I Suck at Setting Good Goals

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

…but I’m great at writing long posts

For the past several months I’ve been in the gym 5-6 days per week (with a trainer 2-3 times per week). At least 3-4 of those days are free weights (New Rules of Lifting Break-In and now Fat Loss I) and the other 2-3 are core workouts and running intervals.

With my cleaned up diet and weight loss progress - I feel like I’ve gotten enough of a foundation to ask a beginners question (I’ve been lurking for about a year). I put a little more background at the end of this post if it is helpful.

Basically I’m having trouble picking good goals. Apparently I underestimated how fast my progress will occur one I started pushing myself.

6 weeks ago I set some goals that I thought were good medium term (4 month-6) goals.

Squat 225 (3x6) by June 1.
Deadlift 225 (3x6) by June 1.
Bench 225 (3x8) by September 1.

There are other goals - but those are the milestones that I think will reflect the changes in my overall strength (am I wrong?).

The “problem” is I’m achieving them faster than expected.

I’m squatting 215 right now (3 sets of 4 with good form) and I know I can probably 1RM 15% more than that. I’m not going to failure. Generally I do either sets of 3x12, 3x8 or 4x6 (depending on the weight and if I’m working specifically on form) - the 3x4 sets were to get a new baseline of what I’m capable of today (60 seconds of rest in between).

My starting point is I could squat 95 lbs for a 3x8 with lots (4-5 minutes) of rest in between.

My deadlifting is similar. I’ll be at 225 within a month - started at 75.

Bench is slower coming but I expect I’ll be a few months early on that as well. When I have a spotter I’ll do 135-155 for 3x8 or 4x6 (never needed the spotter) - when I don’t have one I stay around 125 and focus on form and tempo (I also tend to superset with crunches when I don’t have one so I kept he weight lower to maintain some energy). I started at 95 lbs doing 3x6 with failure on the third set (yeah - I am weak)

I did not know that I suck at choosing goals - but I learn something new every day.

I want aggressive goals that I will have to work at to hit - not something that I can come in a few months early and slack off on.

Obviously I will just raise the numbers if I have no other ideas. But what I don’t know is how much of this initial gain is due to CNS improvements (in which case I assume it will slow down) or if it is due to strength changes (in which case I don’t know what to expect) - or more likely a bit of both.

I am hoping that a few more experienced folks can help suggest some aggressive goals. Given my starting point and current points - can someone help suggest some 4-6 month goals that are a stretch but attainable? Am I picking the right three lifts of milestone goals? Are there other major milestones I need to be thinking about?

I don’t want to just throw down huge numbers and fail. But I’d rather have a good goal and fail by 5% then have a crappy one and exceed it by 50%. I know I’ll push harder with a good goal.

I know the question is vague (and long-winded). But … this is the Beginners Forum.

Thanks.

More Background:

My starting point is fat and weak. November of 2006 I started at 320 lbs - I’m down to 270 now. My starting body fat was around 36% (measured with a grip tester) - when I was 285 lbs it was 34% - we will retest this week.

My trainer is helping me with proper technique while lifting, motivation and busting my ass if I slack off. He is not forcing me to use any machines or to do massive amounts of cardio. He does push me to do running intervals to ensure that I maintain my cardio capacity that I worked for.

I have read and am following the New Rules of Lifting twice and moved from the Break-In to Fat Loss 1. I anticipate moving to Fat Loss II and then to strength I. That should get me through the next 6 months.

My diet is 85% clean. I still have some work to do with snacking 1-2 times per week [though I’ve got the snack portions under control] but in general I’ve done a complete 180 here. The 7 Habits was a great starting point. Once I cleaned up and started lifting the weight has been melting off.

The only supplement I am taking is a whey protein drink (three scopes of strawberry Designer Whey with water) during the first 15-40 minutes after I lift. I’ve been finding that I feel much better during the day if I have the protein drink than if I just have water.

I want to lose another 60-75 lbs (a hand-grip body fat % was 34% which puts me at a lean mass of 188 pounds at the time of the test [I was 285 then]) so I want to get down to about 12-15% body fat (~215 lbs if I don’t lose any LBM).

I do not expect to pack on tons of muscle during this time - I understand that. But I don’t want to lose what I have nor and I do want to see strength gains. Once I get to that body fat % I will start focusing on new goals.

Why didn’t I just ask my trainer what my goals should be? I have. I know his thoughts. But I don’t want to accept them as gospel. To avoid tainting any responses here I decided not to share them.

2

I’ll take a crack this.

I don’t think you “suck” in your goal setting at all and the fact that you are reaching your goals faster than you expected is not exactly something to be bummed about.

Maybe what you need to do is set devise two sets of goals: short and long term. Longer term will be reach goals and in the short term you will be setting up little benchmarks for you to hit along the way to the big enchilada. (Note: “big enchilada” is a technical lifting term)

This should help you stay sharp because you can have small reaches to hit with the short term goals and if you hit them “too easily” or quicker than you thought, well then make the next set of short term a little bit more of a stretch - not something crazy that would likely leave you discouraged when you don’t reach it, but something to make you push yourself.

You have been making good progress thus far in terms of just getting yourself healthier, so well done.

One thing I could not figure out from your post was in terms of those lifting numbers: were those your 1 rep goals (225 for squat, DL and bench) or were you saying you wanted to bench 225 for 3X8?

3

Do what the Army teaches us SMART goals.

S-Specific
M-Measurable
A-Attainable
R-Realistic
T-Time Bound

So for instance a smart goal would be, “I am going to work out for an hour 4 days a week and by the end of the month increase my weights by 5 pounds.”

4

[quote]PinkMist wrote:
Do what the Army teaches us SMART goals.

S-Specific
M-Measurable
A-Attainable
R-Realistic
T-Time Bound

So for instance a smart goal would be, “I am going to work out for an hour 4 days a week and by the end of the month increase my weights by 5 pounds.”[/quote]

haha I was just about to post this! We just learned it in Organizational Behavior class. good stuff

5

[quote]Kuz wrote:
I’ll take a crack this.

I don’t think you “suck” in your goal setting at all and the fact that you are reaching your goals faster than you expected is not exactly something to be bummed about.
[/quote]

Didn’t mean to imply I was bummed about my progress - I’m quite happy about it. I was just surprised at how far off my goals were from reality.

[quote]
One thing I could not figure out from your post was in terms of those lifting numbers: were those your 1 rep goals (225 for squat, DL and bench) or were you saying you wanted to bench 225 for 3X8?[/quote]

225 for 3x8.

I don’t want to just be able to eek out one and call it good. I want to own that weight.

I’ll work on the short-term Vs. long-term goals.

I do have a mix of them right now but they are very weight-centric. Perhaps I need a better mix of goals that are based on things other than that (times to gym, nutritional goals, etc).

Thanks for the advice.

6

[quote]PinkMist wrote:
Do what the Army teaches us SMART goals.
[/quote]

That’s a good idea. I was trying to do roughly that with the weight/date goals but in hindsight I did not know enough about actual improvement times to properly time the goals.

I’ll work on some more short-term goals that follow that pattern before re-evaluating my long term goals (hopefully by then I’ll have a better feel for what my progressions will look like).

Thanks for the suggestion.

7

[quote]CSharp wrote:
PinkMist wrote:
Do what the Army teaches us SMART goals.

That’s a good idea. I was trying to do roughly that with the weight/date goals but in hindsight I did not know enough about actual improvement times to properly time the goals.

I’ll work on some more short-term goals that follow that pattern before re-evaluating my long term goals (hopefully by then I’ll have a better feel for what my progressions will look like).

Thanks for the suggestion.

[/quote]

Smart thinking. The only way to get better at goal setting is to set some goals and find out whether they were too high, too low, time frame was way out or whatever. This will give you a guide to setting your next set of goals. Best to start with the short term goals (adding 10% to all your lifts, for example). Long term goals can look unattainable and deter you because of that if you focus on them too much.

8

The problem is your goals themselves. For (nearly) everyone, especially a FFB, squatting and pulling 225 is much easier than benching 225. Why not something like:

Squat: 315
Bench: 225

It takes most people a while to get from 145 to 225

9

[quote]EatSleepLift wrote:
The problem is your goals themselves. For (nearly) everyone, especially a FFB, squatting and pulling 225 is much easier than benching 225. Why not something like:

Squat: 315
Bench: 225

It takes most people a while to get from 145 to 225[/quote]

And as the squat progress starts to slow down, your deadlift might continue right on trucking so it could be
Deadlift: 345
Squat: 315
Bench: 225

Also keep in mind that as you shed pounds your range of motion on the bench press will increase.

10

[quote]EatSleepLift wrote:
The problem is your goals themselves. For (nearly) everyone, especially a FFB, squatting and pulling 225 is much easier than benching 225.
[/quote]

I agree that the problem is was with the goals - but having not done this before I had no idea what the goals should be.

Thanks for putting out some concrete numbers - that is very helpful.

[quote]RSarin wrote:
And as the squat progress starts to slow down, your deadlift might continue right on trucking so it could be
Deadlift: 345
Squat: 315
Bench: 225

Also keep in mind that as you shed pounds your range of motion on the bench press will increase.[/quote]

Also great to know - thanks. I’ve been reading more of the deadlift and squat related thread and noticing that a DL of 405lbs is not really a big deal. Wish I had paid more attention to those before settings the 225 goal :slight_smile:

The body weight thing is something I’ve been thinking about too. I know it is impacting my range of motion of several lifts - belly gets in the way of going down further.

For benching specifically it seems to be more of an issue when I use a narrow grip. I look forward to that improving as I know I have narrow grip benching in my future when I get further into the NROL routines.

–

To everyone who replied - thanks again. I’ve used this info to set up some goals that are more realistic and aggresive.