January can be an excellent opportunity to reset, but many fitness resolutions — like 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, said Karin Nordin, a mind-set and behavior change expert. “I always recommend setting a goal that challenges you a little bit, feels a little intimidating and even scary,” she said. But it shouldn’t be so challenging that it feels impossible, she said. On a scale of one to 10 for how achievable it feels, she suggested aiming for a goal you would rate an eight or higher.
Dr. Nordin also recommended 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 said, “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 toward 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, said Maillard Howell, a personal trainer and gym co-owner in Brooklyn. “There’s a whole cast of supporting characters that has to sync for you to do a pull-up,” he explained. Exercises like bicep curls, lat pull-downs, dead hangs from the bar and core strengthening movements can all help.
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