. Break each five-year period into six-month slots, and make visible and mea-
surable improvement over each of those periods. Add up those six-month
stretches of improvement over five years and you will produce dramatic
change.. Never settle for anything other than your finest effort to be your best on
your six-month deadline days. And never settle for doing anything other
than your very best each day of the journey. You have to get the individual
days in good order if you are to achieve your long-term goals.. What you concentrate on for a given landmark year will reflect changing
values as you age. At ages up to or so your training focus may be solely on
size and strength. As you approach or you might place more emphasis
on flexibility and a low percentage of bodyfat. Around age you may be
overhauling the goals to target. Maybe getting to bodyfat will be more
important than making a -pound bench press. Perhaps having a resting
heart rate under will be more important than deadlifting pounds.
Perhaps at you will want to hit , and in the big three at say
pounds bodyweight, but simultaneously have a resting heart rate of .
At age you may have wanted , and at pounds, but paid no
attention to your resting pulse. (ough a low resting heart rate is usually an
indicator of a healthy and efficient heart, it can be a symptom of some health
problems.). Whatever interests you for the time being, set specific goals for it—say
bodyfat, not just “to get lean”; to have a resting heart rate of , not just “to
be fit,” etc. en nail yourself to a specific time deadline—e.g., six months
from today, not “quite soon”—and devise the strategy to reach your target.TACTIC
Competition
. While competitive bodybuilding and powerlifting act as terrific deadline
creators, do not enter without expecting competition from drug users. Test-
ing is either non-existent or such a joke that some of the most prominent
“naturals” are well-juiced.. A much more realistic and fair type of competition is to set up something
informal with a training partner, friend or pen pal. Make it bodyweight
related for maximum reps for each exercise, e.g., squat bodyweight,
bench press bodyweight, and barbell curl bodyweight. Set the date of