Before starting his Transformation Journey, Stefan was feeling far from his best. He was once a semi-professional martial artist skilled in Karate, Judo and Boxing, which he practiced and competed in for over 20 years.
Since then, life has changed a bit. Now a primary school teacher with four children of his own, he still goes running twice a week but the passage of time took a lot of his old fighting edge away.
At 41, Stefan has a goal to “lose weight, build some muscles, and get in better condition”. Over the years, he has tried to kickstart his fitness journey by training on his own. However, he found that he lacks the consistent drive he needs to reach his end goal. Stefan ultimately felt that he needed the motivation of a coach or others in the training community to get back to his former self.
While life has changed for Stefan since his martial arts days, he is determined to get back to his old self and have a body he is proud of. Weight gain has contributed to a loss of self-confidence and is a motivating factor in his Transformation Journey.
At the start of his journey, Stefan was 88 kilos and was looking to lose some weight and gain some muscle. He had also injured his calf muscle and was experiencing back pain but was still determined to lose between 5 and 10 kilos over the next 12 weeks.
During the first week of training, Stefan would look at the day's training schedule and think, ”that’s it?”. For example, in his fourth session, he had 2 lots of Kadmos to complete which he thought was quite light. (For those who haven’t yet tried it, Kadmos consists of 10 rounds of 2 x 20-meter sprints followed by 10 burpees and then a 60-second break.)
The sessions soon increased in intensity, though, and he quickly realized that the training was tougher than he’d first anticipated. Moving into his second week, Stefan was excited and was enjoying the challenge of training sessions.
Staying focused and motivated is the factor Stefan finds hardest and this was no different throughout his journey.
The Freeletics app helped to spur him on and he even adapted his exercises to push himself harder or to meet his needs, which motivated him further. He found that as he progressed through the journey, he was having more and more fun while feeling the improvements in his condition at the same time.
Halfway through the transformation, though, Stefan began to feel demotivated--something which he had admitted had contributed to him stopping his training previously. This time, however, he was determined to reach the end goal.
Powering through the sixth week, the former martial artist felt relief and accomplishment when completing his sessions. By the end of week six, he’d found his mojo again and was feeling much more confident about moving into the second half of his transformation journey.
The eighth week of Stefan’s Transformation Journey brought a personal highlight in the form of another running god workout, this time Anubis. Pushing himself as hard as he could, Stefan ran his fastest 1 km warm up so far and felt like he “could move mountains”.
Working hard with the Freeletics Coach, Hell Week eventually arrived and Stefan noticed just how much his fitness had improved, even finding Hell Week easier than previous weeks.
Hard work, perseverance, and determination had paid off, because at the end of the 12 weeks, Stefan had lost 4 kilos and felt stronger, faster, and more driven to be active.
At the start of Stefan’s Transformation Journey, his end goal was to lose some weight and gain muscle. He may have achieved these but he also achieved so much more in terms of finding his motivation. In the recent past Stefan might have given up on consistently training across this many weeks, but digging deep to find the fortitude to complete this transformation journey has helped him rediscover the fire that he had as a young athlete.
Encouraged by his results, Stefan will continue his Freeletics training as he looks to get into even better shape and reach his fitness goals.
Watch highlights from Stefan’s transformation below:
