The first thing I realised was the importance of the proper execution of the relevant exercises, Werner told me over and over, "don´t concentrate on the weight but rather on the movement".

What he meant by this was simple, if you are doing chest, focus on chest, think about what you are doing with the weights, go a little lighter than your maximum output weight. You do not have to push the heaviest weights in the gym to achieve results, continue with the lighter weight until you are satisfied that your execution is correct and then progress to a heavier weight.

Give yourself at least a week or two to orientate and feel the movement. You will know the next day if your execution was correct, if for example you did chest and your back is sore the next day you where not executing the exercise correctly.(Just a little tip, your negative movement, resistance is more important than your positive, push movement. Muscle growth occurs mainly when the tissue reacts to an excessive or above average amount of stress required to do something. If you think about this most of the stress will then occur on the negative and not the positive movement of an exercise. Meaning slowly down and controlled upward movements.

My training routine was intense and I needed to progress every week, the training strategy I used was a core plus a break down set with all my training sessions, what this does is take each body part to positive failure every time ensuring a burn and utilising every ounce of available energy. You need to do this with your maximum output weight in order to achieve the best results.

The choice to do my weight training in the mornings was based on the information given by the USN Body & Lifestyle Challenge team. The theory is that training in the morning on an empty stomach is best for burning fat all day, as well as boosting your resting metabolic rate (RMR). The other thing I did that was suggested was to keep my training sessions down to between 50 and 60 minutes. I must say that this kept me focused and my training sessions intense; there is no time for talk. After all I was not there for a social meeting; I was there to achieve results.

Needless to say it works!!

My program was structured around my decision and the picture I had in my mind's eye, I decided to do a body part a day as I had allot of fat to burn but I wanted to build / retain as much muscle as I could while losing the bad weight.

USN offers a number of training routines on their website and you can access these by logging on to www.usnchallenge.co.za, the nice thing is they also show you what the exercise movement should be. Have a look it's fantastic.

Training Routine

Cardio Training