How to Set SMART Fitness Goals Examples

Smart fitness goals are your fitness journey’s destination or destinations. Having a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timebound (SMART) goal in the forefront of your mind helps to energize & inspire you through the good times and bad times. What’s even better than setting a goal? Of course, it's achieving that goal! It’s the best feeling in the world and a great motivator when you reach a goal (big or small).

You will learn step-by-step how to create a goal with the SMART approach. It is one thing to set a goal, and another thing to set a goal in a specific and personal way that almost ensures you are going to reach it (presuming you do the work, of course)! Achieving a goal gives you a sense of accomplishment and empowerment. Who doesn’t want that? Now, it’s okay to have a BIG goal but you want to make sure that you break this big goal into many smaller parts. It is important to feel the success of achieving a goal, even small goals many times before you can achieve your big goal.

SMART Fitness Goals Examples

Here is a SMART fitness goal example for someone who wants to run 250 km this year. The SMART Fitness Goal Method will help us tackle this enormous goal.

Running hurting your joints? Try cycling instead.

Specific smart fitness goal examples

What does running “more” and eating “healthier” even mean for you? Instead, try something like these smart fitness goals examples: 

• I will go for a 5-8 km run 3x per week after work. 
• I will also start making sure I have a healthy breakfast at least 3x per week that is rich in protein so I am not starving at lunchtime and making poor food choices.
• My coworker Sarah and I will be going to yoga 1x per week because we know it'll help me recover from my run.

Measurable smart fitness goal examples

Your smart fitness goals should be measurable. It's easy to do this with the adidas Running and Training Apps! The Goal feature allows you to create a goal, track your progress and set it! You can set running, walking or hiking goals with the app! The app allows you to set time frames, distances and times for achieving your goal.

Attainable smart fitness goal examples

Stop and think about it; is your goal realistic? Is it realistic to expect that you'll run 250km this year if you ran only 50km last year? You might find it difficult to say that you will eat breakfast more often if you have never eaten it before. Make sure you take a look at your life and your current habits and kick it up a notch or two – not ten notches. You want to succeed.

Relevant smart fitness goal examples

A relevant smart fitness goal example for running 250 km in a year could be “run at least 5 km per week.” An irrelevant smart fitness goal example could be “read five books on running this year.” While reading books on running might help you achieve your goal, it doesn’t get you any closer to achieving your goal. 

Don’t let shin splints ruin your fitness journey!

Timebound smart fitness goal examples

Set a date for when you want to accomplish your goal. It's important to write it down. Your success will be measured at specific times. If your goal takes more than six weeks to reach, you can break it down into smaller pieces. You will be more likely to achieve your goals in two- or four-week increments. 

This smart goal is to run 250km in a year. The timeframe is one year. You can break it down into weeks and months. You can run as much as you want in just one week, so you'll have completed 250km by the end. 

Set a smart fitness goal with a partner and do couples’ workouts!

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