Five fitness resolutions that have nothing to do with weight loss

January can be an excellent opportunity to reset, but many fitness resolutions – such as sculpting a six-pack or losing a lot of weight – can be unrealistic or unsustainable. When taken to extremes, they can also end up hurting your body image, mental health and metabolism.

This year, consider a fitness resolution that has nothing to do with how you look. Focus on learning a skill, accomplishing a physical feat or simply building a habit. These can all help you develop intrinsic motivation, or the desire to pursue something because it is inherently satisfying or enjoyable.

The key is setting a goal that’s the right size, says Karin Nordin, a mindset and behaviour change expert. “I always recommend setting a goal that challenges you a little bit, feels a little intimidating and even scary,” she says. But it shouldn’t be so challenging that it feels impossible, she says. On a scale of one to 10 for how achievable it feels, she suggests aiming for a goal you would rate an eight or higher.

Experts recommend focusing on goals that will be satisfying to achieve.Credit: Getty Images

Nordin also recommends giving yourself a “prototype period” to help you refine a longer-term goal. You can tell yourself: “In January, these are the resolutions I’m going to try on,” she says, “like putting on a sweater in the store before you buy it.”

Maybe that’s a month of a weekly Pilates class, or two weeks of a gentle warm-up before each workout. See how it goes, and then decide if you need to readjust.

Here are five resolution ideas to get you started.

Work towards a pull-up

Pull-ups help improve upper body, back and grip strength, as well as core stability, and they require mobility through multiple joints. They’re a difficult exercise, but there are good ways to work up to a pull-up or to modify it to be easier.

Start with exercises to strengthen your biceps, triceps, lats, shoulders, hands and core, says Maillard Howell, a personal trainer and gym co-owner. “There’s a whole cast of supporting characters that has to sync for you to do a pull-up,” he says. Exercises such as bicep curls, lat pull-downs, dead hangs from the bar and core strengthening movements can all help.

Work on modified versions of pull-ups, too, like ring or TRX rows, and pull-ups with a band under your feet or knees. You can also try eccentric pull-ups: start at the top of a pull-up and slowly lower your body until your arms are fully extended. And when you advance from a ring row to a banded pull-up, or from a pull-up with a very thick band to one with a thinner band, give yourself credit – that’s real progress, Howell says.

Start running

If setting a specific running goal – like running a kilometre without stopping or training for a 5K – feels motivating and achievable to you, then go for it. But simply exploring running, at any speed, for any length or interval, is a worthy goal in itself, says Marci Braithwaite, a running coach who mostly works with people with larger bodies.

Running can improve your endurance and cardiovascular health, and you can still get those benefits from shorter runs, even if you move slowly and intersperse running and walking, she says.

Try “explorative” running. Credit: Getty Images

“I want people to do something that feels good,” she says, “because they’re more likely to continue doing it.”

Braithwaite’s program begins with an “exploration run”: running for 20 seconds, then walking for two minutes, then running for 20 more seconds, and so on. Over time, you can increase the amount of running and decrease the amount of walking, she says.

Get up off the floor without your hands

Thanks to a now-famous study, many people are familiar with the idea that your ability to easily stand up from the floor can be an indicator of longevity.

This correlation doesn’t mean that learning to stand up more easily will extend your life, of course. But acing the sitting-rising test is a good goal that requires muscle strength, joint mobility, co-ordination and balance – and experts say this combination of skills could help reduce your risk of falling and also make it easier to get back up if you do.

If you aren’t comfortable getting down on the ground, begin by practising a sit-to-stand from a chair (also known as a chair squat), or stepping from the floor up to a step and repeating, says Julia Rosenthal, a physical therapist who runs a clinic in Brooklyn. If you can sit on the floor, practise sitting cross-legged or in a deep squat to improve your hip and ankle mobility, Howell says.

Tackle your aches and pains

Injuries and chronic pain can create an unhelpful cycle: you’re afraid of making the pain worse, so you avoid activity. But in reality, exercise can be one of the best ways to reduce pain.

Pain can have many factors beyond tissue damage itself, says Ann Nwabuebo, a physical therapist; posture, inflammation and other factors can all play a role, she says, and both exercise and lifestyle changes can help.

You can have knee pain and still squat.Credit: Getty Images

So if you’ve been avoiding exercise because of lingering injuries or pain, resolve to tackle those problems this year. You might start with a good physiotherapist, or with tactics such as stress management and getting more sleep.

Remember that you don’t have to be pain-free to exercise, Rosenthal says. You can have knee pain when squatting and still squat. Don’t let your pain become a self-fulfilling prophecy, she says: “If you hold yourself back from doing something, you’ll never be able to do that thing. The list of things you’re allowed to do gets shorter and shorter.”

Take your fitness a month at a time

The standard advice to get 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week can be helpful to some, but overwhelming to others, since not every week will lend itself to achieving that goal. Instead, set a target number of workouts a month.

Your monthly target might be 10 workouts, or 15. “Focus on frequency before you worry about consistency,” Nordin says. “Most people have mental drama around the idea of consistency: ‘If I miss a day, I’m screwed’,” she says.

Once you’ve picked your goal – and made a realistic plan to achieve it – consider the obstacles that might crop up and how you’ll respond to them.

“We all have thoughts, often objections, that pop into our brain over and over, like I’m too tired, I don’t have time, I can do this later,” Nordin says.

Think about what your mental objections to exercise are likely to be, and prepare a “thought rebuttal” to draw upon when needed, she says: “If your brain says, ‘I’m too tired’, you say: ‘I’m tired, and I can do hard things while I’m tired’.”

Even if mental roadblocks derail your progress, she says, that doesn’t mean you chose the wrong goal.

“I would bet 90 per cent of the time,” she says, “it’s just that you needed to manage your thoughts a bit better.”

The New York Times

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.