Fitness Goals That Aren't About Weightloss

For many, their fitness goal is to lose weight or gain muscle. However, those aren’t the only two reasons to start exercising, there are many benefits for your health, including improving your mental health. If you want to set yourself a goal that isn’t dependant on your dress size, read on. You'll find a few suggestions for some attainable goals that will provide long-term benefits for you and your body’s overall wellbeing.

Remember that to get a good idea of your health and fitness, it's important to consider your entire body composition and how each measurement tells you something diffferent about you and your body. We're written before about how to understand body composition using bathroom analyser scales.

Improve Your Flexibility

Many people will lose flexibility as they get older, which is important for preventing joint injuries. So adding just 10 minutes a day of stretching will add benefits to your overall fitness. Stretching is the number one thing we can do to strengthen our muscles, so do yourself a favour and make sure to always stretch after you finish a workout. A post-workout stretch helps cool your body down, improve flexibility and reduce any aches and pains the next day. Regular stretching can also help prevent injuries and muscle damage, so it’s important not to skip. If you’re unsure where to start, you can find plenty of stretch routines on Youtube to suit your workout.

Try something outside of your comfort zone

Many of us are creatures of habit, and when we head to the gym, we’ll often use the same few machines or go to the same classes. But variety is key to success because this means you’ll be using different muscles and providing a more balanced workout plan for your body. It's best to switch between cardio and strength training. This will increase your overall fitness and help prevent injury too.

If you’ve found your motivation slipping away recently, this might be just what you need to get started again. And you never know what you try next may spark or reignite your love for exercise.

Move Your Body Every Day

Now we’re not saying you need to do an intense workout every day. Rest is important to any fitness routine. It allows your body time to recover and helps eliminate the risk of injury. But aiming to do some physical activity every day will boost your general fitness levels as well as your mood. Even a gentle walk or a calming yoga routine will help.

Fitness apps can help you to set goals for your steps or activity minutes each day, so you don’t spend too long sat down.

Sign Up for an Event

Signing up for a 5k, 10k, or marathon will give you a set goal that will help keep your motivation levels up. Focusing on a new goal will mean some necessary changes to your exercise routine. And of course, there is also the element of competition which is a great fitness motivator. Find an event that you will enjoy, as well as something that will challenge you. If you can already run a 5k comfortably, why not stretch for 10? If there is a cause you are passionate about you can raise money for, this will help motivate you as well. Collecting sponsorship for a cause close to your heart will make the challenge seem that little easier and well worth it.

Complete a Fitness Challenge

If you don’t want to sign-up for an event or just want to keep things fresh each month, why not try one of the many fitness challenges online. Your body gets used to doing the same movements or weights, so to keep getting fitter and stronger, you need to keep challenging yourself. There are plenty that are 30 days long, which means you can take on a different one each month if you really wanted to keep things fresh!

It will also stop you from getting bored because exercise should be fun!

Master a Push-Up or Pull-Up

This is a great goal to focus on as it’s a test of your strength, and you will be able to physically see how you are progressing. If you dread push-ups when they’re come up in a class or youtube video, you’ll know they can be challenging. Starting with small steps and just one is a great way to keep your motivation going. And once you’ve mastered one, you can set your goal to getting more reps in!

Drink More Water

Staying hydrated and drinking more water is one of the most important things we can do for our overall health. You should aim for a minimum of 1.5 litres each day. Although, the amount you should drink is dependent on your level of activity. Start by purchasing a good quality, sustainable, water bottle that you can take with you can use throughout the day and take out with you. This way you’ll never be without and can easily track how much you have drunk. You can also find a choice of apps that will remind you to drink more water and help you track how much you’ve drunk throughout the day.

Get More Sleep

Getting enough sleep is also incredibly important for our health and wellbeing. We’re all probably aware that we should get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, but how many of us actually get that?

Poor sleep has been linked to stress, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. So start making sleep a priority to allow your body proper time to recover, rebuild muscle and make sure you’ve got energy for your next workout.

Find a night-time routine that works for you and helps you wind down. Try and keep your phone away from your bed and stop using it an hour before you plan to go to sleep.

Whatever your goal is, make sure it is realistic and achievable. To make it less daunting, set yourself mini-milestones. These will allow you to celebrate and feel proud of what you have achieved whilst working towards a bigger goal, so you aren’t put off or disheartened along the way. No matter what goal you choose, feeling better in yourself and feeling healthier will far outweigh losing a few pounds.