The end of the year is here; this is a time for planning and reflection. As we surround ourselves by friends and relatives to celebrate various holidays, it is inevitable to think back at the events of the passing year. Take this time to look back at what you set out to do in terms of your fitness goals. What did you accomplish?
For most, their fitness program progresses in what seems to be a closed loop. Most of us approach our fitness expectations in a cyclic fashion. We begin the year by focusing our fitness goals from a self improvement perspective. We set goals such as undertaking a new physical activity, or making our workouts more consistent, or changing our eating habits. In a sense, our goals during fall/winter moths tend to focus more on the long term rather than short term.
As we progress through the year, and reach the spring and summer months, we transcend more into a practical approach to fitness. We focus more on aesthetics and performance, perhaps the summer weather is what makes us look at ourselves from a more critical angle. The competitive kind will focus on improving their performance, beating out previous results, or reaching an objective. Those of us who are more self critical will focus on losing those last couple pounds and looking good for the beach. In a sense, our goals during the hotter months of the year tend to be focused on the short term.
After summer passes and fall and winter come around again, we return our focus on the long term benefits of fitness. If we were to look at our fitness program from a birds-eye view, it would seem that we are running around in a circle. Starting at a particular point, going through a year's worth of training, only to get back to where we were a year earlier. If however we change our angle a bit, and tilt our perspective, we can see that instead of a loop it is more of a cork-screw. Although it seems like we landed back where we started, we are actually a level higher. As we push ourselves through our fitness program, we elevate ourselves by learning about our bodies; we learn how different exercises affect us, how our eating habits affect our performance, and how rest and recovery play a crucial role.
