Personal Training with
Nicky Jankovic

Here are my top tips about exercise to help you build the physique you desire.

1. Consistency and Patience
   To build and shape a desirable figure takes TIME! It is not something you do in a couple of days, weeks or even months. Of course you will start to notice changes after around 8 weeks if you exercise correctly and feed your body the right nutrition, but you must be patient and stick with it long enough to see these changes begin. I have been involved in exercise all my life, and started resistance training 15 years ago. Over the years I have focused on improving different areas of my body, and with consistency year round have got my body to a place of maintenance. However, there is still many times where I re-focus and work on bringing up a certain muscle group that I feel could be improved.  Exercise, with a combination of resistance training and cardio is a MUST if you want to change the shape of your body. To make significant changes be prepared to commit to the long haul and make training a new lifestyle habit.
2. Upper Body
   Women generally struggle to build muscle in their bodies, as opposed to their lower bodies. We aren’t designed to have big strong arms and shoulders like men due to our child-bearing  genetic code. Most women make the mistake of training with light weights and high repetitions as they fear ‘bulking’ up like a man. This will not happen ladies. You must realise though, to build lean muscle so you have nice capped shoulders, toned arms and a wide back you must life HEAVY weights for around  8-12 repetitions. Hmmm....still not convinced? Ask any serious body-shaper or figure competitor (the girls with the best physiques), and they will tell you they train to broaden their shoulders and widen their back. Why is that? To create the illusion of a smaller waist and narrow hips! Yep, that’s right, by training and building muscle in your upper half, it instantly will make your lower half look smaller. Pretty simple hey....
3. Lower Body and Plyometrics
   Lower body is a little different. It is still ok to train with your heavy weights; however the repetition range should be higher (between 15-25). Most women find that they build muscle in their lower body relatively easily, so I tend to focus more on shaping the muscle through plyometric exercises and giant sets. Plyometric exercise involves a rapid muscle lengthening movement (eccentric phase), followed by an explosive muscle shortening movement (concentric phase).  This type of training is a great way to increase muscle power, and condition the muscle. There are concerns of the increased of risk of injury with this training technique. However when performed correctly and the exercise selection is appropriate, plyometrics can significantly reduce the risk of injury as they not only strengthen the muscles, but also the tendons, ligaments; and improve a person’s balance and stability.
   Giant sets are combing more than two exercises consecutively without rest in between sets. This type of training really shocks the muscles, forcing the body to activate many more muscle fibres than it normally would to performing these exercises. By incorporating these training techniques into your workout routine you will lean out your legs and reshape your lower body.
   The final component to creating a lean tight lower body is to include hill sprints and stair runs.
4. Cardiovascular and Abdominals
   Many myths surround cardio and abdominals. Firstly, cardio is a great way to reduce your overall body fat. Just focusing on cardio though will result in you losing weight but basically becoming a smaller version of the shape you already are.  So you need to do both resistance training and cardiovascular training in order to create a lean athletic physique. Everyone has abdominals, but the only way to see them is to reduce your body fat low enough so that you remove the layer of fat that is covering them. This is not done through endless ab exercises, but through adequate cardio and more importantly what foods you are feeding your body.