Fitness Tips

Great Abdominals
When it comes to abdominals, the question I hear the most is, "How can I get a six- pack? I think that�s the one thing most people would love to accomplish from their workout routines. The most important thing to remember is that you can have the best ab workouts in the world. But, if your abdominal muscles are hidden under a layer of fat, none of it will make the slightest bit of difference. The first step to a flatter stomach is an exercise and diet plan designed specifically to shed subcutaneous fat. For men the "six pack" becomes visible around 9% bodyfat and most women are happy with seeing the little "groove" that runs down the center of the stomach, which starts to show around 15% bodyfat. So remember, to get a six-pack you have to give up that six pack (or twelve pack or twenty-four pack), and stick to your diet plan consistently along with a correct workout routine.

Women and Weights by Karen Sessions
So ladies, what can weight training do for you? Weight training will give you near-perfect symmetry and put curves and definition in all the right places. Muscle is firm and toned, not soft and mushy. It gives you strength, health, vitality and a beautiful body. Also, weight training will decrease your chance of injuries in everyday life and recreational activities. Weight training improves work, sleep, endurance, sex and many other areas of your life.

Training for ladies shouldn't differ that much from men's training. We have the same amount of muscles and they contact in the same fashion. The only difference between men and women are hormones. Men naturally have higher levels of testosterone, a muscle-building hormone, while women are constantly fighting the estrogen issue, a fat storing hormone. Now I'm not saying that just because you are female and have higher levels of estrogen you are doomed to gain weight. What I'm saying is that we can use what we have to our advantage. Regular weight training will build lean body mass. The more body lean body mass you acquire, the higher you raise your metabolism. An increased metabolism results in more calories burned per minute. Sounds interesting? Read on....

A statement I hear a lot is that muscle weighs more than fat. The fact of the matter is that a pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh the same, a pound. A pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat does. Muscle allows you to eat more food without getting fat because muscle is the only body material that is active. Once you put muscle on your body you will burn an additional twenty to thirty calories an hour. Bodybuilders actually burn fifty to seventy-five additional calories per hour.

A misconception that I hear many women saying is that they don't want to workout because if they stop the muscle will turn to fat. Now, let's analyze this statement. People being a resistance training program in order to rid the body of fat, not to gain it. Muscle can't turn into fat any more than fat can turn to muscle. Muscle (metabolically active) and fat (metabolically inactive) are two completely different tissues responsible for their own functions. Just as your heart and liver are two different organs performing completely different functions, the same goes for muscle and fat. Now I ask you, can your heart turn into your liver, or vise versa? If there were any truth to the above statement there would be a lot of people out there with great muscle potential, if you catch my drift.

An explanation to the above myth is that some bodybuilders do gain extra weight off-season in preparation for the up coming competitive season. Many veterans of bodybuilding gain weight when they get older or retire, how does that differ from the average American? There is a biological reason for the weight gain. The metabolism slows down as we age, meaning the body needs fewer calories per day to maintain itself. The downfall is that most people, including bodybuilders, don't reduce their caloric intake to compensate for this slowdown and the end result is fat gain.

Another explanation is that bodybuilders, in hard training, develop enormous appetites and need the extra calories for muscle growth and repair. If the intake stays the same when training volume is reduced or ceased, the unburned calories get stored as fat; again, no different than the average American.

Exercising and nutrition is a learned lifestyle, if you are not consistent with it you will decrease muscle and increase fat, but muscle definitely will never turn into fat.

STRENGTH TRAINING FOR WOMEN - Werner Kieser
Some beauty salons advertise with slogans such as �Lose weight where you want to�. However, it's a fallacy to think that you can break down a specific area of fat, whether by exercise or �heat packs�.

Cellulite
Cellulite is a pathological term for a specific form of female fat accumulation. In the 1950s and even as far back as the time of Rubens the ideal woman was plump with large breasts. However, both the sex icons of the 1950s and the Rubens' ideal had �cellulite�. Ointments are ineffective against cellulite because the active substances cannot penetrate the skin. However, strength training can have an indirect effect: it strengthens muscle tissue thus making the surrounding skin firmer.

Firm means strong
Muscle condition has a significant effect on our external appearance. In fact a woman can often improve her figure spectacularly by strength training. This is because untrained muscles somehow always look like �fat�, even though it's not really fat. The muscles are simply flabby because their �tone�, ie the tension at rest, is too low.

Resistance training increases muscle volume. This increase in volume is accompanied by an increase in water absorption. This increases the osmotic pressure in the muscle cells and strengthens the tissue. In terms of physics it can be compared to the revival witnessed in a thirsty plant immediately after it is watered.

This effect is particularly marked with the largest muscles in the human body, the gluteals.

Similarly if you exercise the muscles beneath the breasts this can have a positive effect on them. Although the breasts themselves have no muscles - they are glands surrounded by ample amounts of fat, development of the underlying muscles will raise the breasts themselves.

Too Much Muscle
Although the benefits of strength training for women are now well-known, many women still worry that strength training will give them an over-masculine appearance, ie it will produce a muscle mass that is unattractive in women.

In fact there are very few women who have the genetic potential to develop very strong muscles and it can be assumed that very few women will want to develop their muscles to that extreme. So how can you achieve what you want and yet prevent what you don't want?

As soon as you reach your goal in terms of your external appearance, ie based on what you think is right for you, you simply �freeze� the load. Continue your regular exercise sessions but don't increase exercise intensity any further, ie don't increase the weights, repetitions or duration. This way you will remain �in shape� in the truest sense of the word throughout your life.

For More information, Check out some other Techniques. . .