blog

I talk about goals a lot.

I mean, kind of *all* the time.

Hard for a day to go by where I haven’t written down some sort of goal, either for myself or for someone else that I’m coaching.

I LOVE goals. Goals help us keep us moving forward and growing.

But what’s the BEST goal, in my opinion?

Obviously there’s a lot of individual nuance here. For some people it might be imperative that we lose X amount of weight, or get certain biomarkers under control. For others, biomarkers might be just fine, so in order to maintain accountability we sign up for a race, or push for a new level of accountability.

But the best goal that we can all universally agree on and benefit from?

Yup. That’s it. Exercising 3 days a week. Period.

If I wanted to take that a step further, I would say exercising 3 days a week with strength training being the priority.

Why 3 days a week?

1. It’s achievable. Even whenever you’re remarkably busy, I know we could find 30-40 minutes in your day to workout, 3 days a week. Your body will be able to recover from workouts, you can keep up the consistency and habit of exercise, and you’ll still be able to see results assuming we’re keeping the right intensity for your season of life. 

2. It’s not daunting. I could absolutely write you the greatest workout program of all time. It would encompass 7 days a week of calculated fitness, with perfect linear periodization and progressive overload tracked with heart rate data, weight velocity, power output, cardio durations, etc etc. 

But just writing that above sentence gave me some anxiety. After all, you’re not a professional athlete who’s entire job is training. You’re a regular human with real world demands. But even with those demands, we can absolutely handle 3 days a week.

3. It decreases your chance of “all cause mortality.” That’s right. Just 3 days a week decreases your chance of premature death by 30%. If you’re wanting to live a long time, all it takes is 3 days a week.

Achievable, not daunting, and a decreased chance of early death. Consistency is king, and working out 3 days a week for the rest of your life will help you increase your lifespan, but also help you get the results you’ve always wanted by making sure you never fall off the bandwagon.

I’d love to talk with you personally about goals that you might want to set, but if there’s something you can absolutely take action on now, it’s auditing your week and building in 3 workout sessions. Once that becomes grooved and is a habit, then it can be fun to set extra goals.