General Toning up - Girl

modest_marie

Hi,

Hopefully someone on here can send me in the right direction.

I am not at all over weight, and I am lucky enough to like healthy food and not put on weitht easily.

Although, I feel a bit squidgy. I'd love to tone up. I'm not sure what the right way to go about it is? I go walking 2 nights a week but I don't do any exercizes to tone up. I'm not sure what I can do besides resiatance machines at the Gym.

Are there any exercizes that I can do at home to help tone too, mainly bum, legs, but would like to tone everywhere.

I go to the Gym from time to time, but am really not sure if it's the best way or if I would benefit from something else along with the Gym.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

bigstar

resistance training is the best way to get what you want. walking wont really affect you appearance in terms of a firmer toned look. squats, deadlifts, glute ham raises, lunges, split squats etc. for the lower body, overhead press, bench press and rows for the upper body. maybe look up exrx.net or youtube some of these. you could start with no weight to learn the technique and then add more weight as your able. the important thing is to keep adding more weight to see good results.

personally id stay away from machines and use free weights. cant go wrong with 3-5 sets of 5-8 reps.

hope that helps

Nate--IRL--

In general when people say they want to "Tone" it almost always means dropping body fat percentage (this does not mean weight!). To achieve this you must consume less calories than you expend. I.e. Less in and More out.

First off 90% of achieving your goal will be your Diet. Read the sticky thread at the top of the fitness forum for more info on Diet.

I cannot stress the importance of Diet strongly enough.

Next comes exercise, be it Cardio training or lifting weights, this is to get you fit and healthy, and has the added bonus of helping your Diet perform its fat loss goal.

With Regard to Cardio training, if you are a beginner, I would suggest taking a month or two building up to a 30mins steady session on a bike or running or cross trainer, etc. After you can comfortably manage 30mins try HIIT to keep things interesting and further your fat loss goals.

Weights will also help, as the body will consume energy (calories) re-building muscle a long time after your session. You will also get fitter and stronger. You will NOT get muscley, it is very difficult to gain muscle, and it's even more difficult for women. Starting Strength is a good program to start with.

Good luck

Nate

aye

The OP is looking for exercises she can do at home also.

OP good bodyweight exercises include
squat
lunges
split squat
push ups
chair dips
chair steps ups (use a sturdy chair! and step up on to it)
plank
crunch
bicycle crunch
power lunge
jumping squat
burpees
skipping (if you have a rope)
jumping jacks


At home circuit workouts can be effective. this is where you perform an exercise for a certain period of time and then more to another exercise with little rest. A circuit is usually between 6 and 12 exercises.

A simple circuit would be

Squat/Chair Step Up
Jumping Jacks
Power Lunge
Push up
Skipping
Squat Jump
Plank
Jog on spot
Burpees

Try performing the exercises for 30 to 45 seconds each, with a 10 second rest between exercises.
Give yourself a 90 second rest between circuits, and try do 3 whole circuits.


As Nate said diet is very important and so is progressing the workout. It should be get more difficult as you get fitter/stronger, either by doing more circuits, longer time one each exercises, tougher exercises, etc.

Hope that helps

serenacat

May i suggest pilates for general toning, its really good and helps with flexibility.
alot of gyms have classes or else you can buy some pilates dvds. i bought a yogalates one that was good.

Transform

serenacat wrote: »

May i suggest pilates for general toning, its really good and helps with flexibility.
alot of gyms have classes or else you can buy some pilates dvds. i bought a yogalates one that was good.

pilates is not going to do much of anything for 'general toning' - do proper weights and hate to do this but please just get the basics right and do not get too over complicated at first. I have had lots of clients come to me having done pilates and they still need lots of work so NO to pilates but pilates is a good addition to an already existing program.

Do these -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhwmRUD3iI