Setting Goals

We know. You don''t want to hear about goals. Exercise is about doing—it''s running and throwing and lifting and going fast and breathing hard and strutting like a demigod. Goals are about thinking—they just kind of float around, if abstract thoughts can be said to do anything at all. Well, let us interrupt your yawn to divert your attention to the real issue here, which is results. To get them, you''ll need both exercise and goals.

Everyone begins an exercise program with something in mind, even if it''s vague. Maybe it''s looking better, maybe it''s feeling better, maybe it''s living longer than your father did. There are as many motives as there are people. Setting goals is just a way of making what''s in your head translate to your body while keeping your head interested for as long as it takes.

If you don''t make decisions up front, you''re more likely to give up when you don''t perform as well as you''d like, because you don''t have a tangible, realistic plan in place to get there, says Kate Hays, Ph.D., a sport psychologist and founder of The Performing Edge, a performance enhancement training company for athletes, performing artists and business people in Concord, New Hampshire. Not exactly a prescription for success. Goals give you the motivation to keep going when you start feeling bored, lazy or impatient with your progress.

"The main reasons people don''t stick with exercise is that they either don''t set goals or they can''t meet the goals they do set," says Bess H. Marcus, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Miriam Hospital and Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island. We''re not talking five-year marketing proposals here—we''re talking a few basic decisions on the actions you''re going to take.

Scoping Out Your Life

Goals start with a reality check. If having impossible goals is almost as bad as having none at all, you need to take stock of your limitations and opportunities. You can make exercise work around reality, but not vice versa. According to Dr. Marcus, some of the more crucial considerations are:

Which twitch? Some men excel at sprints, others excel at marathons. Both sports involve running, but success depends on what your muscles are made of. There are two types of muscle fiber: fast-twitch and slow-twitch. Fast-twitch fibers contract rapidly and burn energy in short periods; they''re used for anaerobic activities that require quick bursts of force like sprinting and power lifting. Slow-twitch fibers contract less rapidly and burn energy more gradually; they''re used for aerobic activities like cycling and long-distance running. Your muscles contain a mix of both fibers, and both can be developed with training, but one type dominates. Bottom line: You''ll get better results doing exercise that plays to your physiological strengths.

A crude way to tell which fiber type dominates your muscles is to look in the mirror, says Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., strength-training consultant to the national YMCA and senior fitness director for the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts. Generally, men who are ectomorphs—long and thin, with little fat—have more slow-twitch fibers and will do better with aerobic exercise. Men who are stocky, beefy endomorphs have more fast-twitch fibers and will do better with weight training. Still, there''s another category of body type, the mesomorph, that''s in between. To get a more precise handle on your twitch mix, take the test described in "How to Find Your Muscle Mix."

Your funhog quotient. One of the more noxious myths about exercise is that it has to be something you hate. Totally wrong. People who study exercise adherence, like Dr. Marcus, say you''re only likely to succeed over the long term with activities you like. That doesn''t mean exercise will ever feel like sipping mint juleps under a palm tree. You will work, you will sweat, but you will still enjoy it. How you''ll do it depends on what you already consider fun. It''s not just a matter of choosing in-line skating over rock climbing. "Fun could be socializing with others or enjoying an opportunity to spend a rare moment by yourself doing what you want," she says. Either way, "if you enjoy it right then, you''ll feel a lift afterward, and that''s what will keep you going," she adds.

Time constraints. Some types of exercise require more time than others—or demand rigid schedule commitments. If your goal is to lose weight, for example, Dr. Marcus says you''ll need to do fat-burning aerobic workouts for at least 20 minutes almost every day of the week. If you want to build strength and muscle at a gym, your workouts (including travel to and from) may take more time, but you''ll have to do them only two or three days a week, she says. Pertinent questions to ask: If you elevated exercise to the status of a business meeting, where could you create openings in your schedule? Do you travel a lot? If so, try to choose an exercise that''s easily done while on the road (like running) or that you can make arrangements for ahead of time (by, say, booking yourself into a hotel with an on-site gym).

Glory days. In some respects, a man with a long history of fitness finds it tougher to start a new program than someone who has never exercised in his life. "Men in particular may have really strong memories of who they used to be, and that can be a snag," says Dr. Hays. We often assume we can pick up our physical prowess wherever we left it last, especially if we were, say, captain of the football team or state cross-country champ in high school. Why is that a problem? We expect—and try—to do too much too soon, which can lead to injury or discouragement. One strategy Dr. Hays suggests: If you''re going to start an activity you excelled at in the past, make sure your current expectations and goals relate to your present lifestyle—fitness, time and energy.

Making Goals Work

At some point in your program, you''ll ask yourself why you''re doing this. Goals are for answering that question with reasons strong enough to keep you going. "Being healthy or fit or losing weight are really good reasons to exercise, but as primary incentives they''re not enough," says James Gavin, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Applied Social Science at Concordia University in Montreal and author of The Exercise Habit. Here''s how to make soft goals more firm.

Be specific. Unless goals are concrete, it''s tough to tell when you''ve met them, says Dr. Marcus. Without that sense, there''s no feeling of accomplishment or progress—reinforcements that are crucial for continued motivation. Instead of saying you''ll take up running, say you''ll run two miles twice this week.

Talk action. The best goals are about what you will do, not what you will accomplish by doing it. "Outcome goals can jump the gun or be unrealistic," says Dr. Hays. For instance, deciding you''ll lower your resting heart rate to 60 beats per minute is specific, but it''s not action-oriented. Focus more on process than outcome by deciding, for example, that you''ll take three half-hour walks every week.

Think short-term. It''s perfectly fine to have a dream or ambition like "I want to ride 100 miles on my bike in a day." But to realize long-term goals, you''ll need to concentrate day-to-day on accomplishing smaller objectives, which offer immediate gratification all their own, says Dr. Hays, as well as a sense of progress toward the big enchilada.

Seek control. What you''re after in the on-going process of improving your skills and making progress is a sense of mastery, which eventually becomes a source of enjoyment and a motivating force. You won''t get it by dwelling on things you can''t control. Don''t aim to bench-press as much as any other guy; keep your comparisons centered on how you''re better than you once were, suggests Dr. Hays. Don''t run a race to win; run it striving toward achieving your personal best. Don''t bemoan your lacking the skills of someone more experienced in your sport; focus on how you enjoy the skills you have.

Measure your progress. How can you improve if there''s no benchmark to tag it to? If you''re weight lifting, keep track of when you add plates and how many. If you''re running or biking, figure miles traveled and the time it takes. Write it down. Whenever you find yourself wondering what the use of exercising is, take a look at the record and see just where it''s gotten you, recommends Dr. Hays.

Change when needed. You could set your goals all the right ways but still get bored. When that happens, start doing things differently. No need to start from square one with a totally new exercise. Just follow the FIT formula, says Dr. Hays, which entails making one of the following changes, but not two or more at once.

* Frequency: Change how often you do a particular activity or the number of repetitions at a given weight level.

* Intensity: Alter your speed or change the amount of weight.

* Time: Do a given exercise for a longer or shorter period or change the number of sets.

Set multiple objectives. You want to keep focused, but it doesn''t hurt to have more than one goal going at once, as long as they don''t conflict. You could aim to bike three times a week, and also to do a 100-mile ride in four months. "If you bomb on one goal, you might still accomplish another," Dr. Hays says.

Cut yourself some slack. Remember, exercise accumulates. "There used to be this all-or-nothing thinking where if you couldn''t get in your run, you figured, ''Why bother with anything?''" says Dr. Marcus. "Now you can get in a ten-minute walk at lunch and the day is not a loss. Our studies find that you need goals, but you also need to give yourself some flexibility in meeting them."