It could be difficult sometimes to find the balance between getting bigger (put on more muscle mass) or fitter (getting leaner). This is of course primarily driven by your goals. However, there are few things that you might not directly control, or at least it would be too difficult to do so.

Genetics and your body type are crucial factors that you need to carefully take into consideration before deciding your fitness goal. Some people fail to do that. For example, they get into the bodybuilding training, but come to soon realize that they reach a cap in terms of results, or that their results are much slower than someone else who is doing the same things, or even less. This can be both in terms of muscle building as well as for example increasing the VO2 max number. The next step is of course to decide where to focus the most, and try to find the balance doing both, but with aspirations for either more muscles or higher fitness level.

I received my genetic test result from a very interesting start up company here in Denmark, called Athgene, and I was surprised with how accurately those results were linked with my actual real life experience and the knowledge I have of my body.  They basically study your DNA and by using advanced machine learning, they match your genes with genes that are known for a certain quality, like the ones shown below. Looking at these results, I can derive that I should focus more of endurance/long distance training as apposed to strength training, due to my muscle composition (more type 1 than 2). This doesn’t mean that I can’t do strength training or build muscles; is just the rate and the scale could be a lot bigger if I had more muscle fibers of type 2 as apposed to type 1. Certainly that with a lot of training I will get results from the strength training, it will simply be longer and harder.

Having that said, I do like to have muscles (anyone does, right!), so I do strength training and try and combine it with cardio in the most optimal manner possible. This type of training helps to develop an athletic body, not too big but moderate muscle mass and definition as well as very strong endurance profile. This can be achieved also by trying different sports during a normal week. I myself do spinning, running, crossfit, boxing, HIIT, and free weight lifting. Here is a sample of how a week could look like (from danish: bryst=chest; ryg=back; skuldre=shoulders) – please note that I have a full time job and many other things during the day!:

If I had to focus more on cardio, I could through in some running for example. On the other hand if I want more strength, I would reduce one spinning class and put it another strength session.

The final core item, is consistency and discipline. You need to follow the program for a period of time (usually up to 8 weeks) and see if you are getting desirable results. Then do alterations and try something else again. It’s a trial and error process! Keep trying to find what is best for you, how your body reacts to different alterations of your workout routines. Having a good body doesn’t happen in one or two years. It’s a long process.

Contact me at contact@ledianselimaj.com for additional information and how a custom program could look for you.

Stay tuned!