Goals 2021 update 3/16 - Create a training goal

Another one of my goals for 2021. is done. I wanted to do this one for a long time, but, other things were more important.

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Why create a training goal?

When I was young I used to train football. During that time I did not have to think a lot about what I will be doing in each session. That is why we had a coach. While it was good to have a structure in training and instil in us that it is really important to properly warm up, as well as, to stretch at the end of the session, we did not really have any goals. Maybe it is a bit hard to set goals in team sports. But, anyway, we progressed naturally. As we got older and our bodies developed, we got stronger, faster, with better endurance and overall had a great level of fitness. For that, I have to thank our coach (or coaches).

However, we did not set any goals. Neither individually, nor as a team. I always felt that something was lacking in our training. We never had individual training goals, or things to achieve. So, apart from the natural fitness progression, I did not see any progress in my game. I believe that by setting yourself goals and working hard to achieve them you build that "never give up" mentality. You should also see some progress in your game and see whether it makes sense to continue with that sport further.

When I started training parkour I was so happy to have freedom to do whatever I wanted each session. I could structure my training any way I wanted. I brought with me the structure of warm up/stretching from my football days. That helped me a lot. I again started to progress naturally. I feel the progress was faster as it was an individual activity. I never set concrete goals for myself, but I was always working towards something, some movement.

More than 10 years have passed since I started, and I feel that this method of "free" unstructured training is not working for me anymore. Maybe it is a lack of continuity in my training, or lack of proper sessions due to lack of time, but I feel that I am not progressing anymore. Heck, maybe it is because I am getting older. Whatever it is, I want to change the way I train. I want to focus on my weak areas, as well as, achieve the moves I want. That is why, for the first time in training, I want to set myself goals and work on achieving them in each training session.

My training goals for 2022

Looking back at the past year and how my training has evolved I noticed I need to make some changes. I can no longer have really long sessions. I can’t go all in on conditioning most of the time for various reasons (lack of time, motivation). I somehow started skipping the stretching part and rushing the warmup part. Therefore, I need to make some changes to be able to train properly and start progressing again. Having said that, I see that I need to set more than one goal and have some variation of sessions to keep myself motivated and energised.

I will structure my goals in three parts (primary, secondary, tertiary). The schedule I make will also revolve around them and I will focus my energy (and rest) to make all of them happen by the end of the year. So, here are my training goals for 2022:

• Primary: Improve Climb up, both technically and in strength
• Secondary: Focus on upper body and core strength (back, shoulders, core, etc.)
• Tertiary: Reduce body weight further (I lost around seven kilos this year) and increase endurance. Basically get my fitness level back.

I worked on my climb up a lot the last couple of years. It is decent, but I want to make it good. It is the primary thing I want to improve. Secondary goal should help me a lot here and it is basically complementing the primary goal. It will be a base for any other progress really. The third goal is basically complementing both of those and should come more or less for free from the other two. Those three goals are also on varying levels of focus. Primary is very specific, while the tertiary is very broad. I did this intentionally.

Of course, I will leave some time for "free" (unstructured) training, but it won’t be the predominant type of sessions anymore.

Conclusion

I hope that by creating and sticking to goals I will see more progress in my training and that I will be able to achieve the things I want. Let’s see how this will work out!