I often get asked how often should I exercise, what exercises should I do, how do I lose that elusive 3 kilos and what exercises are the best to tone a particular part of your body. Well my answer to this is that the most basic element to your training whether it is for general fitness, a goal for a specific sporting event or if you are training as a sportsperson is laying out the weeks training routine.

Everyone’s goals and circumstances are different and not one training routine is going to work for the next person but everyone can lay down a weekly training schedule and then try to keep for a block of time. Continuity for training is good not only physically but also mentally.

So here is how I set about laying down a training schedule from the newbie to the athlete and some basic weekly training elements I consider and the order in which I consider them:

Routine workouts This is put on the weekly plan first and all others exercise activities are built around them. They are the workouts tied to specific days and times. So this may be say your weekly group fitness class on a Monday and Wednesday morning or your weekly run training twice a week. Routine workouts may be the sessions that are more fun or social or less intense.

Goal specific workouts Once you have scheduled your routine workouts then it is time to decide what are your goals and what are your goal workouts for the week will be. These sessions are specifically aimed at achieving your fitness goal and may be higher intensity sessions that may even be more stressful. So say if your goal is to do a 100km charity cycle ride then you may decide that you need to complete two additional cycle training sessions with one session being a long endurance ride which focuses on muscular endurance and the other being a shorter interval session with the focus being on anaerobic endurance and sprint power. Or alternatively if you decide that you need to increase your core and overall strength you may decide to do a resistance training session.

Recovery days This will depend on the individual’s ability to train, ability to cope with physical stress and how quickly their bodies recover. So a recovery day or recovery workout may be required after a goal specific workout.

So these three element form part of your training schedule and are a great way achieve your goals. And the greatest key success to achieving your fitness goals is consistency of training!