Why Goal Setting Is So Important For Your Aerial
We all understand that setting goals can be helpful. If you want to achieve a specific thing, having the goal will allow you to figure out the steps to take to get there. But it can be trickier with aerial because there are SO many skills to choose from. How do you know what to choose, what you need, and what’s realistic for you in the short and long term?
And with access to social media, and seeing aerialists get praise for certain skills, I think there is more pressure to be able to “do it all”.
If you’re trying to achieve many skills because you think you should, I’m here to try and help you reframe things. The more focused and specific you get with your training goals, the better progress you’ll see. Trying to do all the things won’t allow for the consistency you need to build the physical attributes you need, and is more likely to result in burnout and/or injury.
“So maybe I should just go to training and do what I feel like instead of setting goals?” That is an option.
But here’s why I think goal setting is SO important for aerial. Aerial requires so much strength, flexibility, body awareness, and this equates to your skills. You also have a range of apparatus to choose from, and a lot of us enjoy more than one. Like I mentioned above, if we consistently show up with no plan, only ever train what we feel like, and are sporadic and inconsistent with what we’re working on, that won’t lead to progress.
With everything we do in life, the more intention and specificity behind it, the more likely we are to achieve it. This is why choosing one or two main goals with a couple of secondary goals can be really helpful for structuring training and actually making progress.
You don’t have to give up classes or creativity while working towards a specific skill if you really enjoy those. But paring down training to what really matters to you for a period of time will give good results.
I’m also a big advocate of cycling training and goals. So work on something for 8-12 weeks then change things up. This helps to give our bodies something new and fresh to focus on so we don’t plateau. You don’t need to hammer the same thing to death until you achieve it, you can in fact step away from a skill and come back to it later on.
This requires another mind shift. That it’s ok to not achieve goals. A lot of times it feels scary to set goals because of the perceived fear of failure. But a goal is just a way of intentionally going through a process, and it’s that journey that matters. It’s so hard to put time frames on achieving skills, because we’re all so different with different starting points, and so much can impact a persons progress.
So I try to detach completely from achieving any goal within a certain frame of time. If I place my worth on that, or the validity of my training on how fast I nail X skill, I’ll never be happy.
I’ll give you an example of a goal that I’ve worked on several times and still haven’t achieved: the stalder press. This is where you start on the floor in a straddle-L, then you lift up into a handstand. I have worked on this goal for 3-4 months at a time at least 3 times. I am still no where close. I can hold a straddle-L, I can press handstand, and I can do a negative from a handstand to a straddle-L. But I am missing the strength I need to lift up from the straddle-L.
I would love to achieve this skill. But I also don’t mind if I never do. And here’s why I have come back to training it, and probably will again.
With this goal in mind I have clear programming I can follow. So immediately I have focus and motivation with regards to my training sessions. Every time I work on it, although I haven’t achieved it, my handstand improves and my press handstand improves. My pushing strength improves and it makes training other elements of my handstand a lot easier. I’m also developing muscle memory through the negative stalder which means whenever I revisit this skill the movement is a little easier.
It’s the process of training towards the goal that is the reason for having the goal. I used to be emotionally attached to skills. And think things like, I’ll be a real hand balancer when I can do X. Or I’ll be a valid and knowledgeable coach if I can show that I can do X. That is not a good way to approach training.
I’ve had to set a lot of training goals aside for the past couple of years because I decided to pursue performing, and that took everything I had physically. I’ve made the choice to reduce it this year so that I can focus more on my own training. I have set goals that I’m super excited about, but less so about nailing them, and more so about having purpose behind my training again.
So If you’re thinking about setting some training goals for the year, here’s what I recommend:
Pick 1-2 main goals
Focus on those goals 2-3 times per week for 8-12 weeks
Reassess your progress and work on new goals if you’re ready to change up your training
Don’t set a time frame, focus on the process of training towards something
Repeat as many times as you want through the year
It’s pretty simple! 💖 The hard part is putting in the work.
But remember, with enough focus, and enough consistency, over a long enough period of time, you will achieve what you set out to!
If you need help with goal setting, focusing your training, and building strength for aerial, book a call to chat about one to one online coaching. 💖
