In my experience, when people set their fitness-based New Year Resolutions, it tends to be something like one of the following:
- Go to the gym 3 x a week
- Run 5 km every week
- Complete a 10 km this year
- Lift 50 kg
Usually, if someone wants to run more, they will jot down ‘Run 5 km every week’ and be done with it.
The problem with this is, it is very one-dimensional. Yes you might improve your cardiovascular strength but what about your muscular strength, your flexibility, your mobility?
Now you may turn around and say ‘yes Marwa, but that isn’t my goal for this year.’
And I would come back and ask you:
- do you want to be healthy long into your old age?
- do you want to prevent disease in the future and live a longer and healthier life?
- do you want to prevent injuries during exercise which could potentially ruin your quality of life?
- do you want to be mentally fit long into your 90s?
Often, we look at goals and fitness as a short-term, ‘it would be cool if I could do X this year’, but I urge you to instead to ask this question:
How can I create a sustainable and multi-faceted fitness regime that aims to keep me mentally and physically healthy long into old age and free of disease.
Sustainable = A realistic, do-able fitness plan which doesn’t drain you and, with a few adjustments, fits into your schedule
Multi-faceted = A fitness plan which hits all elements including Muscular Strength, Muscular Endurance, Cardiovascular Strength, Flexibility, Mobility, Co-ordination and Balance
Whilst this seems like a lot, you could stack the types together, for example:
- an intensive mobility workout, followed by a yoga stretching session for flexibility
- a 10 minute run before a strength training workout
- a run outside followed by a balance training session
What we want to avoid is going hard on only one type of exercise. If it’s barely a warm-up and all you ever do is squats, bench press, and dead-lift, then your future self might be in trouble. And, your current self might be very prone to an injury.
I’d like to share with you some of my personal fitness (and dance) goals for 2025, in the hope that it might demonstrate what I mean a little more. I also give you my structured plan of exactly how I will achieve my goals, as well as give you some tips along the way to help fortify your 2025 fitness resolutions.
Norwich Latin Dance 