Goal Setting and Tracking Systems

You can’t measure success without having goals. And you can’t know that you’ve reached your goals if you’re not keeping accurate records. You might think that you’d remember reaching every single fitness goal that you set for yourself, but you won’t.

You’ll forget some of them unless you keep track. Besides that, having a tracking system helps you see where you were, how far you’ve come and where you’d like to go in the future.

Set the Right Goals

When it comes to goal setting, it doesn’t make sense to set goals that don’t challenge you - especially if you know that you can blow those goals out of the water.

If you’re already at the place in your level of fitness where you’re popping off 25 sit-ups in a two-minute timespan, then setting a goal of 30 in two minutes isn’t really going to be a challenge to you.

It might look good on paper, but in the end, your body hasn’t benefited much. So don’t shy away from spelling out those tough goals. Seeing the goals in black and white helps you see if you’ve reached elite fitness or not.

When you set goals, you don’t want to aim for “good enough” because “good enough” is basically average. And average doesn’t equal elite. Average is the very middle of the achievement level and if you’re going to work hard, then you might as well go for the gold.

If you look at the average pull-up goal for Navy SEAL fitness tests, it’s around 10. But if you look at the elite numbers, which they call “competitive standards,” then it’s between 15 and 20.

That means that you should push yourself to knock those numbers out of the park. Give yourself a time limit goal. Each week, work to shave time off of the number of pull-ups that you can do in the time you’ve allotted for yourself to have them completed.

By tracking them every single week, you’ll get to watch how much your performance is improving. Set goals for every exercise that you do and really push to break all of the boundaries that you can break when it comes to numbers.

The average number of push-ups for Navy SEALS is being able to complete 50 - but you want to push past that number and go all out. You want your goal number to be 100 or more push-ups in a short amount of time.

Practice every day that you perform your workout and make sure that you do a proper push-up. Dropping your knees to the floor isn’t considered to be a real push-up.

Think you have a good grasp on what average sit-ups are? It might surprise you to learn that for an average amount of sit-ups for SEAL testing is 50. That’s just basic level. To go above and beyond that, you want to make your goal to be at least 100 of them.

Don’t start to fret if you see that you fall short of even the basic level of performing these exercises - because everyone has to start somewhere. These numbers are guidelines to show you what can be done if you really strive for that elite mindset.

If you want to hit your peak with swimming exercise, you need to be able to go the distance of 500 yards in under 13 minutes. If you can get it to 8 or 9 minutes, that’s even better.

To train for this level of fitness, you can break the yards of the swim down and aim to improve your timing and distance every time you swim. By practicing, you can shave off more time because your body will learn to go into the zone when you’re swimming.

The average time for completing a mile and a half run is 10.30 minutes. But again, average is not what you’re going for. To beat that, you would want to set a goal of bringing your time in at around 9 minutes.

One of the best ways that you can learn how to increase your speed is to start out by making the runs difficult right from the get go. Don’t run on comfortable surfaces wearing lightweight clothes and shoes.

Instead, run in your boots and on surfaces that will deliver a challenge to you. If you’re not used to running all out, you’re going to pull something if you’re not prepared.

After you warm up, run at a pace rather than burning up all of your steam from the starting line. Time how fast it takes you to run a track. Many tracks are set up to be between half a mile and a mile in length.

When you figure out the distance, time yourself at your regular running speed to see how long it takes you. Then work to whittle that time down until you hit that sweet spot where you’re one of the best.

You want to mix up your routine. One of the worst things that you can do for your muscles is to let them get to the point where they get accustomed to one way of working out.

They get comfortable with you doing sit-ups followed by push-ups, and then you go for a run. Doing the same performance gives you the same results. You must always push beyond the ordinary.

Make your workouts a challenge. Start by doing as many sit-ups as you can. Break up the set by doing another tough exercise such as pull-ups. Or go for a run.

Then return to doing some sit-up reps. It doesn’t matter how you break up the exercises. Just don’t fall into a routine. Add something every day.  Arriving at the point where you’ve achieved elite fitness is going to take everything you’ve got to give it and then some.

You’ll be pushing harder and focusing more than you ever have in your life. That's why this isn’t something that’s for weekend warriors or for those who want to dabble at it.

You’re either in or you’re out. You’ll either succeed or you won’t. Don’t tell yourself lies. What you have to do is go into it with the “no excuses” mindset. There’s no weather reason, no family in town reason, no I don’t feel like it, no it’s dark/cold/hot outside excuses that should cause you to blow off your goals.

There are no easy routes to take to greatness. You plug away at it and you earn it. No one is going to hand it to you while you’re sitting on the sofa watching your favorite television show.

If you do find yourself blowing it off, you might want to face the hard truth. You aren’t ready. You don’t want it that badly. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be making excuses - you’d be making it happen.

Tracking Measurements

As you reach your goals, you’re going to want to make sure that you take and track your body measurements. This will allow you to know if you’re going in the right direction or not.

Measuring is helpful because it can be discouraging to work hard and then stand before a mirror. You look hard at it and you don’t see any visual changes going on with your body.

That can be discouraging enough to make you feel like giving up. But what you don’t see is that inches are added to your muscles in increments. Inches also come off of your body in increments.

Seeing is not always what’s really going on with your body. That’s why tracking is important. You’ll see your growth or loss at a glance as you keep records. When you measure, you always want to measure the same area in the same way that you did previously.

If you switch measuring tapes or measure just above or just below the spot you did before, you’re not going to get an accurate measurement. You might go up one week in muscle gain and right back down the next.

You can keep all of your measurement notes written down and charted yourself - or you can use handy online applications that will do it for you. Some of these apps will also keep up with your BMI.

When measuring, you want to track and measure your weight. If you’re trying to lose, keep in mind that the scale may go up before you see it going down. Besides watching the scale, you want to measure the area around your neck, placing the tape around the widest part.

You also want to measure your chest. For the chest, you want to measure beneath your pecs if you happen to be a man. A woman, however, should measure right across the nipple area in order to get an accurate reading.

You want to measure your waist. You should put the tape above the belly button. Make sure you’re not holding your breath because that adds inches. Some people breathe in and forget to let it go when they’re taking this measurement.

The next measurement you should keep track of is your hips. Probably more women than men are interested in this reading. Put the tape on the widest area of the hips so that it’s more accurate.

You want to measure the arms or the biceps. Measure the forearm using the widest part of it. When you go to measure the thighs, measure the biggest part of your thighs and the same thing for the calves.

Some people also measure around the ankles, but not everyone does this area. Some people also track their hip to waist measurements. That’s because this measurement can determine your level of healthiness and let you know if you could potentially be a candidate for some serious diseases.

Many of these diseases’ risks can be assessed using the hip to waist measurement. If you plan to use an elite fitness routine to build muscle, there’s something that you should know when you’re tracking body measurements.

The working out that you’re doing is building muscle. When you take time off, you lose muscle bulk. If the time off is substantial, you’ll see that loss on your measurement chart.

However, when you get back at it, those inches should come right back on, but that’s why you don’t really want to take time away from the fitness goals you’ve set for yourself. You don’t want to lose that edge you worked so hard to gain.

Attaining an elite level of power fitness is an on-going feat – and it will be different for every person pursuing this regimen. Some of you might go after more strength training, while others need more mental focus.

The key to making it work is threefold:

1. Never quit setting new goals.

2. Get yourself out of your comfort zone and try a wide variety of techniques.

3. Celebrate your ability to accomplish milestones and build your confidence up.

Elite power fitness isn’t for everyone. Some people are happy being stagnant in their current state of mind and physical health. Others aren’t satisfied with the status quo and want to be their very best self. If this describes you, then Elite Power Fitness is the key to unlocking a brand-new life for yourself.