Legs are one of the most common problem areas that clients complain about. Can you relate?
Do you avoid wearing shorts and hate the thought of a bathing suit?
If your thighs rub together, buns jiggle and dimples appear, it’s time to step up your leg routine.
Whatever you’d like to improve about your legs, it isn’t going to fix itself. The best strategy for getting killer legs is to include strength training for your lower body in your regular exercise routine.
To tone and sculpt your legs, incorporate the following five exercises a few times a week and see the difference they make. Stick with it and you’ll be showing off those legs in no time.
Tone Your Legs Move #1: The Squat
A properly done squat is a powerhouse of an exercise. In one movement you work your glutes, hips and thighs. Talk about hitting all the problem areas!
Here’s how to do a proper squat. Position your feet shoulder-width apart. Keeping your back straight, core tight, and chest up, squat down like you’re going to sit in a chair. Bend at the knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor, keeping your knees from extending past your toes. Hold this position, and then exhale as you stand back up. Repeat for 20 repetitions without resting. As your endurance builds, feel free to add resistance by holding weights at your sides.
Tone Your Legs Move #2: Carving Curtsy
This move is a little more complicated but worth the effort. It works your abs, buttocks, and legs—including your inner thighs.
To do the carving curtsy, first stand up straight with your arms bent and hands by your chest. Lunge back and to the right with your left leg so your left foot lands behind your right foot, to the right of your body. Bend both knees to a 90-degree angle, as if you’re performing a curtsy. Swing your left arm forward and up and your right arm back by your right side. Then stand up straight, lifting your left knee out to the side and tap your left knee with your left hand. Do 20 reps on each leg then repeat on the other side.
Tone Your Legs Move #3: The Mountain Climber
This rocking leg exercise mimics the movement of climbing a steep mountain. The faster you move your legs, the more of a cardio workout you’ll get as well.
Get into a push-up position: hands and toes on the floor holding up your body. Holding in your abs, lift your right foot, and bring your right knee toward your chest. Tap the floor with your right foot, and then extend your leg back to starting position. Repeat with your left leg, bringing your left knee up toward your chest and tap the floor. Return to start position. Repeat with both legs for 20 repetitions.
Tone Your Legs Move #4: The Lunge
The lunge is arguably the best leg exercise, as it works pretty much every leg muscle as well as your buttocks. There are quite a few variations to the simple lunge, but to do the basic lunge, stand up straight and tighten your core.
Step forward several feet with your right foot, lightly landing heel first. Bend both legs down until bent at 90 degrees (never more) and your left knee is about an inch above the floor. Your knee shouldn’t extend further than your toes. Keep your body upright, tighten your core and work to keep your balance by not wobbling from side to side. Lift your body up and bring your hips forward until you’re standing straight. Repeat on the other side, lunging forward with your left foot. Complete 20 lunges per leg.
Tone Your Legs Move #5: The Step-Up
Step-ups are great because they mimic movements you perform in daily life. This exercise works your legs and also gets your heart pumping. When you step-ups you can hold a dumbbell in each hand to increase resistance. In addition, you’ll need some sort of step such as a bottom stair, sturdy box, or low stable chair.
Step up with your right foot and then bring your left foot up. Step back down, so both feet are on the floor. Repeat, stepping up first with your left foot. Continue doing this 20 times with each leg.
Incorporate these moves into your routine to tone your legs, lift your buns, strengthen your core, and to encourage healthy weight loss.
Why stop at just toning and sculpting your legs? I’m here to help you transform your entire body! Call or email today to get started on a specialized fitness plan that’s designed to quickly shape your body.
What are you waiting for? Begin your body transformation today by reaching out to me. Email or call to get started today.
If you’re exercising regularly and still not seeing results then it’s time that you look closely at your diet.
One of the biggest obstacles that prevents you from losing fat and getting into awesome shape is all that processed food that you’re still eating.
And I can’t blame you, with the way more and more processed foods are being marketed as healthy, even the health savvy are being fooled.
Take a walk through the local natural foods market and you’ll see nearly every form of junk food that you’d find at the supermarket – only with things like ‘gluten free’, ‘organic’ and ‘zero trans fats’ on the packages.
Those are all great – being gluten free, organic and trans fats free. Fresh, organic veggies, fruits and meats could all boast the same. But when those words are stamped on a package of cookies, chips or the like, then eating them is going to seriously slow your fitness results. Gluten free or not.
Here are the top 5 ‘healthy’ processed foods that you’re eating that are killing your results and keeping you from attaining your goal weight:
Healthy Cereal
Have you seen the cereal aisle at the natural foods market? Its shelves are lined with dozens of cereal boxes, all with bold health claims. There are gluten free cereals, cereals with no corn syrup, cereals with heart healthy grains, cereals with whole grains and even cereals with added vitamins.
Those all sound healthy, right? Well, sure those cereals are technically not as harmful as the brightly colored cereals from the supermarket, but as far as your fat loss results are concerned, the two are really about the same.
Cereal is a dense source of calories, which means it’s almost impossible not to overdo it when enjoying a bowl. If your goal is to lose fat, then cereal, even organic, gluten free cereal, should stay off your daily menu.
Healthy Packaged Snacks
There is a brand of ‘healthy’ popcorn that literally has fit in its name. With branding like that it’s no wonder people are getting confused and eating food that destroys their fitness results.
Popcorn, and other crunchy, packaged ‘health’ food snacks are filled with carbohydrates and calories. Two things that you should be cutting back on when working towards a fitness goal. These snack items are habit forming, so you may tell yourself that it’s just a once-in-awhile treat, but soon it becomes a daily occurrence.
Here’s the simple, unchanging fact about packaged snack foods: No matter what benefits are broadcasted on the package, it’s always going to promote fat storage. Yes, even if it has fit right in its name.
Healthy Energy Bars
The energy bar aisle at the health food store is a colorful, wonderland of beautifully packaged, seemingly healthful snacks. The bars contain nuts, fruits, protein and even goji berries. What’s not to love?
All that sugar, for starters. Manufacturers are clever enough to call sugar ‘evaporated can juice’ or ‘natural cane sugar’ or even ‘rice syrup’ but that sugar reacts in your body just the same as any other sugar. It encourages fat storage.
The next time that you reach for an energy bar, consider all of the calories and sugars. Look for bars that are low in sugars and high in protein, and if you’re eating it in between meals consider eating just half the bar.
Healthy Bread
Have you ever spent time in the bread aisle, reading labels and trying to figure out which is the healthiest? It can be pretty confusing. There’s wheat, whole wheat, gluten free, and sprouted grain. How can you tell what’s the healthiest?
The unfortunate news, for all you bread lovers, is that when it comes to losing inches all bread is a problem. You see, gluten free bread is filled with just as many calories and carbohydrates as wheat bread or sprouted grain bread.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have a free pass to indulge in bread when it’s the ‘healthy’ kind. Your body will convert that healthy bread into fat quicker than you can say burpee.
Healthy Trail Mix
Trail mix is a tricky one for healthy food shoppers. It’s made with nuts and seeds, which we know to be healthy. It’s also often dotted with chocolate, sweetened dried fruits or other treats.
Nuts can belong in a fat loss diet, within certain parameters. For example, a small handful of raw almonds makes a wonderful in-between-meals snack. It’s filled with fiber, protein, good fat, vitamins and minerals.
A half a cup of trail mix, on the other hand, is packed with two or three times the calories in addition to having added sweeteners and extra salt. Not to mention, trail mix is hard to stop eating once you've started. When working towards a fat loss goal, it’s best to stay away from even the healthiest of trail mixes.
Never take a packaged food item based on the claims and benefits printed on the labels. When you’re looking to transform your body, you must guard what goes into your mouth. Packaged foods, even those from the health store, are going to derail your results ever single time.
Speed your fitness results by becoming one of my clients. I’d love to get you to your goals using my results-driven method.
Simply call or email me today to set up your first workout.
Let’s spend some time thinking about what it feels like to be at your goal weight.
In addition to getting you pumped up and motivated to work even more diligently towards your goal, studies have shown that those who spend time visualizing the accomplishment of their goal have a higher success rate in actually getting there.
Visualize the following 7 Gifts of Fitness as being a part of your reality.
Gift of Fitness #1: You Look Amazing
When you are at your ideal weight clothes look and feel amazing. Every. Single. Day. Gone are the days of looking for ways to cover your ‘problem’ areas because even those areas look great. Friends, family members and co-workers tell you how fantastic you look and that you’ve never looked better.
Gift of Fitness #2: You Are Confident
The act of accomplishing any worthwhile goal is enough to seriously boost your confidence, and this is even more apparent when reaching a fitness goal. When your body goes through a transformation there’s no hiding it. You are tighter, leaner and more attractive. You stand straighter, walk taller and exude a genuine confidence that can’t be missed.
Gift of Fitness #3: You Are Energetic
Before you met your fat loss goal, getting off the couch was a challenge…one that you didn't always win. Once you became fit, new surges of energy course through your veins. You thrive on motion and activities that used to tire you out now leave you energized.
Gift of Fitness #4: You Are Strong
The life of a truly fit person knows no limits! In your free time you hike, bike, walk, pick up new hobbies and play with the kids. Picking up items that used to feel heavy is now a breeze as your functionality for daily tasks has never been stronger. Gone are the days when you’d tell yourself, “I can’t do that. I’m not strong enough.”
Gift of Fitness #5: You Are Healthy
You’ll never forget the look on your doctor’s face when examining your transformed body. Gone is the lecture about the many risks of weight-related ailments. Those days are behind you. Your healthy, strong thriving body is health-worry-free.
Gift of Fitness #6: You Don’t Have Weight to Lose
How long have you been trying to lose the fat and get down to your ideal weight? Long time, right? In all that time your fat loss goal has been a giant monkey on your back – always in the back of your mind, always weighing you down.
Guess what? Poof! That giant monkey disappeared the day you reached your goal weight an in its place came a sweet, carefree peace of mind.
Gift of Fitness #7: You Love Life
Once you transformed your body, life got decidedly more fun and exciting. You never knew how much your weight had held you back from excitement and adventure until the day that burden was lifted. You now enjoy life with carefree abandon – the way you were designed to.
If these 7 Gifts of Fitness lit a fire under you to reach your goal weight once and for all then reach out to me right now. Call or email and I’ll have you sailing toward your FIT body in no time.
But don’t wait—to do so would be to risk losing the motivation that you feel right now. I’m here to help you transform your body with a specialized fitness plan that’s designed to quickly get you to FIT.
What are you waiting for? Begin your body transformation today!