Desire Transformed - Bettye Ganucheau
As featured in "Women's Exercise" By Josh Stroud
The desire to develop a leaner, fitter body is what prompted Bettye Ganucheau to seek out a new fitness routine. A 44 year-old mother of four, Bettye had participated in numerous exercise routines without much in the way of results. Among the activities she'd attempted without success were jogging, biking and other aerobic endurance workouts. In September 1991 however, she sowed to devote herself to a workable system that would reshape her middle aged figure.
When she first came to J's Personalized Training, Bettye had a less-than-enviable 27 percent bodyfat. The first thing she learned was how to revamp her diet. To support her daily activities and still allow her to gradually lose bodyfat, the Texas native was placed on a 1200-1500 calorie diet. She was instructed to stay at the lower on on days when she wasn't exercising, and to increase to 1500 on training days so she'd have the energy to work hard The basic breakdown in either case is the consumption of 55 percent complex carbohydrates, such as pasta, vegetables and whole grains, 30 percent high-quality protein, and 15 percent fat, mainly unsaturated.
The routine she embraced begins with 6-8 minutes of total body stretching, followed by 45 minutes of stepping on the StairMaster, which burns fat and warms up her body for the resistance exercises that follow. This activity also pre-exhausts her muscles so she can sculpt them into shape in a minimum amount of time once she begins her weight training. By proceeding in this manner, she doesn't need to use heavy weight to gain maximum benefit, which also means she'll attain a leaner look rather than become "bulked up".
Bettye works out three days per week using an intense full body routine that is completed in 30-40 minutes. In other words, her entire program, including stretching and the StairMaster, lasts just 90 minutes or less - a small investment for dramatic results. the weight routine is divided into legs, chest, back and arms, followed by abdominals. For legs, she does three sets of squats, doing 30 reps on the first set, 20 on the second and 15 on the last, increasing the weight for each. Lunges follow a similar scheme. When she moves to chest, Bettye completes three sets of bench press (20, 15, 10) and three of flyes (20, 15, 12). Three sets of one arm dumbbell rows for each arm to work the back, in a 15-, 12-, 10-rep blueprint. For biceps, she'll do three sets of standing dumbbell curls (20, 15, 12) followed by three sets of one arm kickbacks (30, 15, 12) for triceps. Crunches on a crunch board or on the floor finish the session with 100 total reps divided into as few sets as she can manage to get it done.
