At the end of each year I like to take a break from trying to coax out the awesome from my clients and spend some time on a “stay-cation,” a vacation where I just have time at home catching up on things I’ve pushed aside for too long, working out, sleeping in, and generally not shaving or answering emails as quickly as I would during the rest of the year. This year is no different, except the fact that I’m taking a little longer than usual. Most years I’ve taken 10 days off, whereas this year I’m taking 16 days, which is the longest I’ve ever gone without working pretty much since I moved to Edmonton in the Summer of 2001.

I may wind up completely erasing some facet of training knowledge from my head due to this extended leave, or might start regressing and using a bosu for everything or something like that. If you see me staggering through the gym with a bosu under one arm and some pink dumbbells under the other, feel free to give me a full open-palmed slap on the downswing with a ring hand to knock some sense into me.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp3x6l5dZp8′]

One of the things I do during my time off is set out the goals I want to shoot for in the coming year and hash out some of the more confounding details, figure out timelines and potential dates, and determine whether I need Doc Brown’s time machine to get it all in or if it could realistically be achieved. Maybe I have to slay a dragon or six or maybe I just have to file my taxes on time, whatever it is that might get in the way I try to think of it ahead of time. Most of the time I tend to get great results from this, and I always tend to have new goals come up during the year depending on what’s happening, but it’s a good habit to get in to.

So today I wanted to outline some of the personal and professional goals I’m setting for myself for the coming year, and if the Mayans are wrong and there’s actually a chance of seeing 2013 without raining fire and four guys riding horses showing up, I’m pretty confident they’re all going to happen.

 

1. Train more, work less

In 2012, I managed to train a total of 1545 hours worth of hands-on training, encapsulating 2432 client contact hours. In the 40 complete weeks I was training clients (excluding vacations, workshops or speaking engagements out of town, and time spent teaching courses in town), that works out to an average of 39 hours a week of hands-on coaching, and 52 client contact hours each week. While that’s awesome and all, it was done while working an average of 13 hours each day, leaving little time for other persuits like writing this blog, wiritng for other sites, and my expanding Distance Coaching business.

This year my goal is to reduce my hours per day from 13 to 12 in the immediate, and then down to 11 by the summer while simultaneously increasing my client contact hours and total sessions per week. I’ll do this by opening up a couple more small group training slots and trying to maneouver my schedule in more of a pre-emptive fashion to maximize my time at work and not leave me a walking zombie at the end of the day.

 2. Deadlift 500 pounds

Yep, you knew something had to be in here about deadlifts.

In 2010 I set a goal of being able to deadlift 405, which at the time was an astronomical amount for me, considering a back injury that was a constant pain in the, well, a pain in the ass to be quite literal. See, I subluxed my right SI joint, bulged three lumbar discs, tore through 2/3 of the right quadratus lumborum muscle, and generally failed at life after a football injury. I zigged when I should have zagged, got tackled, and wound up with some long-term pain and issues with core strength and function.

Well, after about 6 months of dedicated and focused training, which involved videoing myself complete every rep and analyzing what I was doing and trying to find better ways to protect my back while pulling heavier, I managed to get it in April of 2011. Since then, I’ve somewhat plateaued, maybe because of a lack of interest in really driving for the bigger numbers, or from still being cautious about injuring it again, I don’t know, but the most I’ve pulled since then is 445 on a straight bar and 465 on a trap bar.

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SO in 2013 I want to be able to hit a raw conventional pull of 500 pounds without any equipment like wraps, suits or belts, and to help me get there I’ve adapted the Smolov Squat program to be a Smolov Deadlift program. You can check it out in more detail HERE, but essentially it’s a 4-day a week heavy focused deadlift program working on increasing my 1RM.

So far I’m about 4 weeks into it, and it’s slowly grinding me into the ground. My hands look like hamburger, I’m occasionally weeping in the corner, and I feel like my arms are getting heavier by the day and will pretty soon have to swing my hand and use momentum to get it onto my head to shampoo and lay my toothbrush on the counter and run my face back and forth over it instead of bringing it to my face. On the plus side my lats and low back muscles have never looked or felt this thick. That’s also a bad thing as I have a nice leather jacket that I’m busting out of around the chest and shoulders, but I guess before the summer comes I could go on an intense shredding phase to get back into it, which ties in nicely for the next goal.

3. Get under 220 pounds body weight

This is something I’ve only been able to do once in the past 10 years in preparation for a trip to Mexico, and it’s something I want to do again. I’ve never been really lean, and while 220 won’t get me on the cover of Men’s Health any time in the near future, it would correspond with a body fat percentage of under 10%, which would be pretty awesome.

What this means is there may or may not be more gratuitous shirtless shots of yours truly spackled across teh interwebz in the coming year, so prepare yourself accordingly.

4. Help Develop the CPPS Certification

A few weeks ago I got to chat with James “Smitty” Smith, the brains behind Diesel Strength and Conditioning, and we got to chatting about breathing patterns and all sorts of geek-tastic stuff for the new certification he was putting together with Joe DeFranco called the Certified Physical Preparation Specialist certification. At the end of our phone conversation he even asked me to be on the board of directors, which I happily jumped at.

My exact role is still being worked out, but as of now I’m the Director of Post-Rehabilitation for the program, and will have a hand in putting together and teaching some of the content with the majority of it being taught by Smitty and Joe D. It also means I’ll have to make a few trips to Jersey and get my GTL on.

Currently, I’m the only non-resident of New Jersey on the board, and the only one from Canada, a fact that I am extremely proud of.

This comes with pretty incredible timing, as I have also recently stepped away from teaching for canfitpro. I’ve taught and certified new trainers for the past 6 years, and am glad to have been given the opportunity, but when one door closes another inevitably opens.

I’m more excited than this dog.

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 5. Write a lot more

I want to try to write articles for a bunch of different websites and publications, and will shoot for getting 20 accepted for publishing, a minimum of 12 from T-Nation and I’m going to actively seek out other publications with an ultimate goal of getting one in Men’s Health, which is the big dog on the block when it comes to publishing stuff.

I had the good fortune to present at The PTDC seminar in Toronto this past October, which had people like John Romaniello, Neghar Fonooni, Lou Schuler, Rog Law, and The Hobbit Mark Young to name a few. While I had to cut out a bit early to catch a plane back home in time for Thanksgiving dinner and had to miss a couple presentations, I got a lot out of the presentations from John and Lou as it pertained to getting published, what editors were looking for, and how to pitch to different organizations. Coincidentally or not, they were also 2/3 of the authors of the digital product How to Get Published: Fitness Writing Domination, along with Sean Hyson.

I also got to be the weight in a Rog Law attempted front squat that left me millimeters away from wearing a chair back as a nose ring, but thankfully disaster was averted.

It was great to be able to pick their brains, pick up little tips, and get an actual game plan in place for some of the writing I’m looking at doing, as well as find out who some of the big names and gate keepers are in the publishing business. Plus they’re funny as hell and really down to earth people.

I’ve always enjoyed writing. I took pretty much every English course I could in high school and a few in university, even scored in the top 5% on the written section when I attempted the MCAT exam a few years ago (apparently doctors have to know a thing or two about chemistry. Who knew??). It wasn’t until a client who wrote a personal blog chided me into writing one of my own a few years ago that this site started up, and from there it’s become a great addition to my business plus helped to fill a creative void. Expect to see me popping up all over the place, sort of like the ground hog in Caddy Shack.

6. Take Lindsay to Europe

Actually, it’s more like she’s taking me. My wife qualified for the World Triathlon championships to be held in London this coming September as a representative of Team Canada. I can’t express how happy and proud I am for her. She’s definitely the hard worker in the relationship. Not only has she had to find a way to train while holding down a full-time job at a non-profit organization and while taking classes towards a bachelor of commerce degree, she’s had to overcome a low back injury of her own, which has taken a long time, and a lot of resources to get her to a point where she’s feeling confident that this will be her year.

 So in September we’re going to pack up and jump the pond, spending 5 days in London so she can train and prepare for the big race, and then 5 days in Paris to unwind and take a romantic vacation in the City of Lights. Neither of us have ever been there before, so it’s going to be an amazing experience. I’m going to see how many loaves of bread and bottles of wine I can deadlift at once, and do some hammer curls with pints of Guinness.

As an added bit of cool, there’s a little field trip I absolutely HAVE to make. In England, there’s a county known as Somerset county. This is presumably part of where my last name comes from.

It gets better.

Within said county there is actually a township known as Dean. That’s right folks: There’s actually a Dean, Somerset in England and I HAVE TO GO THERE AND GET A PICTURE OR SIXTY!!!

7. FINALLY Finish Post Rehab Essentials 2.0

I had a chance to meet with an illustrator this past week who will put together some of the graphics for the site, and then hopefully also put together a promotional video, sort of like a cinematic trailer to help promote it and make it look all slick and shiny and stuff, and from there I’m hoping to get everything finished and ready to launch for March, but we’ll see what happens.

For Post Rehab Essentials 1.0, I did all the work myself: the website, video editing, production, greasing the mafia, and promotion, which was way outside of my comfort zone and resulted in some technical glitches, low quality graphics and a static website that wasn’t too appealing. I’m still incredibly proud of it, and think it’s an amazing resource for any trainer to have on their reference list to come back to as frequently as necessary to help them work with their clients.

This time around I’m hiring some people to spice it up and make it look way better so that the visual impact literally jumps off the screen and throws a triangle choke on you. I’m really excited to show you what it will all look like when it’s finished, so please stay tuned to see it all when it’s done. I’ve also replaced about 70% of the content from the first version, so the information is all cutting edge, simpler to understand, and will help to blow your mind while simultaneously showing you how to throw around more plates than a dishwasher at Dennys, even if you’re coming off an injury.

 8. Keep Making YOU Happy

There would be absolutely no reason for me to write this blog if I wasn’t getting people who liked to read it. As a result I’ve been able to form some amazing relationships, meet really cool people, and have a lot of fun writing stuff that seems to be of interest to a lot of people. For this reason you are an incredibly amazing and sexy person. I love each and every reader who checks out this site, but not in a creepy stalker-ish manner. More of a cuddle buddy kind of way, where we’re both into sharing a nap together but that’s as far as it will go because anything further kind of screws up the friendship.

Let’s call a spade a spade her; you’re pretty much my boss. This means if I put together a post you don’t like, you go somewhere else for your fitness information, which leaves me feeling sad and lonely. I don’t want that. As the french would say, no bueno. This means I’m going to do my darndest to put out only the creamiest of the cream of the crop content for you to make sure you stay happy and so I don’t get all lonely over here on the interwebz. Capiche? Capiche.

So what are your goals for the year? Share them with me in the comments section, and let me know if there’s any topics you want me to cover in future posts.

Have a great Christmas!!