If you have set your exercise goals and created a fitness strategy, then you have the main ingredients to make really positive steps towards transforming your life; affecting your lifestyle, your physical wellbeing and possibly even your relationships. However, getting from A to B is not likely to be a direct route, therefore it is vital for success that you keep your ultimate destination in sight and monitor your progress so you can navigate toward your end goals.

While it might make sense to keep tabs on how your fitness regime is panning out, actually working out how to achieve that is another matter. To help you stay on track, here are a few tips to monitor your fitness goals:

• Know your starting point – Be alert to your fitness status when you first get going with your fitness plan. If you are second-guessing where your begin then you are not going to be able to accurately measure your progress. A physical assessment is a good start.
• Be clear about where you are going – The more defined your goals are the clearer you can see how to achieve your fitness targets. Monitoring your progress without understanding where you are going is pointless.
• Set milestones and mini-markers – Don’t just stop and take stock whenever the mood strikes but build in smaller goals into your overall strategy. You can then take a more measured approach and monitor if you are getting closer to your goals within the timeframe you envisioned.
• Keep a fitness log – Write down your workouts. You don’t necessarily have to go into lots of details but it is helpful if you have a record of your activities then you can analyze these on paper and really plot your progress realistically.
• Monitor your diet too – Fitness is not just about exercise, it’s also about nutrition. A food journal can be a good way to become aware of what you are eating, so you can spot weaknesses in your diet and also see where food triggers might be.
• Be honest about your journey – If you are carrying out a self-appraisal the key is to be totally upfront with yourself about your challenges, otherwise you are simply lying to yourself and are only damaging your own success.
• Set times for physical assessments – Make sure that any fitness level assessments are comparable. You don’t want to be doing totally diverse exercises that really just broaden the picture rather than focus in on any improvements.
• Reassess where you are in relation to your goals – It is easy to go off track when it comes to following an exercise strategy, so it’s crucial that you take stock from time to time and look at how what you are doing is actually working towards the goals you initially set.
• Seek objective opinion and professional help – Fitness experts can really give you a different perspective and also offer tips and advice on how to improve your performance; telling you which areas you need to concentrate on.
• Recognize if you need to change course – It’s great to commit to goals but at the same time, your ideas may change over time and allowing for flexibility is a strength not a weakness. You may keep your goal in place but discover a different route instead; thus monitoring your fitness is also about keeping an open mind to new ways to move forward.
• Become more body-mind aware – The greater your feeling of being in-tune with yourself the more likely you are to get early-warning signs that what you are doing is not helping reach your goals. For example, if you reach a fitness plateau your body will tell you this, but you need to know how to listen to these symptoms and decipher what they mean.

We can help you set goals and create an exercise plan, as well as support you in monitoring your advancement. Start the fitness ball rolling today by getting in touch.