As an athletics coach to young athletes in Taunton and also a sports massage therapist to many avid trainers, articulated, specific, long term fitness goals are rare.
If they do have goals, they’re to be achieved in the next 3-6 months.
When I mean long term goals, I ‘m talking years rather than months
In this article, I’m going to explain why they re so crucial and why the absence of long term goals keeps people injured and therefore frustrated and depressed.
Most people train like they’re living in a 6-week world.
Shred plans. Challenges. “Quick wins.”
And while short-term motivation isn’t bad, the modern fitness landscape has a huge blind spot: long-term thinking.
Very few people ask the question that actually matters:
“What do I want my body to be capable of in 5 years?”
The Problem With Short-Term Fitness Thinking
When training is driven only by short-term goals, people tend to:
Chase intensity instead of progression
Accumulate fatigue instead of resilience
Stack minor injuries that quietly become major ones
The result? Burnout, plateaus, or being forced to stop just as consistency should be paying off.
Why 5-Year Goals Change Everything
Now 5 years is an arbitrary number but it’s still a good target. You could pick 2 or 3 years. Just make it multiple years because as I’ll explain, the longer the goal, the better it’ll be for you.
A 5-year goal forces smarter decisions.
Instead of asking “How hard can I train this week?”
You start asking “What supports progress for the next five years?”
That shift changes:
Exercise selection
Weekly volume
Recovery priorities
Technique standards
Injury prevention strategies
Now no one likes long term goals. Why? Well all of us want “it” NOW.
Whatever that “it” is.
The thing is with short term goals, the urgency to get to that goal causes you to squeeze too much training in a short time frame that your body simply cannot tolerate
You need to build a body that lasts which deep down, is what really we want.
So many of my clients say that they don’t want their injury to get worse as they age.
The introduction of long term goals allows you to prevent this.
Longevity Is a Skill
Or to “think long term” is a skill. It does demand patience (and maybe an element of risk too) and discipline.
But if you think long term, you can train in an intensity and frequency that your body can handle.
The problem is that because of short term goals (or even no goals at all) we train for NOW. We train TOO hard and push our bodies time and again, sometimes in consecutive days to the point our body cannot recover from.
This all-or-nothing training and the lack of recovery is what really causes injuries.
Now think about it this way. Regardless of a goal, if you train hard 3 times a week consistently over many weeks and months, are you really going to be that unfit?
“But not as fit as I would be if I trained 5 or 6 times per week, Andy” I hear you shout.
Well really? Would you still be able to keep training 5 or 6 times a week for many weeks and months without getting injured?
I’m pretty sure you’d agree “No”
What would give you less chance of injury? 3 times a week training or 5 or 6 times per week.
“Well it depends on what you do in those sessions”
Well yes but I’m sure you’d agree overall that 3 times per week training hard would give you manageable recovery time.
Longer recovery time would keep you training for longer without stalling through injury and rehab.
This would be a far more intelligent way to train. 3 times per week is still an amount that will keep you progressing too.
Fitness and strength still compounds—if you train intelligently.
Now again, 3 times per week is an arbitrary number and I’m not saying everybody should train no more than 3 times per week.
The point I’m making is that more is NOT necessarily better.
And more is often NOT sustainable in the long term.
Ready to Train Smarter?
If you live in or around Taunton and you want your training to support where you want to be five years from now, not just next month, it starts with structure.
👉 Book a 30-minute Performance Programme Review and we’ll refine your weekly training so it supports progress, performance, and longevity—without overtraining or unnecessary injury risk.
Your future body will thank you. 💪
