Total Body Workout

Beginning with the basics, we’ll start you off with exercises for the lower, upper, and midsection of your body. Pick two exercises per body part, and do about 15 reps for about 5 sets of each, along with a 5-10 minute cardio session to warm up and a 5-10 minute stretching session to cool down.

Keep in mind that the following exercises incorporate Compound Movements and Isolation Movements. Compound movements stimulate the large muscle groups in your body, and the isolation movements target smaller muscle groups and areas needing individual attention.

How to Build Toned, Attractive Muscles

Regardless of the popular belief that lifting lighter weights is the key to toning, to have muscle tone, you need to have muscles first. Meaning the first step to a toned body is lifting big, and growing your muscles. Once you’ve done that, then you can need to get rid of fat, which will enhance your muscles and give them tone. Here are some things to keep in mind when building muscle tone:

• Make Use of Free Weights – Using free weights, such as barbells and dumbbells, build stabilizing muscles that aid in balance and control. Meaning you will work more muscles, even those unintended. This will give you striations and definition versus one huge bulge on the intended muscle groups.

• Train Well, Without Over Doing It – It is essential to train intensively to see results, which means adding reps and weight each session. By training hard, however, you must ensure you give your muscles adequate time to recover. Your muscles grow the most while you’re asleep, so make sure to get rest as much as possible in the evening. Another key point to consider is that you to make sure you don’t train everyday or work the same muscles more than once a week; also, keep the days you do cardio separate than lifting days.
  

Understanding Your Muscle Fibers

Having a firm grasp on your muscle fiber type is highly important to your training. Without the proper knowledge of how your muscles work, you could be putting in a lot of effort for little or no result. Here is some helpful information about how to turn that around:

All the muscles in your body are made of small, fibrous bundles. Contained in these bundles are two types of fiber: fast twitch muscle fiber, and slow twitch muscle fiber.  Understanding the amount of each type of fiber you have, will help you decide how to train each muscle group in your body.

Fast twitch muscle fibers, a.k.a. white muscle fibers, sustain high intensity, short duration activity. These fibers enable explosive movement, such as doing squats or bench press, or any other weight training activities.

Slow twitch muscle fibers, a.k.a. red muscle fibers, maintain low intensity, long duration activity, or in laments terms, walking or any other aerobic activity.