Happy Thursday team! As some of you might be aware of, my wife and I have recently started our own Youtube channel-Taz Fitness. We are incredibly excited to open up another avenue that we can use to help individuals achieve a happier and healthier life! Yesterday, we released a video describing the "triangle of health goals." If you have not watched the video already, I highly encourage you to take a few minutes and watch the video to get a deeper understanding of what the different categories of our health goals actually are. For the purpose of keeping viewing time to a minimum, I decided to keep the video as short as I possibly could and that it would be best to go into more detail about our health goals on our actual blog to read. So, here we go...
Hopefully by now you've been able to watch the video and get a general awareness of what the different categories our health and fitness goals fit into. These categories are...
Longevity
Performance
Aesthetic
Longevity are for the general gym goers. These are the individuals that will walk on a treadmill or ride on the elliptical for 30-45 mins 3 or 4 times per week and possibly do some basic circuit machine work for 15-20 mins. All they care about is living a long a healthy life into their 80's, 90's+ to see their children grow up and have children of their own. They will eat pretty healthy and possibly test out several different popular diets at various times.
Performance athletes are the Powerlifters, Crossfit Games & Regional athletes, MMA Fighters, etc. Their entire focus relies on how they can improve their numbers in the gym or in overall performance to prepare for a competition. Their mindset is what they can accomplish NOW, not what they will be feeling like while they are in their later years.
Aesthetic oriented individuals are the Bodybuilders, Physique & Bikini competitors and majority of gym members that are focused on their overall appearance. Many of the women that come to me for 1 on 1 Personal Training have a similar goal of dropping 'X' amount of pounds so they will look better on a beach or feel more confident about themselves when they look at themselves naked in front of a mirror. These individuals are cosmetic and overall appearance first, due dates to achieve these goals are typically given as well.
Now that we have this information, what do we do with it? Well, now you will be able to program the appropriate wellness protocol that fits your goals the best. It is crucial to recognize that without understanding our primary goal category that we fit in, we will face many time periods where we will jump from program after program, routine after routine that we see online, in apps or get assigned to us from inexperienced trainers. For example, with an older adult that desires to enjoy a long and healthy life (longevity), it is crucial for the bulk of his or her recovery to come from 8-9 hours of sleep per night and the workout routines to be programmed on a very low to moderate intensity setting to not force his hormone levels to drop too severely due to stress. Now, with a performance based athlete such as a Crossfitter who is preparing for a local competition; these type of individuals have to not only be incredibly strong with olympic weightlifting movements, but they have to be in prime aerobic conditioning as well so this takes several hours per day of work in the gym to develop both. How much food do you think these athletes are taking in every day...SPOILER ALERT: A LOT! More food than the aesthetic person who is carb cutting to achieve that summer body? Yep!
To be a high level athlete, it is almost dangerous to be in a caloric deficit since they depend so much on food as their fuel towards performance and recovery. We could go on and on with examples but I hope this gets my point across that every individual needs their own specialized wellness protocol designed for them by an experienced, certified and/or licensed trainer, coach or nutritionist. Many online apps, supplement sales people, health articles, etc. do not acknowledge these important details before releasing or prescribing a workout routine or nutrition regimen. Thus, many people are left with potentially achieving short term results in the beginning, then hitting a plateau soon afterwards without every getting a proper solution, then quitting all together.
If you are reading this and saying, "well, I kind of have goals in all 3 categories, so what the heck do I do?" I would say, "you're not alone!" As it was shortly explained in the video, we all have primary and sublevel subconscious goals that we truly desire such as the women that wants to drop 30 pounds (cosmetic primary goal); the subconscious reasoning she may want to achieve this weight loss is yes, she wants to look better in front of the mirror but she also believes and acknowledges the fact that once the weight comes off, she will have more energy to play with her kids and live a longer life because of the new habits she has developed (longevity.) As you can see, we all may have several goals in different categories but it is important to know which is the primary category we fit in for today so we know how to program the appropriate workouts, nutrition plans and recovery efforts. Thus, achieving greater results and overall health!
What are your primary goals? Do you still need help developing a wellness protocol that fits you the best? If so, never hesitate to reach out to me. We are helping more and more people every day due to these blogs and videos so this is a journey I am incredibly excited about and I'm really looking forward to helping as many people as I possible can. If you haven't already, please subscribe to our Youtube channel (linked above) and consider sharing these blogs to help spread the information forward. I look forward to speaking with you soon!
God Bless,
Coach Taz
Taz's Bookshelf to Success: