Strength Training Exercises For Leaner Muscles

Strength training is associated with bulging biceps and bodybuilders, but that’s not always the case. Strength training is as important for runners and other athletes as it is for people who want to bulk up. This type of exercise is important to keep your muscles strong, not just to gain weight. The common fear, particularly among women, is that strength training is always going to add bulk but this is a myth. You will build lean muscles and burn some fat, so the result in the long run is that you will be stronger and also leaner. And who wouldn’t want that? In fact, women are more likely to tone up from strength training than they are likely to bulk up. You need to work your whole body – that’s the trick. Here are some exercises you may want to add to your routine.

Bicep Curl

Begin by leaning against a solid wall with your feet out in front of you, approximately 12 inches and should-width apart. Hold the dumbbells to your side, with your palms facing forward. Slowly lower your body from the hips until you’re at a 90 degree angle at the knees. Hold this position and holding your elbows into the body, slowly curl the dumbbells upwards at the same time. Make sure you keep your shoulders still and just bend your elbows, squeezing at the top and then returning to the starting position. Aim to do two sets with 10 to 12 repetitions each. This exercise works the biceps, quads and glutes.

Crunches

Your starting position is lying on the floor on a mat on your back, with your knees bent and your hands behind your head. Your feet should be flat on the ground – keep a space between your chin and your chest, looking diagonally towards the ceiling. Exhale and raise your chest until your shoulder blades lift off the floor, then inhale and slowly lower yourself back to the floor. You need to use your abs and hips to lift yourself, not your hands and arms. The strength in this exercise will tone up your abs. Your core is important as you derive so much of your balance from this area of the body, and a strong core means you’ll be better equipped to perform other exercises more effectively. This is the perfect starter exercise for building a stronger core.

Forward Lunges

Begin by standing with your feet about six inches apart from each other and your toes pointing forwards. Inhale and step forward with one leg, lowering your body to a 90 degree angle at both knees. Don’t step out too far – there should be a 2 to a 2.5 foot gap between your feet at this stage. Keep your weight on your heels and don’t allow your knees to cross the plane of your toes. Push up and back into the starting position to complete one rep, then repeat all reps on one leg before switching to the other for one set. Be sure to keep your back upright and note that the further you step, the more you work the glutes and hamstrings. The closer you step, the more you work the quadriceps on the top of your thighs. If you’re struggling with balance, you can place your hand on a chair or wall to steady yourself.This exercise works your quads and your glutes, so it’s ideal if you want to strength the muscles in your lower half of the body.

Categories: body, degree angle, exercise, exercise works, lean muscles, starting position, step, strength, Strength Training, training

Leaner And More Toned In Just Five Days - Here’s How

It may seem sometimes like there’s a certain mystery to getting big and lean, but there isn’t. It simply relies on following a set of four rules and you’ll achieve it. You need to be able to simultaneously strip the fat from your body whilst building muscle. If you do it wrong, you’ll wind up tired, sore and unsuccessful. But do it right, and you’ll see the kind of results you’ve been striving for for years. There’s no magic powder or pill that’s going to help you achieve that physique you’ve been desiring for so long, much as marketing companies would love to tell you that there is. Hard work and a set meal plan is the way to go, with a healthy dose of working out in the gym for good measure. You’ll be training ten times in five days with this plan, but you will see results. This method of training twice a day over the course of a working week may seem like overtraining, but that’s what’s required in order to bulk up in such a short space of time. The guidelines you’ll need to follow with this training programme are as such: train one or two body parts twice in the same day; train with low reps and heavy weights in the morning; train to get a pump in the evening, and save at least four hours in between your morning and evening workouts.

Researchers have found that muscle grows from three mechanisms; mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage. Your morning workouts will account for the mechanical tension to the muscles, then heavy weights on top of this will prime the nervous system for the evening workouts. The evening workouts will deal with the metabolic stress to your muscles, and training twice in the same day will lead to higher levels of muscle damage – those are your three elements. That being said, you still need to let your body recover so you need to sleep for eight hours each day to give your body time to rest. On top of that, you really need to think about what you’re eating. It goes without saying that you’ll need to drink plenty of water to fuel your training sessions, but you also need to ensure that what you’re eating does the same job.

 

Nutrition goes hand in hand with your workouts if you want to reach your goal of a leaner body, so these are some of the rules you need to consider. Don’t eat junk food until after your evening workout – yes, you can still eat it, but keep it to a minimum and save it until you’ve trained. You should also aim to eat protein with every meal if you can. Take 15g of fish oil supplements every day, so keep your organs working effectively and to minimise joint damage. And, as with any healthy diet, you need to eat vegetables with every meal. You should feel full after every meal – don’t stop eating until you do, as you need to replace the energy you’ve burned at the gym. You also need to eat at least three meals every day – a balanced diet requires a certain amount of calories and this is particularly the case if you’re training this hard. These are simple guidelines, so they’re easy to follow, but they’re also appealing. Junk food, regular meals and a healthy dose of protein keeps your appetite at bay and fuels your body for lots of training.

Categories: body, evening, evening workouts, exercise, healthy dose, heavy weights, junk food, lean muscles, mechanical tension, metabolic stress, training