I wanted to make a real quick blog post about my friend Shelley. Shelley came to me with a specific goal a couple of months ago. She knew what she wanted to accomplish and she had set herself a timeline to achieve it by. From the very start of her journey towards her goal, she was set up for success.
Shelley started at 306 as a member of our FitOver50 group. I won’t tell you how old she is turning tomorrow on her birthday - you can ask her that yourself if you want. She sent me an email a couple months ago saying she wanted to do a pull up by her birthday. A definitive, achievable goal based on where she was at with her fitness going in to it.
Shelley and I got together and did some real quick simple tests to see where she was with her pulling strength and her body awareness for positioning through range of motion. It took all of half an hour. Once we had completed that, we put together a program to compliment her strengths and to improve her weaknesses. The plan was in motion.
We came up with a plan for her to work towards her goal. Shelley would come in to the gym a little bit early for classes or stay a little bit after to do the extra work. Every single time i asked her to. She didn’t spend hours upon hours in the gym. She didn’t obsess about it. She just did a few simple extra things each day. It wasn’t fancy, there was no secret movement or secret rep scheme or exercise. We had her specific goal, we had a specific plan of action, and she executed it.
Tomorrow is Shelley’s birthday as I have already said. Her goal was to get one pull up by her birthday. Today I had the absolute pleasure of watching Shelley get not one, but four (and darn near five!) pull ups! If you see her around the gym, make sure you take a minute to congratulate her on her efforts; and of course, wish her a Happy Birthday!
Here’s to your health, fitness and success, Shelley!