This website was established to chronicle my journey starting at age 40, following a severe health scare. Now at 60, I’m in the best shape of my life.

Achieving a physique like mine at 60 and beyond is entirely feasible, but only when every aspect is meticulously managed.

With a B.Sc degree from Stellenbosch University and having been honored with an international award in 2023 for my expertise and contributions to coaching mature individuals, I am committed to guiding others toward their fitness goals.

For more information about my coaching systems, visit: https://gertlouw.com/contact-me/

[This site is dedicated to my son, Janu Louw, who is now 18. You are the center of my universe!]

May God bless your journey

Gert Louw

Presented here is my basic transformation program, which I followed during my initial five years of training (from age 40 to 45, now at 59). It encompasses training, dieting, and supplement details. While not as focused, or nearly as comprehensive, and meticulous as the ADVANCED SYSTEM II, it offers a strong foundation for beginners seeking to transform their bodies.

This BASIC TRANSFORMATION information is provided free of charge. However, if you would like to support my efforts, a small financial contribution would be greatly appreciated to help maintain this website. To make a donation, please click on the DONATION link below

This is how I look at age 50:

Through this article, my intention is to ignite inspiration in those individuals who feel like they are letting life and opportunities slip away year after year. I reached a critical point where I made a choice and transformed my life, and I want you to recognize that you can do the same. Strive to be the best version of yourself and begin your journey today!

While this program served as the foundation of my own transformation, I have since made significant progress and fine-tuned various aspects of my training.

IMPORTANT: It is essential to understand that what worked for me may not necessarily yield the same results for you. Take what you find useful and adapt it to create your own effective solution based on the successful experiences of various trainers.

Before engaging in any aspect of this program, diet, or supplement regimen, it is IMPERATIVE that you consult with a physician. The writer cannot be held responsible for any injuries or harm that may arise as a result of participating in any mentioned activities in this document. The information provided in this document is to be used and followed entirely at your own risk.

Contents

1. My TRANSFORMATION program overview
2. Training
   • Cutting Phase and Building Phase
   • Basics
   • Weekly training schedule
   • Points of Note
3. DIETING
   • The diet
   • Points of note
   • Why two different protein powders?
   • Why so many shakes?
4. How to grow as quickly as possible
5. How to get cut
6. Spirituality

A. The program overview

This program is about making yourself better on every level of your being. Maybe you say but, all I want is some decent muscles and a 6-pack. You need to sit down my friend and think about this carefully. 

WHY do you want that? – Is it to look better? To impress females? To impress your mates?

If it falls in any of the above categories or something similar, it is at best a very shallow aim and will be, unfortunately, of a very temporary timeframe (at least through my own and many others experiences). I have nothing against anyone who just want to increase muscles to look better, but I’ve been there many times and at last I am realizing the shallowness and short-lived motivation of such an aim.

Dont you rather want to look in that mirror and be able to say I like the guy I am seeing. I like who I am. I am no longer the selfish person I used to be. I am at peace with myself and God. Muscles and a great body should just be a normal outflow in this holistic process to become a better person and because of the weight your decision to change carries, it becomes much easier to stick religiously to your training and dieting regimen. Now, you don’t ‘just do it to look better, you do it to BECOME a better person and you realize it is just one of the steps you have taken.

I was given a 2nd chance to live. I used this 2nd chance to address my life on all levels by following this program. So you might not yet be at this point in your life, well, consider yourself lucky. Then you need to take some quiet time and think about life, your body and the person you are and be honest to yourself. Do you like what you see (not just your body, but the whole person)? Do others like what they see?

Make your muscle-building and dieting plans a starting point to change YOU and go on the biggest journey, life has to offer.

To be able to sit back and say I actually like the person I am will add immeasurable value and peace to your life.

So what do you need to address? Three things

• Diet,
• Training, and
• the most important of them all, Spirituality.

Spirituality is the key to unlock everything. When you become a deeper spiritual person, then it is not just you in the battle to become a better person, but God is with you in this battle. And the strength He provides for you to change is real and amazing.

I don’t want to force any specific spiritual road upon anyone and this is not the aim of the program. Each of us has to make our own decisions. What I do try to achieve through this program, is to give you a glimpse into my spiritual journey to help you get on your way. My journey was and is real and I speak of experiences and factual happenings as they occurred to me. This is just to give you that little extra hope that it CAN be done!

Lastly, it is critical that you make sure you have healthy testosterone levels. Through the  following link you can now order a newly developed HOME TESTING TESTOSTERONE kit (no doctors visits or consultation fee’s and from a very legit medical company): CLICK HERE TO ORDER (Use discount code ‘GERT20″ for 20% discount). Make sure your blood TOTAL testosterone levels are in the upper region of what is considered normal, NOT the lower region.

B. Training

CUTTING PHASE AND BUILDING PHASE

There are 2 parts to the training program, CUTTING Phase and BUILDING Phase. These two phases are alternated continuously. You will be doing a Cutting Phase for 3 months (12 weeks) and then switch to an intense Building Phase for the next 3 months (12 weeks) and then repeat cycle.

During the BUILDING phase you strain your body to the max with muscle failure applied on EACH set you do. This after a few months will result in tender joints and tendons and one cannot continue indefinitely punishing the body like this. This is why it is critical to alternate the Building phase with a Cutting phase. During the Cutting phase you do NOT train to failure – you decrease weight size by 20 – 30% and do 12 to 20 reps per set instead of 8. This allows the tendons to recover and strengthen. This is also the time you will eat fewer calories with the cutting diet and get that ripped or shredded look.

It is suggested that you start off with a Cutting Phase to ease you into lifting weights.

When you start out, it is critical that you decide the weight size at which your point of muscle failure occurs at the 8th repetition (lets call this weight size, your failure weight) for each exercise (excluding abdominal). This means the point where you fail to be able to make another repetition of the exercise.

Make note of this failure weight, because starting off with your Cutting Phase, you will be doing 12 reps with the failure weight minus 20 percent of the failure weight.

Hmm, OK that just sounds complicated, so lets look at an example.

Lets say you’ve determined that with Bicep Barbell Curls, you can lift 30kg and only complete 8 reps but fail on the 9th rep. Then in your Maintenance Phase you will lift 20% less of the weight (which equals to roughly 24kg) and do 12 reps in your each set.

With your Building Phase you will revert back to 8 reps per set. Starting with each Phase, you must again determine your failure weight since this will (and must!) increase with every Phase. The 8 reps must then be done with your new failure weight reaching muscle failure on your 8th rep.

IMPORTANT: When finished with a Building Phase, your lifted weight levels for the Cutting Phase will be the ones that you’ve ended on in your last Building Phase. Do NOT reset these values. They must continually increase with your phases or you will not grow. It is a good idea to re-determine these failure weight at the start of each Phase.

So typically a year period will look like the following:

• Jan March (12 weeks) Cutting Phase
• April – June (12 weeks) Building Phase
• July September (12 weeks) Cutting Phase
• October – December (12 weeks) Building Phase

Obviously you can shuffle your months around to suit your own target dates. Traditionally December is warm beach weather and holiday season here in South Africa, so I want to make sure that I look my best in December and thus make sure that the month of December falls on the last month of a Building Phase period.

A typical weight training session will look like this:

• 5 min warm-up
• 40 min weight training
• 10-20 min cardio

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BASICS and important points

Cardio stays the same during both Phases. After your weight lifting session, the perfect cardio would be to swim laps for 30 minutes. But since most of us have no access to such facilities, we have to consider the stationary bike or treadmill.

Cardio must be done for 10 to 20 minutes. Preferably closer to 20 minutes. Do not make it much longer than 20 minutes even if you become very fit. Rather up the intensity to make sure you are most of the time in the fat-burning zone.

Again here, please take it slowly. Start out slow for 5 minutes (on low intensity) and slowly increase it week by week. Allow your body to adapt.

Please note: Too much cardio will slow your muscle growth drastically. Have you ever seen a muscled marathon athlete? Be carefull, if u wanna grow, keep the cardio intense but not much more than 20 minutes per day.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If your main aim is to build muscle, you might consider staying completely clear from cardio. Cardio is a severe muscle limiting factor, even moderate cardio. The natural reaction the body has to cardio is to limit muscle growth.

If you are completely new to lifting, I suggest you do one of the following:

• Buy a basic guide explaining the mentioned exercises.
• By just hanging and talking to other guys in the gym, you can also learn a lot about the various exercises.
• Do some research on bodybuilding sites. You should be able to find nearly all you need on these sites.

Very important thought, is that if you are completely new to lifting, you MUST start out slowly. Start for example, by doing one set per exercise for the first week. Bump it up to 2 sets per exercise in your 2nd week and to 3 sets per exercise in the 3rd week and finally to 4 sets per exercise in your 4th week. This will be accompanied by some rather severe muscle pain. Endure buddy, it is a good sign, it shows you your muscles are listening and reprogramming for growth. If the pain becomes unbearable or influences your workouts, take some anti-inflammatory pills (Dicoflam is a good one), it will deal with most of the pain.

During the Cutting Phase, as already stated above, you will lift slightly lighter weights (roughly 20%-30% lighter) with more reps (12-20 instead of 8). This means you will not train to muscle failure during the cutting phase. That happens in the building phase. The actual program stays exactly the same for both Cutting Phase and Building Phase.

As part of periodization it is also important to keep exchanging (preferably on a monthly basis) your exercises with new ones for the same muscle group. Again, this keep the muscles guessing and growing otherwise over the longer term they may stop responding.

During the Building Phase period, increase weight on all exercises on a weekly basis, forcing the muscles to respond and grow – kind off like a shock treatment. (Sure this will mean sore muscles, but soon you will learn to LOVE the feeling of sore muscles, because then you know that you had a good workout.)

So last week you failed on the 8th rep with 30kg. Put on 32 kg and go and punish the muscles this week. Increase the weight like this on every exercise. If a 2kg increase is too much to handle, make it 1kg or even 500g, but do NOT stop increasing the weights. Younger guys will grow like mushrooms doing this. Our older folk are like good red wine, it takes some time but our muscles will respond.

A set consists of 8 repetitions per exercise in the Building Phase (with muscle failure occurring on the 8th rep) and 12-20 reps with a 20-30% lighter weight for the Cutting Phase.

Typically rest for no longer than 2 minutes between sets. Actually the less you rest the better. But you must rest long enough for your muscles to recover to do your next set.

WARM-UP! Guys, the older you get, the more important is it to warm-up the muscles before training. You are warmed up when a light sweat appears on your forehead. This usually takes 5-10 minutes of light repetition lifting or aerobics. Be careful to consider stretching as warming up. A cold muscle may tear if you stretch it. Stretching is beneficial after a heavy-set, not for warming up purposes.

Another note here: Shoulders are very prone to lifting injuries. Make sure you warm them up double well, just to make sure.

Using caffeine pills (CLICK HERE TO VIEW MY PREFERRED CHOICE) or ECA type stack (lately banned in most countries) before your training may help you with energy levels while training. But since it is mostly outlawed, a good alternative is good old caffeine pills. There is also some fancy energy boosting and cell volumizing powders on the market, which you can take before training. It is an expensive route but some of the products might be beneficial in providing focus and energy during your workout, although I find the caffeine pills to work best.

Training at gym or home? During my first 5 years I did it at home. Sure you must have the right equipment and it could take some time to acquire it, but especially if you have serious family obligations (small kids/babies) it makes it much easier to work out at home. Home workouts only work if you are very focussed. If you struggle with motivation, then going to a gym or even getting a personal trainer might be a good idea.

Training

My reps for each exercise are listed as what I performed for the Building Phase, followed by the Cutting Phase. Day 1: Chest/Abs

With the ab routine, I must feel the PAIN, if there was no pain then I was simply NOT squeezing those abs hard enough! Abs are like any muscle group, they must be trained in low reps to the point of failure to grow. I was not going to grow deep rippling abdominals by doing 200 crunches in a row.

•   Barbell Bench Press – Medium Grip 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

•   Barbell Incline Bench Press – Medium Grip 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

•   Decline Barbell Bench Press 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• •   Butterfly 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps
  • Ab Crunch Machine 3 sets of 20 reps, 3 sets of 25 reps
  • Air Bike 3 sets of 20 reps, 3 sets of 25 reps
• Crunches 3 sets of 20 reps, 4 sets of 25 reps

Day 2: Shoulders/Traps

Note: Some people prefer to switch the shoulders and leg routine around so that legs are on Tuesdays and shoulders on Wednesdays.

•   Side Lateral Raise 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Front Dumbbell Raise 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Dumbbell Shoulder Press 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Standing Front Barbell Raise Over Head 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Dumbbell Shrug 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps
• Barbell Shrug Behind The Back 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

Day 3: Legs

• Barbell Deadlift 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Barbell Full Squat 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps
• Stiff-Legged Barbell Deadlift 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps
• Lying Leg Curls 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps
• Standing Calf Raises 4 sets of 15 reps, 4 sets of 20 reps

Day 4: Back

• Close-Grip Front Lat Pulldown 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Gironda Sternum Chins 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Lying T-Bar Row 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps
• Hyperextensions (Back Extensions) 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

Day 5: Biceps/Triceps

I did biceps and triceps exercises in supersetting mode. Supersetting means doing different exercises back-to-back without any resting in-between the sets which provides a great pump.

• Dumbbell Alternate Bicep Curl 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Tricep Dumbbell Kickback 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Barbell Curl 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Cable One Arm Tricep Extension 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Alternate Hammer Curl 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Bench Dips 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

• Concentration Curls 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps
•   Decline Dumbbell Triceps Extension 4 sets of 8 reps, 4 sets of 12 reps

Day 6: Rest (feel free to do some cardio but just remember – cardio limits muscle growth)

Day 7: Rest (feel free to do some cardio but just remember – cardio limits muscle growth)

If you are completely new to training I urge you to read my article “Starting a muscle transformation from scratch – for the novice”

POINTS OF NOTE

1. During training drink a BCAA shake with L-Glutamine (Caffeine might be added for focus and energy).

• [Click here to view my preferred choices & where to get it from trustworthy international supplier]

This helps to protect your muscles from being used as a source of energy during training, protecting your muscles. Yip you got it right, doing things the wrong way can actually result in your muscles shrinking!

2. Consider NAC and ALA on your supplement list.

If you can afford it, it is a GREAT idea to also include NAC (N-acetylcysteine, 200mg) and especially ALA (Alpha Lipoic Acid, 200mg) in the morning and evening. Their benefits for muscle-building (and other health benefits) has been well documented (especially ALA) and many top bodybuilders use it this way. To read more about them, Just type NAC benefits and Alpha Lipoic Acid benefits on Google.

• [Click here to view my preferred choices & where to get it from trustworthy international supplier]

Both of them have positive effects on your immune system as well as protecting your liver. ALA also has a important and powerful effect on insulin blood levels, which in turn have a positive impact on your muscle-building efforts.

This BASIC TRANSFORMATION information is free, but should you wish to make a small financial contribution towards my efforts, it will be greatly appreciated to help me keep this site on air. To make donation – click DONATION link below

3. Other supplements?

FOR ALL SUPPLEMENTS – Click here to see which brands I recommend and to find trustworthy suppliers online.

Creatine one of the best supplements to take, although some people complain in makes no difference. Best is to take it with the whey shake directly after training. It is best absorbed when mixed with grape juice. Some products include everything needed for optimal uptake so be carefull to check packaging. Vitargo is generally assumed to be one of the better products. Omega 3 take in morning with breakfast and at night with evening meal. Benefits to many to mention but overall a great supplement to take for both fat loss and muscle-building. Finasteride or Proscar (prescription med – showed up to a 40% cancer risk reduction in trials) to protect the precious prostate, enough said. Take as prescribed. Click the following link to view video “Protect your manhood”

ZMA good product for healthy testosterone levels, but be sure to take it on an empty stomach at night, 45 minutes before your last bedtime shake.

Multi Vitamin. This is a very important part of your supplement regime. You need a potent combination. I suggest the following two: OPTI-MEN or Universal Animal Pak or LifePak for Nuskin.

4. Lots of water while training.

Do not rely on going to drink water while training. You must have your own bottle of water with you while training and continually sip from it. I cannot stress how important the water consumption is for muscle-building and dieting purposes.

Cola drinks and coffee/tea is NOT a substitute for water. They have the OPPOSITE effect and dehydrate your body because they are a mild diuretic.

To give you and idea, lets look what typically happens when you go on a muscle-building/dieting quest with very little water consumption:

• You will experience frequent headaches.
• You will struggle to lose fat!
• You will struggle to build muscles!
• You will experience a bad skin.
• You stand a great change of kidney damage. Concentrated protein intake without enough water intake as well, place high stress on your kidneys. This high stress over a period will definitely cause harm to your kidneys.
• Great stress will also be placed on your liver.

5. Immediately after training

Take whey isolate (40g) with water (not milk!) and a medium banana and 5g Glutamine. CLICK HERE FOR MY PREFERRED CHOICES

After training your body wants energy and fast absorbing protein. NO fat whatsoever must be taken, not even fat-free milk (which is also a slow release protein).

Do not leave out the banana since it is critical for your post workout nutrition. Although a banana is your first choice, you can also consume 200ml 300ml fruit juice (apple) instead.

C. Dieting

Lets get one thing straight. No matter how good or hard you train, you will NOT grow if you do not get your diet sorted correctly. Diet makes up easily 80% of your muscle Building Phase success.

If you don’t believe me, you WILL learn it the hard way.

This diet is designed for a male person who generally does not struggle to lose weight and are only mildly overweight (generally with a BF% of lower than 20%).

If you really struggle to lose weight, there is no getting away without weighing food. In such a case, I suggest joining a weight-loss organization to help you check your diet and fat loss.

They should have plans available for people who want to focus on muscle-building and if not, a dietician should be able to help you adapt your diet for muscle-building requirements.

The following two diets yields great results when applied correctly:

CUTTING PHASE DIET:

CLICKE HERE TO VIEW CUTTING DIET: CUTTING PHASE DIET

BUILDING PHASE DIET:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW BUILDING DIET: BUILDING PHASE DIET

Be warned: This is not a diet to lose weight without training. This will work great to lose unwanted weight BUT ONLY with a dedicated and serious training routine.

Points of note:

1. Try staying away from diet Carbonated drinks and too much coffee (only 2 cups allowed daily with fat-free milk and no sugar). Both these items act as a mild diuretic and means that you will have to drink even more water to replace the water lost as a result. Plus the sweeteners used in diet carbonated drinks is simply unhealthy!
2. Do NOT skip a meal. This is the no. 1 enemy for Building Phase muscles.
3. Do NOT eat more than the suggested amounts or you will gain fat.
4. Do NOT eat less than the suggested amounts or you will struggle to build muscles.
5. Eat your meals even if you feel full!
6. Your meals must be spaced between 3-4 hours apart.
7. Sorry, NO alcohol allowed during the week and weekends only one glass of wine or 1 beer per day. Alcohol is a big enemy of dieting and building muscles. Cutting it out completely is the best option.
8. Smoking? You cannot be successful at building muscles and continue smoking; the two opposes each other. It’s a great habit to stop if you wanna better yourself.
9. Sweets & chocolate. Sorry, but they are out.
10. Cheat meal? Once a week (only one meal). Do not stuff yourself (important), but have a sit-down meal and eat whatever your taste buds feel like including your favorite dessert. Preferably leave this for the weekend.

What is the difference between WHEY and CASEIN protein?

• Whey Isolate is a quick releasing protein powder and perfect to use when your body requires and immediate uptake of protein. [Click here to buy my recommended WHEY protein]
• Casein protein is used when you need a slow uptake of protein, such as while you is sleeping. [Click here to buy my recommended CASEIN protein]

Why so many shakes?

• Well, simply to make your life easier. I do not have the time to stand for hours at night preparing the next day meals.
• Shakes do make it so much easier to get your muscle goals.
• But be careful; do not replace your existing solid meals with shakes. The human body has not been made to live on liquids alone; your body needs some solid meals.

HOW TO GROW AS BIG AS POSSIBLE QUICKLY

I get asked a lot by guys new to lifting, what to do to grow as quickly as big as possible. I am no guru on bodybuilding, but I have learned my fair share as time passed. So here follows some of the truths that I have learned:

My suggestions to guys new to bodybuilding are always the same. You will not grow, no matter how hard you lift if you do not get the train/eat/rest pattern sorted.

Do NOT overtrain. This is the easiest way for your muscles to shrink – literally!

The best growth usually occurs when you work a muscle group intensely only once a week. You have to rest about 2 days a week. Your body MUST have time to grow and recover.

Muscles do NOT grow in gym (they actually get torn down); they grow outside the gym while you are sleeping/recuperating/resting.

Overtraining is by far the biggest mistake people new to the sport makes.

No matter how hard you train, if you do not eat correctly, you will NOT grow.

Diet determines 80% of your bodybuilding success.

Eat 7 small meals a day. Each meal must have a good protein source.

First meal must be when u wake up (fast update protein shake like Whey) and last meal when u goes to bed (slow release protein shake like Casein).

LOTS of water & you must use a potent Multi Vitamin.

No less than 3L but preferably 4L water per day. Use clean water. Preferably filtered water.

Your body will need serious recuperating from all the training. If you want your body to function optimally for muscle growth, you MUST take a potent Multi Vitamin.

Examples: Universal Animal Pak and OPTI-MEN [Click here to buy my recommended Multi Vit]

The type of exercise you do is not that important.

What is important is that you do the exercise with a heavy enough weight so that you reach muscle failure by rep 8.

If you focus on slow controlled movements and forcing the muscle with intensity to failure at rep 8, you WILL grow (if you rest enough and eat right).

Follow the above rules; make sure you cover a muscle group once a week and train with highest intensity possible. Then the type of exercise does not matter so much anymore, because you will grow.

D. HOW TO GET CUT?

First I must state that I have never struggled to lose weight.

The main reason for my low bf% is that I eat VERY little carbs (like in VERY little!).

I try to eat a fair amount of good oils (flaxseed oil, extra virgin olive oil, etc.) with every meal.

It not only help the cholesterol levels but also in truth HELP you to lose fat weight (obviously when consumed in the right quantities).

Again, lots and lots of water are critical for a fat-loss environment. High water consumption WILL speed up your fat-loss dramatically. Fat metabolizes easier in a high water consumption environment.

If you are new to consuming lots of water, then the following is suggested:

• Start out slowly. Fade in your water consumption.
• Expect a lot of toilet runs until such time that your body gets used to the higher water intake.
• Headaches and bad skin could appear but will soon disappear. It is a sign of all the bad stuff being flushed and worked out by your body. You are on your way to become much healthier and your body realizes it.
• NEVER drink water from a plastic bottle after it has stood in the sun or warm environment. Extremely harmful chemicals get released into the water when sun, etc heat up the plastic container

NO carbs after 6pm! Your last meal just before bed MUST be a casein slow release protein shake containing near zero carbs.

This rule applies irrespect of when you are training midday or evening.

Eating every 3 hrs (from waking up to going to bed) means your metabolism is firing continuously, which in turn mean you are burning a lot of energy. Do not underestimate these frequent meals for fat-loss environment.

You will also start seeing that your stomach literally shrinks and becomes flatter because it has to deal with less food at a single time.

Some people have done severe damage to their metabolisms through fad diets. For such people, it might take 1 – 3 months of frequent small meals just to correct their metabolism. U wont see any benefit until such time that you have aligned and corrected your metabolism.

Many guys ask me how I get the Adonis belt so pronounced.

I honestly think the biggest factor is your genetic make-up. But I do something that might help making it more pronounce. With EVERY rep, I contract from my abs/core to do the rep. It basically results in and abs/core workout with every lifting session.

Photo taken in August 2013

This is me 5 months after my 50th birthday (beginning of 2015)

E. Spirituality

MY LIFE STORY – And Lastly, for those interest, this is my story about how I came to follow Jesus Christ.

My life story. The wrongful actions. My pain. My near-death experience. My death sentence. My new life. My new body.

Important: This is not meant to offend anyone, this is about my life and the experiences I had.

This is NOT meant to glorify me! All the glory goes to the almighty God, without whom I would not even be here today.

Hopefully this will help the reader to understand why Christ is so central to everything I do. There is no room in my heart that is closed for Christ. He stands in the middle of every room. No matter whether it is bodybuilding, work, sport, socializing, etc With everything, and in everything, I will give the glory to Jesus Christ my savior.

I do not believe or adhere to political correctness. I live my life with the focus completely on God almighty.

Before the age of 40 (now I am 57), I lived a life removed from God. Although I did not realize it then, my life was filled with all kinds of sin. I was following the call of the world. I was self-righteous and in my wisdom created a God to suite me. I followed the teaching of the world about God, i.e.: Anything is right, anything goes, as long as it is right or true for me. The God I made up was defined by my own rules. Basically I created my own God. How ignorant I realize I was. How can I tell God how and what He should be!

Today I realize that this is actually what most people do

But through all this, God was watching over me and was about to call me with a loud voice. Because he had plans for me, but I was not fulfilling those plans.

Let me take you 20+ years back. God, in his wisdom, led me and my wife to start a business. We both resigned from our secure jobs and went head over heel into creating this business. We knew nothing about running a business and less about the field of business we’ve entered. But God had a plan and He guided us through all the pitfalls and although we were far removed from Him, the business grew from strength to strength against all odds. [That is a miracle in itself. We started the business with $2 266, all the money we had. Today we use nearly a 100 people, most coming from a jobless background and our yearly turnover is in excess of $6 000 000 a lot of money in South African terms! And all this without taking out a single loan to help the business.]

The bigger the business grew the more self-righteous I became and the further removed from God.

I believed I was invincible becoming increasingly depressed and with all this success found no real reason worth living.

I could afford everything my heart want, do anything I want, but simply nothing satisfied me.

Then at age 40 (more than 15 years ago) God spoke to me in a very loud voice. I ended up in hospital fighting for my life…

Here  is my video on what happened to me:

I knew (unexplainable and with 100% certainty), the moment I hit the hospital bed, this was God working with me. I knew this was the moment in my life where I had to choose between life and death in more than one way.

Then the news came from the doctors: You’ve got about three years to live.

My battle with God was over. I surrendered. I can remember how I was lying in my gymroom flat on the ground on my stomach in front of Christ, crying for forgiveness. My sins I’ve done in the past against God just became crystal clear to me. Where I had no remorse in the past, my heart was just filled with painful remorse. My past life was in front of my eyes all my sins, all my self-righteousness and self-glorification. I literally felt the presence of God and His purity and holiness and this overwhelmed me. It made me realize really how impure I was and how much I’ve hurt Him through my past actions.

I laid everything before Him and pleaded forgiveness by the blood of Jesus. It was an extremely emotional period for me and I cried before God a lot.

There were a couple of times that Jesus lifted me up from this despair with and awesome peace and love. The joy I felt at moments like that was awesome amazing.

My life changed full stop. I repented my sins before Christ (each one of them), I accepted Christ as my savior and I accepted that He died for my sins on the cross and I turned from my ways

My depression disappeared. I wanted to follow Christ with all my heart and started living just for Him. Everything I did was focussed on Him and for His glory. I cut out everything that was part of this world from my life and brought Christ in the middle of everything.

I started doing weightlifting seriously and even with that, Christ was in the middle of it. There was no aspect or facet of my life where Christ was not part of it.

The emotional healing continued.

The business went further from strength to strength.

My health continued to increase.

We started with various gospel projects at work and then my eyes started opening and I saw what God had in plan for me all along and why He pulled me closer to Him when I did not listen to His calls. With our gospel projects at work, we reached more than 100 families most of who renewed their faith in God and drew closer to Him. Our company’s number one priority became to glorify Christ.

We started sponsoring missionaries (and some of our own people are now in missionary/outreach work)

We became involved in many gospel projects to spread the word and uplift disadvantaged communities.

Money was of less importance to me, but God blessed us so much that the more we give the more we had.

This is now just over more than 15 years since the doctors told me my fate. But God had other plans for me. I regained most of my health and the doctors were amazed. I looked physically the best I’ve ever looked in my life. I am at peace and every day is a joy for me. It is the most amazing path to follow Christ. Everything I entrust to Him (my life, health, big+small problems) and its incredible how He flattens the bumps in my road and bring peace to it.

I live very close to God now. Sometimes I can literally hear God speaking to me. I daily lay all my problems before Him and he gives me clarity each and every time. Every day I am so amazed by the wisdom and greatness of God.

A couple of months ago I had an amazing vision while praying. God took me from where I was kneeling and the next moment I was kneeling at the feet of Christ. It all was so vivid. The peace and love were so amazing. It was one of the most wonderful and powerful experiences of my life.

And lastly, after 17 years of marriage God blessed my wife and me with a child. Little Janu is now in his teens, perfect and preciously beautiful. His name Janu means, gift from God.

Janu at age 4 (now a taller than me at age 15)

My life before Christ was empty, painful and meaningless. I cannot in words express the amazing changes my life went through when I started following Christ. All I can do is pray that everyone receive the opportunity to experience the love, peace and fulfillment it brings when following Christ with ALL your heart.

When I see the pain and suffering people bring upon themselves, the self-glorification, the sexual perversion, the drug abuse, the gods we create for ourselves, the pain we are causing God, I just want to shout out from a mountain top Open your eyes people the real God is out there and you have no idea the love He has for you, Stop telling God how he should be and listen to what God says He is! [God almighty gave us a detailed account of His being in His word that stands forever: The Bible]

I wanna give u Proverbs 16:3. Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans…

Please let me know if this info has helped you.

Wish you much success!

Gert Louw

gertlouwljc@hotmail.com

For those requiring some extra motivation…here is 2 short videos I did on my 50th birthday photoshoot:

I urge you to also check out the following pages in my blog for valuable more info:

AESTHETIC leg training (without weight lifting)

Best PRE & POST workout supplements for lean muscle growth

Monster arm (biceps/triceps) training – cutting phase

How to train legs for growth with weak or bad knees

Why Squats Are Killing Your Lower Back

How to GROW lagging CHEST (PEC) muscles

Getting calves and abs to RESPOND to training

Supercharging your METABOLISM

How to train for aesthetic growth?

Can I still transform my body when over 40?

What! Get off my butt and train?

Bodybuilding Exercises – execution and muscles involved

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