How to Tone Up Like TOWIE Star Lucy Mecklenburgh

To be on TV all the time, you have to look good. This is why so many of us turn to celebrity fitness DVDs, and scour the magazine pages for the latest celebrity wellness tips. One such stunning celeb is Lucy Mecklenburgh, the star of The Only Way is Essex who has been working hard on her fitness videos, Results With Lucy. With that in mind, we spoke to celebrity wellness expert Sarah Jordan, who has found out everything you need to know about how Lucy Mecklenburgh takes care of her wellbeing. The TOWIE star is looking fantastic thanks to her hardcore workout routine, and so if you’re feeling inspired, you can get the toned tummy that Lucy Mecklenburgh has by following this top advice:

 

1. Think Hard About What You’re Eating: Jordan advises, ‘Make like Lucy and work on cutting your body fat levels with a diet of veggies, fruit, wholegrains and’good fats’ like avocados and nuts. If you’re an adventurous cook, you could try making your own sushi like Lucy, which is low in fat and high in protein. Remember it’s not about starving yourself. You need to feed your muscles and stay strong because this is what maintains a fast metabolism. Eat healthy, low calorie meals regularly for the best results.’

 

2. It’s Impossible to Spot Reduce Your Stomach Fat: ‘It’s not physically possible to burn fat in your desired area,’ says Jordan. ‘No matter how much you hate your stomach, fat won’t necessarily drop off there first. The trick is to focus on an all-over body workout, including cardiovascular exercises like running, skipping and rowing.’

 

3. Get an All-Over Body Workout with Circuit Training:Jordan instructs, ‘Start with squat jumps: Stand with your feet roughly shoulder-width apart, then slowly bend your legs and arms to about 90 degrees at the same time. Once your thighs are parallel to the floor, explode into the air as high as you can go. Land softly and repeat the motion again. Follow squats with some skipping rope action and then burpees. These two exercises work your whole body and will improve your coordination, footwork and balance. Add lunges and push-ups to tone your thighs, bum and upper chest.’

 

4. You Don’t Need to Worry About Bulking Up: ‘Lucy was initially worried about becoming too bulky, but its a training myth,’ Jordan asserts. ‘Building lots of muscle that alters your body shape takes years, expert nutrition and complete dedication. Unlike men, women don’t produces masses of testosterone which is key in building big bulky muscles. Instead weight training will make you shapelier, thinner and more toned.’

 

5. Tackle Your Hips and Upper Thighs Correctly:Jordan suggests, ‘Start with a series of side planks to tone hips and whittle waists. Next try leg extensions. Make sure that your legs are fully extended behind you. Rest your arms by your sides, or extended out and away from your body. Take a deep breath. As you exhale, use the muscles in your thighs to extend your legs up towards the sky. Inhale your breath, and slowly lower your legs back to the floor. Perform two sets of ten repetitions of the exercise in order to ensure optimal results.’

 

6. Stay Motivated with Thinspiration: If you can’t remember what you used to look like before you started losing weight, give yourself a visual reminder. Jordan points out, ‘Lucy’s fellow TOWIE star Lydia Bright believes the best way to stay motivated is to put the best picture of yourself on the fridge, and keep at it.’

Categories: body, body workout, Celebrity Wellness, Circuit Training, jordan, lucy, Lucy Mecklenburgh, motivation, results nbsp, stay motivated, towie star

Tone Your Arms And Shoulders With These Exercises

With many workouts focusing on your abs or tightening your glutes, it’s no surprise that your arms often get neglected. You need to do an upper body workout too though, in order to ensure that your whole body gets a workout. We’d all love to have sculpted arms and shoulders, particularly in the summer when you want to head out into the sunshine in a short-sleeved t-shirt or a sleeveless dress. Furthermore, shoulder and arm exercises are also idea for improving poor posture and keeping your muscles flexible. Remember that for the best results, you should use exercises that target more than one muscle; spot reduction isn’t going to produce the same toned arms as a multi-muscle workout will. For the following exercises, start with two to three sets of 12 to 15 reps, at least twice a week, and then gradually increase your reps or add another set as your arms get stronger.

Shoulders

Two of the best exercises for your shoulders are lateral raises and the overhead shoulder press. You can add variations and increasing reps and weight to make these more difficult once you’ve had time to adjust to the workouts.

Lateral raise

This arm exercise works your lateral deltoids and is a simple one to begin with. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and let your arms hang by your sides; slowly raise your arms to each side, keeping your elbows straight, until your arms at shoulder height. Lower them back and repeat, but don’t raise your shoulders as you lift your arms. You should start with a light weight but not too light that the exercise becomes easy straight away. You need to be challenging your muscles and gradually increase the weight each week.

Overhead shoulder press

Once again, begin by holding dumbbells in each hand, hold your arms to your sides with your elbows bent at right angles so that your wrists are above your elbows. Slowly press your dumbbells upwards until your arms are fully extended, hold and then slowly lower. You can also add a bicep component to this move by starting with your arms down in front of you and your palms facing forward. Curl the dumbbells up to your shoulders and then move into the overhead press by rotating your arms as you press the weights up.

Upper arms:

Triceps

Start by sitting on the bench with your palms down and your fingers wrapped over the front edge of the bench. With your legs extended in front of you and knees just slightly bent, slide forward off the bench so that you’re supporting yourself with your arms. Slowly dip down until your elbows reach a 90 degree angle and then push back up again. Be sure to tighten your abs and glutes as you do this, keeping good posture all the while. Don’t roll your shoulders forward.

Biceps

Bicep curls may be a good place for you to start an upper body workout, then you can develop from there. The reverse plank pull-up targets not only your biceps but also your shoulders and deltoids. You can use anything from a Smith machine at the gym to a bar at the playground! Stand under the bar and hold it with your hands, palms facing up. Then walk forward until you’re fully extended in a reverse plank – you need to create a straight line with your body. Slowly bend your elbows and pull yourself up towards the bar, then lower yourself whilst maintaining control.

Categories: arms, body workout, exercise, fully extended, gradually increase, overhead shoulder, palms facing, reverse plank, shoulder press, toning, Upper Body

How to Do a Full Body Workout Without Using Weights

You might think that weights are in indispensable part of a weight loss and fitness regime, but the truth is that you don’t need weights to improve your physical wellness and wellbeing. Workouts can include all different kinds of exercises and tone all different muscle groups without actually lifting weights. You can do sets of various exercises and repetitions of exercises to improve strength and to give yourself a full body workout.

 

A deck of cards pushup is one such exercise. Pushups are very intense because they work some important muscle groups such as the chest, shoulder and tricep muscles. To do a pushup, rest on your hands and your toes, with your body in a straight line and your arms directly under your shoulders, then use your arms to lower your chest to the floor and raise it again. In order to do a deck of cards pushup you can use a deck of cards to determine how many pushups you should do. For example, if you turn over the seven of diamonds, you should get down on the floor and do seven pushups. Rest for 30 seconds and then turn over another card and do the number of pushups sown. A face/royal card is the equivalent of 10 pushups and an ace card equals 15 pushups. To get a good workout done, try to make your way through an entire deck of cards once.

 

Deep knee bends and calf raises can also be done without the added use of any free weights. The knee bends help to strengthen your quadricep muscles and the added calf raises at the end of the movement increase the intensity of the exercise. To do these, put your hands on your hips and stand as straight as you can, with your feet shoulder with apart. Squat down until your upper thighs are parallel to the floor. Stand back up and then stand up on your tiptoes. Do three sets of 10 reps.

Categories: body workout, calf raises, cards, cards pushup, deck, exercise, knee bends, muscle groups, pushups, Weights, Workout