Vital ingredients for your programmes

The 2013 fitness industry boom is well under way. By the end of February, most fitness clubs will have signed up more new members this month alone than they did over the previous three or four combined.

We must all train according to our own abilities and requirements

According to statistics, however, many of the new hopefuls will drop out before reaching their goals. This is unfortunate and could occur due to any number of reasons, but an inappropriate fitness programme shouldn’t be one of them.

There are so many things we cannot control in this world. If circumstances force you out of the gym, injury strikes, or priorities suddenly change, you could find yourself unable to pursue your exercise regimen. Tough.

But what about those elements we can control? If we can control something, then it certainly shouldn’t be the cause of our failing, and designing or selecting the right programme is well within our sphere of control.

So what should the right programme for you consist of to guarantee success? Over the years, I have seen hundreds of gym members come and go. Some succeed, many fail. What do success stories have in common? What works time and again, and what continues to disappoint year after year?

Just like in a fine-tasting signature dish, there are several crucial ingredients that must be present. When it comes to the sweet taste of achieving our fitness goals, I will share some of these essential ingredients with you today. Get these right, and ensure you don’t become a statistic this season. If you’re going to make the effort to get up and go, then do yourself justice by considering the following three programming essentials.

First of all, identify your level. If you downloaded a programme off the internet, chances are it might not be the best programme for you personally. We must all train according to our own abilities and requirements, and following programmes that are designed for other people might waste months or even years of precious time and effort. The most common trap here is using methods and techniques that are beyond our level.

Beginners and intermediates can get away with progressing on fairly basic exercise programmes, and caution should be exercised whenever faced with overly complex solutions. As a general rule, if the professional athletes, fitness models or bodybuilders are doing it, chances are you shouldn’t be.

When selecting a programme, look for those intended for beginners, or at least those that stick to basics. By doing the basics well, most of the time you will get much further than by doing the complex badly.

My second essential ingredient deals with shedding fat. There is a basic formula I use with clients wishing to lose fat, and I have never seen it fail when implemented properly – circuit training. By selecting a series of four to five simple bodyweight exercises and performing them back to back in sequence with no rest, you can burn more calories and achieve higher heart rates than any one single movement alone could ever possibly allow.

In other words, why settle for just one movement like jogging or cycling and repeat it through your entire workout, when you can select a whole series of movements that target and tone all the major muscle groups of the body?

Apart from targeting more muscle and burning more calories, circuit training is also a lot more fun. This doesn’t mean you can’t use the cardio machines in your gym; you can throw these into your circuit too, as long as you perform them in short and sharp bursts mixed in with the other movements too. Remember, more movement means more fat melted.

If this idea sounds a little alien to you right now, try to incorporate it slowly and incrementally. If you must perform 40 minutes of continuous cardio on a selected machine, stop after 20 minutes, perform just one circuit, and then carry on with your remaining 20 minutes. You’ll see it’s not as strange as you might have thought, and you will feel the difference almost immediately.

My third essential ingredient is for those young men wishing to increase muscle mass. Getting big and buff is still one of the primary reasons men everywhere hit the gym and hit it hard. If beefcake is on the menu, then the number one chief ingredient should be squats, no ifs or buts about it.

Specifically, your squats should be heavy and high volume; the 20-repetition squat workout is my personal favourite. By performing several warm-up sets and finishing off with a single heavy set of 20, you will stimulate adrenaline and growth hormone production, making practically anything else you do in the gym exponentially more effective.

Make sure you increase the weight you lift each week and combine your training with a high-calorie eating plan. If you don’t follow a dedicated routine planned exclusively around the squat, at least strive to include the squat into your existing routine, performing it first before anything else. Try it out and you won’t be disappointed. Without squats, progression, and plenty of good food, any bulking programme you attempt will be destined to fail.

So don’t let your enthusiasm and dedication become misguided by missing out on the principle ingredients. To enjoy the taste of success this season, throw the following into the mix: a level-appropriate programme, circuit training for fat loss and hard and heavy squats for building muscle.

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