April 2016 Goals

I was talking to a friend of mine about some of my goals for April so I decided I would share them on here! I've decided that I'm going to be much better at planning (for those of you who know me planning does not come naturally to me haha!) because I want to train with deliberation. The past two years I have been lifting just for fun and because I love it, which neither of those has changed, BUT I do have some ideas in the works so I want to get smarter about my goals. 

To do this I have decided to develop my lifts each week with certain percentages, rep schemes, and overall strength goals. For example, by the end of this month I want to hit 215 for deadlifts so for the next four weeks I'm going to be very strategic with my numbers for deadlifts in order to reach this goal. The way I do this is playing around with different percentages of my max. It can't always be just going for the PR max because I approach lifting the same way I approach running. The shorter runs during the week matter just as much as your long run on the weekend because it's building upon a base of endurance. The same exact thing is with lifting because you are building upon your foundation of strength. At least this is how lifting makes sense to me so I plan my percentages and rep schemes that way. In any given week, I am working with weights 60-100% of my max. 

So I've been taking the time to plan out my lifts over the next few weeks and hopefully reach my goals! 

For this month: 

1. Hit 215 PR for deadlifts

2. Squat 150 (pain-free)

3. Bench press at least 2x a week (not my favorite so I tend to cut back on it a lot)

4. Do 4 unassisted pull-ups

5. Continue my reverse diet

As you can see some are a mix of actual numerical goals while others are more along the lines of just making sure I stick with things. I definitely need to reverse diet a little more and get those carbs up because right now I squat 3x a week and deadlift 3x a week (usually different days) in addition to bench press and my accessory lifts with a dash of cardio thrown in so I NEED FOOOOOD. 

The pull-ups is something I'm always working on because honestly it might be the hardest movement for me ever. I've never been able to do even 1 (slightly embarrassing) but I can now do 2 and a half (the half is very important haha!) which has taken me a ridiculously long time to build up. My strength there just takes forever to develop but I really want to push for that final 1 and a half so that hopefully I can get to 4 by the end of this month. Deadlifting a lot more has helped my back as well so I'm optimistic! 

Overall, having goals in mind keeps me productive, moving towards something, and focus. I think it's fun to set goals for myself because I love a good challenge. A worded math problem? Not so much. But tell me that you want me lifting x amount of weight in a certain time period and I'm all over it! 

What are some of your goals for this month? I want to hear about them!