A new year is upon us, and as you may have gathered by now, it's a lot like the last one. You're in good shape, maybe great shape, but you still feel a bit like you're underachieving. You go to the gym most of the time, and you usually eat fairly well. You're not a total slacker, but your discipline does leave a bit to be desired at times. Still, as another year begins, you're once again (like make others) determined to make the best version of you in 2017, in terms of muscles size, strength, and leanness. You want to get in your best shape this year. Check out these top ten tips for finding your best shape in the New Years.
Enjoy the wins
First off, pat yourself on the back for any good progress you did make in the past year. Use your Facebook Timehop or other "wayback" on social media or just your phone pic collection in the cloud, to realize you really did make some good progress in the past year. Realize that although you weren't perfect, there were some good things about the year. Be proud of what you did right. Now it's time to do much MORE right in the coming year!
Set better goals
Perhaps your goals for the past year failed because they just weren't realistic enough. Maybe adding 100 pounds to your bench press in a year wasn't realistic, and a year later, you didn't add any weight to your max bench press. There's a good chance, if your only goal was to add 20 pounds to your bench, you would have done so. However, since you aimed SO high, you ended up achieving nothing. Set smaller, more realistic goals, and you will achieve them. As the years past, they start to add up!
Eat just as intensely as you train
Without a doubt, even if you miss a few gym training days here and there, you do train with an all-out passion, right? You lift like an animal, putting your heart and soul into your training every week. If only you dedicated the same 5 to 7 hours each week to nutrition. Imagine spending the same 60 minutes you spend in the gym each day, prepping meals, drinking shakes, taking vitamins, and planning your diet. You probably already know you'd reach your lifting goals much faster, if you had the right nutritional support.
One change each month
Drop one bad habit each month. You'd love to stop drinking soda, stop staying up late, stop skipping workouts, add cardio, and about 8 other things in the next year, right? Starting them all at once is a recipe for failure. However, tackling only ONE of these goals each month, and making it a permanent habit, is an easy way to change up your lifestyle in a big way… gradually!
Ask questions
There are no doubt a few things you'd like to know, which could improve your training and nutrition. The next time you see the big guy bench pressing 500 pounds… ask him what you should be doing differently. He's probably be flattered and help you out with some wise words. The next time you see someone with an insane 6-pack… ask them what their diet looks like! You'll get some wise words and maybe make a friend too!
Sleep better
Take a look at your sleep schedule for the past year. If you did nothing else in the coming year, you could increase your sleep, and you'd look, feel, and perform better in the coming year. The boost to your immune system alone would be worth the lifestyle change. Sleep is when your body repairs and recovers. If you're concerned about your training and nutrition, you need to be seeing 7.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep each night too!
Get more out of your workouts
If you want to make a workout better… make it shorter! Cutting your workouts down means you'll have to measure every minute of every set to make sure you're seeing the kind of results you need to see. You'll stop the weak exercises and the sets where you don't quite give it your all. Any time you're limited to 45 minutes in the gym due to schedule, you train like an animal, don't you? Apply this to all of your workouts, cutting the time a bit. Your workouts will improve as you adopt this sense of desperation!
Write it down
Pick up a notebook. Each day, write in it. Record your body weight. Write down your training and what you eat. Write down how many hours of sleep you saw, and what your workout was like that day. As the weeks pass and the data piles up, you'll soon have a nice personalized collection of very useful information which you can analyze in order to determine which training, recovery, supplemental, and nutritional moves give you the best results.
Seek balance
In everything you do in the coming year, you should seek a better sense of balance and control of things. Make sure your legs are being trained with the same intensity as your upper body. Be sure nutrition and sleep enjoy as much attention as training. Cut back on your social life. Find a nice way to put your important priorities first!
Share it!
If you're training regularly, share it on your social media. You'll discover buddies who also enjoy the iron sport, and also notice many of your friends support your endeavors. Seeing those likes is a good way to realize training is important to many people. You may even pick up a training buddy!
