With summer quickly approaching, everyone wants to get in shape and achieve that ideal beach body.
If you’re a beginner and don’t know what to do, make sure that you can fit a workout into your schedule. It’s important to remember that a good workout doesn’t have to be a long one. You can even get a good workout in 30 minutes, if not less. For example, a workout consisting of just 15 minutes of cardio, running on the treadmill or elliptical, followed by 15 minutes of weight lifting makes for a great fast workout.
For men and women, cardio is a huge factor to help you to get into the best shape. A good cardio session mixed with some weight lifting can help you achieve your goal even faster. Also for men and women “almost any three-day a week program will work and help you to your overall goal,” said Charles Blanks, Professional Body Builder.
For those who want to work on toning and defining their muscles, the best way to get the results you want lifting weights and doing routines with low weight and high repetitions is the way to go.
This means to do your workouts in sets of three to five with anywhere from 10 to 15 repetitions per set. By doing the workouts this way it allows the muscle to build and become more toned and evenly defined.
For those who want to bulk up and gain muscle mass, using an opposite technique to toning is how to accomplish this goal. Higher amounts of weight with a lower number of repetitions will yield better results for gaining muscle mass faster.
For example to get a bigger chest and arms do three sets of five reps on the bench press with a higher amount of weight and increasing with each set. When it comes to the amount of weight keep in mind to make the weight something you can lift with only a little struggle. Otherwise you’ll overexert your muscles and cause more pain than it will gains. This weight lifting technique applies to all muscle groups
As part of of common gym practice, always have a spotter workout with you. When doing workouts of this caliber, having help if the weight is too heavy to lift is strongly encouraged. Not only useful as a safety measure, your spotter can also provide you with some helpful encouragement to finish the last of your set.
It helps to have a workout partner and spotter that is of equal strength as you. This will help you best finish your set if you are struggling with the weights as they will be able to better assist you.
After either kind of workout, whether going to bulk up or to get toned, it is important to take some kind of supplement to replenish the important vitamins and nutrients your body has lost over the duration of the workout. Protein is a great supplement to take after workouts as it helps your muscles recover faster from the workouts as well as build new muscles in the process.
Once you’ve gotten a schedule for your workouts try to set goals for yourself. These goals will help you stay on track so try to make smaller and achievable goals or milestones to achieve along the way. This will help you to reach your end result even better and to help keep you from getting discouraged if you don’t see results right away.
As you achieve your milestones and eventually your overall goals, there are ways to help you to maintain what you’ve worked so hard to achieve. “Keep your workout plan on schedule,” Blanks said. One way is by continuing your workout regimen and routines, whether it’s getting bigger muscles or toned muscles. Once you’ve done that you may want to find more workouts.
There are a multitude of places online that you can find more workouts. One of the best ways is through bodybuilding.com where they have hundreds of workouts to choose from to help you maintain your fitness levels.
There are also smartphone apps that can be used to help you stay on track with your workouts as you go. A helpful app to use would be the Ifitness app. These apps can be personalized to your body and what your goal is including information like workout routines, videos demonstrations of each workout, meal plans and so much more.
Keep in mind, this will take time and dedication to achieve the goal you want. Take it slow and ease into everything and stay on track and before you know it you will be looking back at what you once were to what you have achieved now. Check out the links below to a few of bodybuilding.com’s predetermined workout plans.
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Workout 2
Photograph by Austin Mantarro Moore'
