FastTwitchGrandma: Home Based Exercise Goals – Improve Your Fitness and Mental Fortitude

In this time of uncertainty and isolation it is easy to become despondent and disheartened. To sit on the couch day after day, watching your health, fitness, and mental state decline.

To simply give up.

But there is a much better way.

Yes, you may be stuck at home. Yes, you may not have any equipment. And yes, you may be alone, scared, and feeling completely lost.

Which is exactly why you should take this time to challenge your body and mind in unique ways. Use this as an opportunity to build your fitness and enhance your mental fortitude.

Use it to set a goal.

The importance of goal setting

Setting goals and planning the necessary steps to achieve them gives you a clear sense of direction.

And working towards these goals?

It provides purpose to your day – and during these trying times, this is obvious importance.

Goal setting has been a core component of sport psychology for decades. Setting goals improves sport performance by enhancing motivation, adherence, and enjoyment.

And now you can use it to your advantage.

Fitness goals

Setting yourself a unique and challenging fitness goal is something I believe to be extremely valuable at the best of times.

And right now, it is essential.

First and foremost, setting a fitness goal can improve your fitness. This is going to go a very long way to counteract the negative physical effects that isolation may have on your health and function.

Secondly, it might give you the opportunity to work on a fitness quality that you normally neglect.

For example, you might spend most of your time working hard in the gym with a focus on building strength. So why not create a goal focused on improving flexibility?

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Mental Toughness

Finally, it can also have a significant impact on your mental toughness.

Mental toughness is a cognitive factor that helps people deal effectively with challenges and to persist under pressure.

While it is most commonly discussed in sporting contexts, it is also recognized to have importance in a wide range of other domains – including things like education, work success, fitness endeavours, and even life happiness.

In general, the greater your mental toughness, the more effectively you can cope with stress and better seek out opportunities for personal growth.

In short, it is extremely important.

And by setting yourself challenging physical goals that require hard work, dedication, and mental effort, you can improve your mental toughness.

At home exercise goals

When it comes to home based exercise goals, you want to find something that is an obvious challenge. Something that focuses on a personal weak point and aims to improve it.

Some of my favourite home fitness goal examples that also build mental toughness include:

Hold a 30 minute plank
Learn to handstand
Complete 50 perfect push ups in a row

Each of these examples are quite grueling and involve a lot of hard work and failure before they are achieved.

Talk about mental toughness training.

In addition to the ‘outcome’ orientated goals mentioned above, I also like the idea of implementing ‘action’ based goals during periods of isolation. These don’t necessarily have you working towards achieving a specific task, but rather undertaking a specific practice every day.

Some great examples include:

Complete 30 minutes of stretching every day
Perform 100 push ups every day
Skip rope for 20 minutes per day
Do yoga for 30 minutes per day

Each of these have you working on something daily to maintain your fitness and improve your weak points throughout an extended period.

Mental Goals

While mental toughness is most common in sport and fitness, people seem to forget that it can also be improved by focusing on mental goals.

Like the fitness goals discussed above, mental goals can be used to develop a new skill and improve upon your weaknesses.

And like these fitness goals, attacking them with consistency in such a trying time is a great way to build mental toughness.

At home mental goals

Some great mental goals you can focus on at home include things like learning a new language, teaching yourself to play an instrument, learning to speed read, or educating yourself on a new topic.

Conversely, you can also implement action related mental health goals.

These typically focus on undertaking a practice daily to get better at a core skill.

Some great ones include:

Meditating for 30 minute per day
Practicing writing for 60 minutes per day
Performing 30 minutes of breath work every day

Because these types of goals have you performing s task for a dedicated period of time every single day, they are the perfect way to build resilience and mental toughness.

The combination

It is important to note that you do not only have to focus on one goal at a time.

In fact, it is the act of working towards to a goal and challenging yourself daily that leads to increases in mental toughness.

So, why not pick one key fitness goal and one key mental goal and work towards them both?

Why not take the time, apply the effort, and dedicate yourself to improving?

This will not only lead to improvements in fitness and mental toughness, but you might also pick up a new skill in the process.

Related Article: How Exercise Could Prevent Coronavirus

Take Home Message

There is nothing good about the current situation – but that does not mean you can’t take some steps to come out the other side stronger than you entered.

Set some goals and smash them.

It will make a massive difference.

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