Category Archives: Bodyweight Exercise

Dec 28 2011

How to Get Better Shaped Butt, Hips and Thighs

Shape your butt, hips and thighs better by doing effective strength exercises, not by doing hours and hours of cardio or working out longer.

Shape your hips better by training the gluteus medius. You can also avoid injuries by training the gluteus medius. Weakness in the gluteus medius can result in knee and back injuries. Weakness in the gluteus medius also contributes to instability when you walk, run and jump. In other words, you will avoid many injuries just by training the darn gluteus medius!

The gluteus medius is the main hip abductor. It moves your hip away from your body’s midline. Abduction occurs during any movement requiring you to move from side to side. The gluteus medius and gluteus minimus also have critical roles in gait (walking) because they stabilize the pelvis. This prevents the pelvis from tilting sideways when you are balancing on one foot.

The following exercises are great for shaping, strengthening and conditioning the gluteus medius:

1. Side lying leg lifts
2. Single-leg squats
3. Side Lunges (pictured above)
4. Cable or resistance band hip abductions
5. Side Step ups

And, in general, you will tone your butt, hips and thighs better with one-legged exercises. One-legged exercises really burn the leg fat. Your muscles will also be better balanced because the stronger leg can’t help the weaker leg to lift your body. One-legged exercises are also more intense than two-legged exercises.

You will improve your dynamic balance by doing one-legged exercises. Having dynamic balance means that you are able to maintain your center of gravity over a constantly changing base of support. You cannot have dynamic balance without muscular balance.

To achieve muscular balance in your lower body, one-legged exercises should be a big part of the training program. These one-legged exercises can be performed as strengh or power (full speed) exercises.

One lower body exercise that should be in your program is front step ups (pictured below). This exercise is done one leg at a time to force each leg to work evenly.

The hanging leg should not touch the bench and you should lower your body under control. This exercise can also be done with dumbbells to increase difficulty. Other good one-legged exercises would be squats and lunges. Add more one-legged exercises to your training regimen.

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My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

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Dec 23 2011

Shape Your Body with Bodyweight Cardio

Bodyweight cardio has 3 primary benefits–fat loss, body shaping or toning and heart health. You won’t get bored doing bodyweight cardio. And, it only takes 20-30 minutes per workout.

Your strength workouts will definitely burn fat. Use your cardio workouts to burn fat too! Burn more body fat with a bodyweight cardio circuit. These circuits are a tried and true method to burn more fat, increase strength/endurance and improve heart health.

Cardio exercise doesn’t have to be aerobic. Aerobic exercise is an activity that is done continuously for more than 2 straight minutes. Favorite aerobic exercises are done on the treadmill (walking, running, jogging), bike, elliptical and stair-stepper. Unless you want to run long distance races, you don’t need to do aerobic exercise to improve your body’s ability to process oxygen and improve your heart and lung function.

Anaerobic exercise is all you need to improve heart/lung function and increase your body’s oxygen intake. Anaerobic exercise (like bodyweight cardio, sprint intervals and weightlifting), requires you to lessen the intensity or rest for less than 2 minutes (intervals or circuits). You’re talking about very intense exercise with intervals and circuits!

Interval training is a great way to do cardio exercise. There is much research to show that interval training sessions are superior to continuous aerobic sessions. You will get better fat loss results and more improved heart/lung health doing interval training or circuits.

Bodyweight cardio workouts also burn more fat and calories during and after your workout. Exercise Post-Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) causes your body to burn more calories and fat after a tough workout. Your body has to work harder to get back to its pre-exercise state.

Here are two bodyweight cardio workouts for you to try:

Workout 1

Do each exercise (10 repetitions) one after the other with little or no rest between exercises. Rest 3 minutes between circuits. Do the circuit 3 times.

–Bulgarian split squats

–Incline pushups or pushups on medicine ball

–Pullups to failure

–Walking lunges with rotation

–Inverted rows

–Squat jumps. The squat jump is a power exercise meaning that it is done at full speed. Power exercises activate your bulkier fast twitch muscle fibers which will shape and tone your butt, hips and legs better.

Workout 2

Do each exercise one after the other with little or no rest between exercises. Rest 3 minutes between circuits. Do the circuit 3 times.

–Step Ups-knee high platform (pictured above), 10 repetitions each leg

–Plank, 8 repetitions, 30 second hold

–Pushups on stability ball, 10 repetitions

–Mountain Climbers, 30 seconds, fast

–Pullups, to failure

–Triceps dips on bars, 10 repetitions

Let me know how these workouts treat you!

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“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Check out my other great blogs:

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!

Nov 17 2011

Shape Your Buns Faster with Top Exercise

So, you want to shape your buns faster? Do the following exercise more in your workouts……

The squat jump is a power exercise meaning that it is done at full speed. Power exercises activate your bulkier fast twitch muscle fibers which will shape and tone your butt, hips and legs better.

Shorten and intensify your workouts with more jump training exercises (plyometrics). Plyometric workouts also burn more fat and calories during and after your workout. Exercise Post-Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) causes your body to burn more calories and fat after a tough workout. Your body has to work harder to get back to its pre-exercise state.

A certain amount of strength (core and overall) is needed to enhance your jumping power. Quadriceps, hamstrings, hips, glutes and calves are targets for improvement if you want your lower body to look great in 3-D space! Squats, lunges, leg presses, step ups, hip abductors and calf raises are all good exercises to improve lower body strength.

A female should be able to squat about 75% of her body weight 8-10 times. If you are not able to squat, then you should be able to leg press about 1.5 times your body weight 8-10 times.

Plyometrics is high intensity training, placing great stress on the bones, joints, and connective tissue. Jump training places you at greater risk of injury than less intense training exercises. It is important to perform the exercises correctly before implementation of full-speed exercises.

Jumping and landing techniques should be mastered. Exercises should be performed on safe surfaces such as rubber mats, sprung floors, grass or sand. Concrete or other similar hard surfaces expose you to injury.

I recommend doing plyometric work 2 times a week . Strength work can be done 3 times a week. You should do your plyometric work on the same day that you do lower body strength training. Lower body plyometrics would be done before your leg strength work because plyometrics are done with maximum effort. Therefore, you need to be fresh.

Add squat jumps to your exercise routine…..your buns and legs will look great!

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“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Check out my other great blogs:

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!