There you are at the gym, flailing away on the elliptical, sprinting on the treadmill, or maybe even pushing yourself through a spin class today.
You come in, do your cardio routine for about 30-60 minutes, maybe some 15-minute abs and then grab your things and leave.
Ah, feels good, doesn’t it? You’ve been to the gym today! Go, you!
For the first few weeks or so, this routine probably feels great. You’ve gotten results. You’ve lost weight and jump-started your metabolism (as well as your confidence), reinforcing the belief that you’re well on your way to meeting your fitness goals.
Yet, after several weeks of this, you notice, curiously, that some flab remains. Not only does it linger, but it seems somehow more pronounced than ever before—dangling from your body’s most unforgiving of spots–the upper arm, the mid-back and of course, the dreaded gut.
“But I’ve been working out,” you exclaim.
In such situations, one has to ask, “Well, how much resistance training have you been doing?” One of the answers often heard, especially from women, is, “I avoid weight training because I don’t want to get too big.”
Many people are concerned about the appearance of major muscle mass, but if you really want to tighten up those trouble spots, incorporating weight and resistance training is a great (and essential) way to do it.
You don’t have to lift a heavy amount of weight, but you’ll need to engage your body in a way that builds and reconstructs muscle rather than burns it off. This is what cardiovascular exercise does, after all—improve the function of the heart, lungs and other respiratory muscles at the expense of the size of the dozens of peripheral muscle groups throughout the body.
This is why bodybuilders, athletes and others looking to get “cut up” will devote a significant amount of their workout regimen to increasing the amount and intensity of cardio performed as they approach the time in which such an appearance is desired.
For normal folks who are only doing cardio, what they may not realize is that most times, they’re shaving off a great deal of the muscle that they do have and instead leaving their bodies with a great deal of residual fat. That’s the reason for those troublesome fat deposits maintained by people who claim to do cardio “all the time.”
So, what is one to do? Well, in addition to that cardio, simply add some weight training! Here are some tips.
- Take classes that incorporate weights, calisthenics or body-weight exercises.
- Take yoga classes or follow an online stretch tutorial.
- Vary your cardio routine to include different kinds of activities that involve applying resistance to other parts of the body, such as swimming and dancing.
- Take 30 minutes of your 60-minute cardio routine and add some resistance training.
For those who have been out of the habit and are looking to lose weight/gain muscle tone, exercises that work multiple joints (compound exercises) are a great place to start. These exercises involve working multiple muscles simultaneously and thus require more calorie expenditure than most others, which only work one muscle at a time (isolation exercises). Isolation exercises, (cobras, leg extensions, bicep curls, etc.), can be useful to improve the strength as well as prominence of certain muscles but aren’t always necessary for a lifting routine.
Image: Getty Images.
Consider adding these compound exercises for added strength training and body sculpting:
- Push-Ups and Push-Presses (Triceps and Pectorals)
- Pull-Ups and Lat Pull-Downs (Lats, Mid/Lower Trapezius, Deltoids, Biceps)
- Lunges and Squats (Adductors, Glutes, Hips, Quadriceps, Hamstrings)
By combining cardiovascular and weight training, you’ll do more to kick-start your metabolism, improve neuromuscular efficiency and burn a huge number of calories, enabling you to reach muscle definition goals more effectively.
And you’ll finally be able to bid that flabbiness adieu.
