12 WEEK TRAINING PROGRAM

12 weeks is an ideal time to see some real improvements to your fitness and your health.

(The Body for Life program, which is well worth looking into, has a very good 12 week program of exercise and diet and thumbing through the book some of the results that people have achieved are quite remarkable. You can buy the book by going to www.fitandhealthyonline.com.au and clicking through to the Health and Fitness Bookstore.)

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MY FITNESS PLAN

WRITE DOWN YOUR LONG TERM GOAL

'Most people aim at nothing in particular in life and achieve their aim with remarkable accuracy.'

Set yourself a couple of goals you'd like to achieve in the next 12 weeks - they could be related to a distinct fitness goal - like being able to achieve a certain number of 20m laps in 5 minutes - or a certain number of situps and pressups.

The goals could relate to an ambition to complete a fun run in a certain time - or just complete it!

They could relate to a BODY COMPOSITION goal.

I'm an advocate of the percent body fat measure which we do here at FiT AND HEALTHY with Tanita scales. Reasonable scores to aim at are 20% fat for men and 30% fat for women. (If you're in the Lance Armstrong class you'll be closer to 5%, but for most mortals that's out of the question unless you lead Lance Armstrong's lifestyle.) Body Mass Index is a poor measure because it does not discriminate between muscle, bone and fat. It presumes that everyone who is heavy is fat - and this is not always the case. Get a set of Tanita scales.

WRITE DOWN THE WEEKLY GOAL

Take a bit of time at the beginning of the week to write down the goals for the week - eg 'At the end of this week I'll be able to jog or swim continuously for 10 minutes. At the end of the next week it will be 15 minutes. At the end of the week I'll be able to do 20 pressups, or 20 situps ... '

WRITE DOWN THE WEEK ACTION PLAN

At the beginning of each week write down what you propose to do each day that will get you closer to the achievement of your goals for the week and the 12 weeks. With respect to aerobic fitness,

- what are you going to do?
- how hard are you going to do it?
- when are you going to do it
- how long are you going to do it for?

AEROBIC FITNESS

One Minute Aerobic Fitness Training Program
To people who don't have a high level of aerobic fitness I'd suggest they adopt the One Minute Aerobic Fitness Training Program.

On day 1, shuffle, jog or run for one minute and walk for 20. On day 2, shuffle, jog or run for 2 minutes and walk for 19. Keep increasing the shuffle/jog/run component by one minute each day until you are shuffling/jogging/running for 21 minutes.

Why 21 minutes; because if you do something every day for 21 consecutive days you'll have developed a habit. You'll will have overcome the battle between willpower and won't power. You will have proven to yourself that you have some resolve.

I also know that there will be some important health spin-offs: you'll feel better, you'll be sleeping better, you'll have more energy and you'll have lost some fat.

By starting off slow you should avoid the problem of muscle soreness.

How long should I train to gain an aerobic benefit? 20 minutes is good, 30 minutes is better and 40 minutes is best.

USE THE AEROBIC FITNESS DIARY

Use the Aerobic Fitness Diary.

I train using the system outlined in the Aerobic Fitness Diary - I set out each week to achieve 800 AERABYTES of aerobic physical activity. I've found it a system that works on the principle that if you look after the aerabytes your fitness will look after itself.

400 aerabytes a week is good, 600 is better and 800 is best.

Over the next 6 weeks you can set yourself a target. Say, week one starts with 200 aerabytes, week 2, 300 etc etc. It makes sense to build up slowly.

To work this system you can either make an estimate of how hard you're working, or get a heart rate monitor. I recommend a Polar basic model, which you can get from most good sports stores for a bit over $100.

If you want to learn more about the AERABYTE system download a copy of the Aerobic Fitness Diary.

WHY RUNNING?

No particular reason other than it's convenient. If you don't like running, substitute it with swimming or cycling; or, if you go to a gym, use the stepper or the stationary bike. I use the stepper in the gym, principally because I find it easier on my legs than running around outside.

FUN RUN

I encourage people to enter a local/city Fun Run. The run provides another important benchmark of your fitness each year.

MEASURING YOUR PROGRESS

You can measure your progress by seeing how many laps of a 20m course you can do in 5 minutes. The best I've seen is 60 laps, the least is 10. You're probably somewhere in between, though a good score is 40. If you can do that or better, report back and I'll tell you how fit you are.

Apart from that though, if you've a set course that you run around you can record the time it takes each time you run. As your fitness improves the time taken to complete it will decrease.

If you use the stepper you can measure the height you've stepped in a particular time. The higher the level at which you work, the more steps you'll do in a certain time. Anyhow, whatever it is you do - measure aspects of it so you can gauge how much you're fitness is improving.

STRENGTH TRAINING

Your strength training program follows the same principles as your aerobic fitness program. Set some goals. By the end of each week, and by the end of 12 weeks, how many situps or pressups are you going to be able to do? Once you've established your goal, set out what you are going to do each day to achieve it. How many situps and pressups are you going to do each day. What training program will you use.

If you want to do a strength training program in a gym, use the Strength Training Diary which comes as part of the ebook How to Fix Up a Crook Back. There is a suggested list of exercises in the diary and space to record the number of repetitions of each exercise and the weight lifted.

The Strength Training Diary contains a suggested list of exercises and suggested number of repetitions and sets.

If you go to a gym, I recommend you use the superset program, alternating between two strength training machines at a time, using a pyramid type of training system where in the first of three sets you start by lifting a weight that you can just lift 15 times. For the second set use a slightly heavier weight and aim for 10 repetitions. For the third set use a slightly higher weight and aim for 5 repetitions.

You'll have to work out the size of the weight to be lifted by trial and error. Over the weeks and months the weights will increase.

An alternative system is repetitions of 12, 10, 8 and 6. This is promoted by the Body For Life program which you can buy from the Health and Fitness Bookstore at www.fitandhealthyonline.com

To get the best results you'll need to train three times a week.

SEND ME YOUR PLAN

I'd love to hear from you. Email me a copy of your plan and let me know each week how you're going.

Next week I'll continue the article and let you into some secrets about improving your strength.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and remember it only takes 21 days to lock a new habit into your sub-conscious mind.


Regards


John Miller