Recently in Goal-Setting Category

Everyone seems to expect resolutions at this time of year, which to me is an interesting phenomenon. It's the dead of winter, a time of reflection, certainly, but not action -- and you need both to make a resolution work, right? Still, the gym is packed with folks fuelled by resolutionary fervor, doing their utmost to fulfil some promise they made to themselves on New Year's Eve.

Or, at least I assume the gym is packed. I haven't been downstairs for a couple of weeks. Laid low by my annual holiday cold virus, I've been gulping echinacea and vitamin C capsules, blowing my nose and coughing until I feel like my head's going to explode. Evenings have found me wrapped in a blanket on my favorite living room chair, staring vacantly into space. (Night before last, I remarked to My Lovely Wife how I must look just about ready for the Home. She didn't disagree.) Not exactly a resolution-inspiring atmosphere.

I'm definitely on the mend, though. I slept through the night for the first time in recent memory last night, and enjoyed a pleasant walk to work this morning, despite temps in the single digits and a nasty NE wind. I almost lugged my workout gear with me. But not quite.

Still, I'm about ready to dive back in: Climb back on that Elliptical Death Machine. Start cranking away on bench presses. Maybe even get a little more disciplined about my morning routine.

Full disclosure: I've been struggling in recent months to rise early enough each morning to do a little routine I've enjoyed, sporadically, in the past few months: some pretend yoga, a little zazen, followed by planks (thank you, JS) and pushups. Maybe 45 minutes total. When I'm able to squeeze this routine in, it really gets the blood circulating. Makes the whole morning a bit more vivid. I just haven't been able to do it very frequently. I'd like to make that happen more regularly.

But I'm not resolving to get up earlier, because if I resolve to get up earlier, I might push myself to rise before I've had enough sleep, which would be counter-productive. And I'm not resolving to go to bed earlier, either, so I can get enough sleep, because sometimes when I'm lounging at night in my favorite chair, covered by a blanket, cradling a cat or two on my lap, and feeling every bit as old as I probably look, My Lovely Wife might be sitting there across the room in her favorite chair, her own lap blanketed and occupied by a cat, and a conversation could ensue and before you know it, it's midnight, and we're still going on about Darwin's orchids or Delacroix's obsession with the light in Morocco or a local postman's preference for wearing shorts in November (MLW is like this). And who would want to miss out on something like that?

That's the trouble with traditional resolution-making: It can become kind of an all-or-nothing deal that doesn't account for the serendipitous occasions that are rewarding in their own right, even as they derail your stated intentions. Or it can become so all-encompassing that you ignore your body when it's pleading with you to slow down.

The key, as Elizabeth Larsen points out in this EL piece from last summer, is to celebrate small victories on your way to bigger goals. "As with so many life goals, becoming fit isn't just about some mythical 'end result,'" she writes. "In fact, the unexpected benefits of fitness -- improved energy levels, better concentration and a closer relationship with your body, to name just a few -- can prove much more satisfying."

I've managed to avoid resolving anything during this two-year personal fitness adventure, and I feel like I've accomplished more than enough to keep me moving in the right direction. My walking commute has been nothing but a joy; for all its randomness, my resistance training has significantly increased my upper-body strength; and my cardio efforts haven't done me any harm (at least once I stopped running on the treadmill). Yeah, I could do more stretching, and some days I do (so bug off, OK?). But I'll never make it part of a resolution. I'll just try to keep it in mind, continue doing what I've been doing and see what happens.

Hey, maybe that's my resolution: Stay mindful. Keep moving. See what happens. I can live with that.

OK, so I promised that I would report on last night's workout -- specifically focusing on my 10 goals for the evening. Overall, my goal-oriented approach took time away from stuff I would normally do (I so missed brutalizing myself on that lat pull-down machine....), but it also cajoled me into other arguably constructive -- and slightly irritating -- activities.

Anyway, as promised, here's my report:
1. Avoid sudden -- or even gradual -- cardiac arrest. So far, so good.
2. Wipe the sweat off my face without knocking the glasses off my nose. Mission accomplished, though I nearly tumbled off the elliptical thingy in the process.
3. "Run" for awhile on that elliptical thingy without holding onto the handles (or falling off). See if I can get my heart rate into the mid-120s. Or not. See #2. I did manage to spend a few minutes on a couple of occasions "running" with my hands free, but it's quite disorienting. (The "poles" you're supposed to be holding could actually present a bonking hazard if you were to lean forward too far and just a bit to the right or left -- does that sound improbable? Not to me.) Average heart rate for the 30-minute session: 111; top heart rate: 126.
4. Take time to stretch after "running" on that elliptical thingy. Try not to look like a dork, but also don't pretend that I know anything about stretching. Mixed results here. I found one of the little rubber stretching mats unoccupied and did my favorite "sit up with the soles of your feet together to loosen your hammies or something" stretch for awhile, before folding one leg to my side and extending the other (repeated with other leg). To my credit, I did not try to touch my toes, but I was exerting way too much energy, given that I could barely reach past my knee. On the debit side, I was seated 3 feet from a floor-to-ceiling mirror, which resoundingly confirmed my dork status.
5. Work my abs for once. Jeeze. My fitness guru, SW, tells me that I need to work my lower back in order to strengthen my abs, so I climbed onto this back-extender machine to see what would happen. I did three series of 10 reps with 50 pounds and I was delighted to notice that my abs felt great! My lower back, on the other hand, seemed to be tightening up.
6. Resist the temptation to roll up my sleeves to expose my rippling biceps while I'm doing curls (ha ha ha ha ha. . . .). They really shouldn't have mirrors in the gym.
7. Abs. Really. I mean it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. . . . I did three series of 15 reps each on the ab-cruncher machine and noticed that, toward the end, my lower back was barking at me.
8. Fail. As in lifting to failure -- at least some of the time. OK, twice. . . . Once? No, do it twice. . . . Because I said so. . . . Shut up. I shall not fail! Failure is not an option! Failure is for failures! And I barely eluded failure on my third series of 10 reps with 100 lbs. on the push-the-bar-straight-up-from-a-sitting-position machine. The last three of those reps were excruciating, so I kind of short-armed them. Success!
9. Work those #@$%&*#@$ abs, you sniveling maggot! I did three series of 10 reps on the swiveling-chair machine with, I think, 45 lbs. This is the one where you put your arms in these arm-holders and swivel first to your right (30 times) and then to your left (30 times). That's 60 times, OK?
10. Maintain a positive frame of mind. Not a problem.

So, there you are -- 10 goals pretty much achieved, depending upon your particular point of view (succeeding at failure, for instance, is not as successful as failing to fail, as I did in #8). And, while this may prove that even a goal-less fitness regimen needs some goals in order to avoid certain failure, failing to set goals could, in fact, lead to success, in that nothing succeeds like a successful failure. I hope we're all clear on this now.

Are fuzzy goals worth protecting?

Everybody in the fitness biz talks about hitting plateaus in your workout regimen, times when you don't seem to be progressing toward your goals and, thus, need to change your routine. I manage to avoid plateaus not by changing my routine, but by refusing to set any goals.

Now, I know this can be a problem -- at least I've read as much. I mean, why go to all the trouble of working out at the gym if you don't want to tighten up your butt or break the three-hour barrier in your next marathon -- or maybe run a three-hour marathon with a really tight butt.

Anyway, it occurred to me the other day that I am bereft of fitness goals. My butt is just my butt, and I'm really never going to run a marathon. Like any good Minnesotan, all I really want out of this new fitness regimen is the satisfaction of a job well done. Or something like that.

I'm not being evasive here -- I like the way I feel after a good workout, and there's evidence that I've dropped a few pounds and built some muscle over the past 16 months, but all I've really needed to get me to the gym most days is the knowledge that this stuff is keeping me healthy. For a variety of reasons -- not the least of which is my desire to enjoy this world for awhile longer than my father did (he suffered a heart attack at 51 and died of cancer nine years later) -- I don't need a lot more prodding than that.

Besides, any goal I'd set for myself would be pretty arbitrary, wouldn't it? (Joe Hart discusses arbitrariness and goal-ness here.) I mean, rather than challenging myself to hobble a mile on the treadmill twice a week -- which would greatly irritate me (not to mention grind up the faltering meniscus in my left knee) -- I could set as a goal pedaling in a leisurely manner three times a week on a stationary bike -- an activity recently made more compelling by the little TVs that have been installed between the handgrips. No pain, no gain, you say? I say: a tiny bit of discomfort, a small and perhaps faintly measurable reward. Or, put another way: no pain doesn't hurt a bit.

But, if I must set goals, I must set goals. So here are 10 things I'm going to try to accomplish at tonight's sweat-a-thon:
1. Avoid sudden -- or even gradual -- cardiac arrest.
2. Wipe the sweat off my face without knocking the glasses off my nose.
3. "Run" for awhile on that elliptical thingy without holding onto the handles (or falling off). See if I can get my heart rate into the mid-120s. Or not.
4. Take time to stretch after "running" on that elliptical thingy. Try not to look like a dork, but also don't pretend that I know anything about stretching.
5. Work my abs for once. Jeeze.
6. Resist the temptation to roll up my sleeves to expose my rippling biceps while I'm doing curls (ha ha ha ha ha. . . .).
7. Abs. Really. I mean it.
8. Fail. As in lifting to failure -- at least some of the time. OK, twice. . . . Once? No, do it twice. . . . Because I said so. . . . Shut up.
9. Work those #@$%&*#@$ abs, you sniveling maggot!
10. Maintain a positive frame of mind.

Unless I'm unable to achieve goal #1, I will report back tomorrow.