plans for today?” when he sees me starting a work out.  On occasion I would reply a simple “chest” or “legs.”  But then he would follow up with “Ok. What are you planning to do?”  If I didn’t have a definitive plan to answer with, he would mock me and say that I won’t achieve much without a plan.  Although I did have a basic plan, and still think doing something is better than nothing, I completely understand his point that without a specific plan, goals will not be attained.

Having a specific plan, one that can be set up for you with/by a personal trainer and/or nutritionist, will help you reach your fitness goals more effectively.  Our fitness goals are usually set to a point we either having already reached, or have not attained for quite some time.  And if you haven’t gotten there yet, you need to ask if you have the proper plan to get there.  Think about this analogy…if you needed to travel to a place that you have never been to before, would you just hop in the car and hope you eventually got there by heading in that general direction?  Probably not…or at least you wouldn’t get there in a timely fashion.  On the other hand, if you had specific directions to follow, you should get there with minimal, if any, issues.  The same is true with the building comparison; a construction job will not get started until the plans are already laid out and set to follow.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that I regularly suggest and tell my clients to just get to the gym, as I believe that getting there is often the biggest hurdle people have to exercising.   But once you are there, it is important to follow a plan in order to reach your fitness goals.  I also often suggest that there is some merit to the idea that doing something is better than doing nothing at all.  However, if you are at the point of doing that something, why not make it the things that you actually need to do in order to reach your goals?  Following a plan designed to help you reach your fitness goals, with the correct exercises, weights, sets and rep prescriptions will get you to those goals much more efficiently.

When you hire a contractor to do work at your house, you often ask for not only a cost estimate, but a time frame in which you expect the job to be completed.  To meet that goal, the contractor has to follow a plan.  The need for a plan to help achieve a goal is also the same for you to reach your fitness goals.  Getting to the gym, and “pushing some weight around” is better than pushing the buttons on a remote control while on your couch at home.  But if you are making the effort, help yourself to get to the vision you have for yourself.  Just remember that in order to achieve that vision, there has to be the proper plan in place.  Having a fitness blue print is a very calculated way to achieve a fit new you!