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Wide Load Ahead: 2 Exercises You Should Avoid
As long as women continue to breath, retailers will push machines and exercises targeting women’s most popular trouble areas – the waist and thighs. Companies, like the Thigh Master and the Slim Waist Belt, will succeed even if their products fail, because all they need is your purchase. You, on the other hand, want results. So, even if one thing fails you, you’ll keep trying other ways to fix your trouble spots.
While on the quest to slim down, you’ll likely discover exercises that feel like they work. Unfortunately, these exercises may give you more than you bargained for.
If you want to avoid a wide load, then here are a few things you should know.
NO!
Inner and outer thigh machines can add width to your thighs – and width is something most people (women in particular) do not want. In addition, our thighs may not lack tone as much as they simply have an over abundance of fat, causing them to feel mushy.
GO!
To slim down giggly thunder thighs, spend less time on the inner thigh machine and more time on the elliptical or treadmill to melt the fat. Incorporate more exercises like Walking Lunges, Bench Step-up Lunges, Single-leg Leg Press (pictured above) or One-legged Squats. Because these exercises require balance, you will shape your entire thigh in one move, including your inner and outer thighs, without bulking up – and outward.
NO!
Weighted side bends are another exercise that can add width to our physiques. Ironically, people do them in attempt to slim down the waist, not thicken it.
GO!
Trade side bends for streamlining exercises like Oblique Crunches, snowboarder crunch, Medicine Ball Chop, or Bicycle Kick. These exercises tighten all the muscles that act as tie down straps to your waist, much like a corset (like in this photo) – pulling your waist inward.
NOTE: Resistance exercise simply tones muscle under the fat. Remember, no exercise will improve fatty thighs or love handles without a proper diet and necessary cardio to help shed excess body fat.
Photo Credits:
Bikini Photo: bodychronicle.com
One-Legged Leg Press: exercise.com
Celebrity Corset: funny-pics-fun.com
More BANG for your PAIN!
This is what I think of when I think of powerlifters. I think of fat guys who like to lift big weights and eat whatever they want. But we can’t let a few fat guys turn us off from powerlifting because powerlifting exercises have some serious perks.
Think about it. Why do 3, 4 or 5 different exercises when you can do ONE exercise that works 3, 4 or 5 muscle groups all at once?
Although exercises that concentrate only on one muscle group has its place, people are missing out if that’s all they’re doing. Not only does it take more time to isolate different muscles out, there are other benefits you miss out on if you’re only working one muscle at a time.
Get More Bang for your Pain
I’d be lying if I said working out doesn’t hurt. I used to always say “It hurts so good” and that really is true. Once you experience the burn, you start to associate that burn to feeling fit. However, if I can combine exercises so I “can kill a few burns with one stone”, then I’m all over that!
Strengthen Your Whole Body
Isolation exercises mean you are basically shutting down all other muscle movement to work that one specific muscle. When you work several muscles, it requires core strength and stabilization. This means each multi-joint exercise not only strengthens each muscle targeted, but it is also working supporting muscles too.
Burn More Calories
In addition, it takes a lot of work to exercise multiple muscle groups so you burn more calories. So, instead of doing 45 minutes of cardio and 45 minutes on weight machines, you can incorporate more multi-joint exercises and boost calorie burn calorie burn while lifting weights.
This is why we do so many mutli-joint exercises in our BCx boot camp programs, like the one Cristina McDaniel is doing here. This type of training has been proven to deliver the best results for fat loss, while also sculpting muscle, in the least amount of time.
Still not convinced?
If that power lifter pic is frightening you remember what Steve says, “You can train like a powerlifter and eat like a ballerina, and you’ll look like a ballerina”. You simply look like you eat more than how you train. So unless you eat copious amounts of food and protein, don’t expect to blow up and develop huge bulky muscles. Eat lean – and look lean.
6 Multi-Joint Exercises to Add to Your Routine:
See how many isolated exercises it would take to work all the muscles in one multi-joint exercise.
1. Push-up - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps & Core
OR do chest press, tricep extension, front shoulder raises and plank.
2. Pull-up - Back, Biceps and Core (Click HERE to learn modifications)
OR do Lat Pull Downs, Bicep Curls and Plank
3. Clean And Press - Shoulders, Traps, Quadricpes, Glutes, Hamstrings, Calves & Core
OR do Traps, Shoulder Press, Squats, Straight Leg Deadlifts and Plank
4. Thruster (Squat Press) – Shoulders, Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes, Calves & Core
OR do Shoulder Press, Leg Extention, Ham Curls, Glute Machine, Calf Raises and Plank
5. Overhead Walking Lunges - Shoulders, Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes, Core & Calves.
OR do Leg Extensions, Ham Curls, Glute Machine, Shoulder Press, Calf raises and Plank
6. Barbell Deadlift - Hamstrings, Core
OR do Hamstring Curls, Back Extension and Plank
Powerlifting photo from Project Goliath
More Bang for the Pain photo by Misty Lundeen
Photo of Cristina McDaniel by BCx Boot Camp
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Best Beach Buns: The Bikini Bottom Workout
Need More What?
Most of us don’t need more exercises to follow – we need more motivation to do the exercises we already know. However, as soon as I write a post about a new exercise or workout routine, people flock to it like bees to honey. bzzzzzz!
Fresh new moves are not only great to learn, they can give you a new boost of motivation as well – and staying motivated is half the battle.
The Best Beach Buns
Since everyone loves a good butt and leg workout, and bikini season is now officially here, what better buns are there than volleyball players. I mean LOOK at that body!! I just looked at PAGES of volleyball players and almost every single one of them had amazing buns and legs! They squat, they lunge and jump their butts into wedgie worthy shape – and you can too!
Get ready to sweat & tone that Beautiful Bikini Bottom!
BEACH BODY WARM UP
Bcx Express™ Warm Up
BIKINI BOTTOM WORKOUT
20 Crisscross Squat (Burn fat & tone those thighs!)
20 Sumo Squat (Glutes & inner thigh – go deep!)
20 Overhead Walking Lunges
20 Curtsy/LEFT (Keep weight off back leg!)
20 Runner’s Pose Stomp/LEFT (Burn those buns!!)
20 Curtsy/RIGHT
20 Runner’s Pose Stomp/RIGHT
(Repeat 3 X with no rest between exercises)
NOTE: Consistency trumps any one killer workout any day – so remember, no matter how awesome you think this one workout is, commit to staying consistent and repeating this workout on a regular basis.
Tell me. What keeps you motivated? What kind of motivation do you need and enjoy the most? Do you like words that pierce the heart of all your excuses? Do you like to see crazy fit bodies that remind you someone is reaching their goals and that someone could be you too if you got off your butt? Do you love a new workout routine and new move to try in the gym? What is it that moves you to put your tennis shoes on and Get-R-Done? My inquiring mind wants to know! 
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3 Ways to Stop Knee Pain
Do your knees ache? Do they hurt when you run? Do your knees get in the way of a good leg routine? Before you go off running for the operating room, your knee pain could be something a lot more simple than you think.
One popular reasons people (especially runners and fitness newbies) struggle with knee pain is because our leg muscles are out of balance. As tight muscles play tug-a-war with your knee cap knee cap, and your apposing weak muscles are losing. This cause the knee cap to float out of place – resulting in poor knee tracking and a lot of discomfort.
Steve explains how to correct the problem with a couple of simple exercises:
More Exercises
1 Stretches:
Quadricep Stretch
IT Band Stretch
IT Band Foam Roller
2. Exercises:
Leg Extension on a Machine
Leg Extension with Bands
Leg Extension with Leg Weights
3. Ice & Rest:
Rest is crucial to allow for healing
Ice is essential to reduce inflammation (15 minutes at a time, as often as you can)
More Injury Prevention Blogs
More on Knee Pain:
Simple Fix for Knee Pain
Fast Fix for a Pain in Your Butt
Kick Heel Pain
HEROES: Fitness After Pain & Injury
Train Hurt or Go Home! (or should you?)
5 Simple Pain Prevention Tips
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Fast Fix for a Pain in Your Butt
OK, before you get too excited, I can’t help you with your husband or kid, if they are what you consider to be a pain your butt. I’m talking about a literal pain in your backside.
If you’ve ever suffered from a throbbing aching pain in your derriere, that possibly even radiates down your leg, you have experienced Sciatica. Sciatica, literally is a pain in the butt – and it can be fixed pretty easily.
Steve explains what Sciatica is often caused by and how to eliminate the pain. If you’ve been in pain due to Sciatica, you won’t BELIEVE how these simple exercises can change your life!
4 Tips to More Pain Prevention:
1. Maintain good posture
2. Take your wallet out when driving or sitting for long periods of time
3. Do the above stretches often through out the day, holding each stretch for a minimum of 30 seconds. (no bouncing)
4. Take anti-imflammatories when needed
5. Avoid heat – Icing an injury reduces inflammation, where heat induces an inflammatory response
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Will Work For Abs: The Six-Pack Secret
Body Parts that Count: Part 3 – Abs & Core
In this blog series I’ve been talking about the 3 muscle groups I feel should be a woman’s focus: Shoulders, Glutes & Abs. Today we discuss the abs.
“Diet doesn’t make you fit.
Exercise doesn’t make you skinny”
Steve Pfiester said that yesterday and I thought, that needs to be a t-shirt. No, a Billboard. No, a whole national advertising campaign! Honestly, people need to hear this!!! We’ve all seen overweight people who are physically fit and we’ve seen plenty of out of shape skinny people. Why am I going on this tangent when the topic is abs? Well it’s simple. You can have abs (shoot, you may have them right not) but if you don’t combine training with diet together, you’ll likely never see them.
Will Eat for Abs
You’ve seen the homeless guys holding a sign “Will work for food”? Well, will you eat for abs? Will you eat (and not eat) what it takes to get the abs you want? Just like many of those guys have no intensions of actually doing any work to get their money, many people in the gym have no intensions of eating what they need to be eating to get their abs.
Honestly, doing a few crunches is the easy part. It’s the other 23 hours a day that are hard to control. As Alfonso “The Angry Trainer” Moretti says, “Abs are made in the kitchen“. If you want to shave off the fat covering your abs, you need to shave off some calories. Once you can actually see your abs, the shape of them, how tight they are, and how big each cube is is up to your training.
Will Work for Abs
It may not seem like it, but this is the easy part. However, some people still have a lot of questions about how to train them. How often can you train your abs? What type of workouts are best for abs? So many questions, so little time.
Non-weight ab exercises, like traditional crunches or situps, can be done daily. However, weighted abs need rest and repair just like your biceps, so they need a couple of days of rest in between.
Steve Pfiester, for instance, does non-weighted abs in between sets while training other body parts through out the week. Then he has one day solely dedicated to traps, calves and abs, where he does his weighted ab exercises. This way he’s always hitting them to keep them tight and tone.
This is also why I like functional training, like push-ups, planks and mountain climbers, because it keeps my core tight in between ab days. Believe me, if you do pushups on a regular basis, you will definitely notice your abs and core tightening.
Weakness Becomes Strength
I have to admit, abs are not my best feature. Unfortunately, the body parts you hate the most, typically are the body parts you don’t like to train the most too. It should be the other way around, but we are human and we like doing things we are good at. We like training our best looking body part, we enjoy working our muscles that are the strongest and we prefer to do the exercises we have already mastered. That’s why our weaknesses often stay a weakness – but they can become your strength.
If you really want to change your body, work the parts that need to work the most. Do the stuff you hate the most (like cardio) and force yourself to do programs, like our BCx Boot Camp, that keep your training balanced and keep you doing stuff you’d most likely skip if you were doing it on your own. The more you do it, the more you’ll like it because you’ll become stronger and you’ll begin to see the work pay off.
Workooout, “I’m sexy and I know it” (sing along with me!)
Here is one of our ab circuits from our brand new BCx Boot Camp Express workout at FitStudio. Click on the picture below and go to Day 6 to view the entire workout, including instructional video.
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15 ABsolutely Awesome Ab Exercises
When I searched for candid photos of female celebrities who had great abs, I came up pretty empty handed. However, the one female star that really stole the google image show was Gwen Stefani, and deservingly so.
The truth is, everyone has abs – it’s just whether we see them or not. The leaner you are and the more developed they are, the more visible they are. Aside from diet, the problem is many people are limited when it comes to knowing a lot of ab exercises. If you are working on getting Gwen Stefani abs by bikini season, then maybe it’s time to freshen up your abs hit list!
If you were Steve Pfiester‘s client, here are a few of the exercises he’d likely have you doing.
AB EXERCISES:
1. Crunch
2. Sit-up
3. Bicycle Crunch
4. Vertical Leg Crunch
5. Oblique Crunch
6. Reverse Crunch
7. Side V-up
8. Hanging Knee-ups
9. Snow Angels
10. Crunch & Punch
11. Take it or Leave it
12. Plank
13. Pulse Side Plank
14. T-plank
15. Alternating Hand Foot Plank Lift Off
AB WORKOUTS:
Boot Camp Core
Plank-n-simple
Abs & Core Workout with a Fit Ball
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2-N-1: My Butt & Shoulder Workout
I combined legs and shoulders today just in case I couldn’t get shoulders in tomorrow since we are preparing for a 5K & Mini-Mudder Saturday and have been crazy busy. This ended up being a great workout – quick, a bit painful and plenty effective. Since 2 of the best body parts on a woman, in my opinion, are the shoulders and legs/glutes I thought I’d pass it along. :)
Below are the exercises I threw together and the weight I did. Of course you can modify to fit your needs.
15 Thrusters (Squat Press) – 55-65lbs (barbell)
3 X
15 Squats – 135lb (barbell)
3 X
40 Overhead Walking Lunges (25lb plate)
40 Walking Lunges with Arms out straight in front (5lbs dumbbells)
Super Set – Alternating exercises, 40 steps 3 X
15 Leg Extension (110lbs)
12 Standing Military Press (Shoulder Press) (15lbs)
Super Set – Alternating exercises, 3 X
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Changing My Training
Starting in November, I changed up my training and I’m really liking the results.
You know how people look like their dogs? Well, I too look like my long lanky Great Dane – Tank. Point is, I struggle with putting mass on my legs. I used to do legs once a week and then it hit me – I work upper body everyday (as I break down all my body parts…chest one day, back next, etc). No wonder my legs need more work …they actually need more work! (many guys also have this problem. So many guys hit chest all the time but neglect their legs) Read the rest of this entry
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Wide Thighs Anyone? One Exercise You Should Avoid
Most people go to the gym to streamline their bodies, not get bulky – however, they unintentionally often do exercises that may be counter productive. Even most bodybuilders don’t want to build width. By streamlining their physique and getting rid of the fat in the joint spaces (hips, waist, elbows, knees, etc) with cardio and diet, it enhances their curves and gives them that lean look.
There are two areas I see people working on that rarely has anything to do with under developed muscles. One is the obliques (where the love handles are) and the other is the inner and outer thigh (saddlebag area). Earlier this week I touched on the oblique area in my blog, ” “I Want Abs! 5 Mistakes that Sabotage Success” so today I’m going to hit the thigh topic.
Wide Thighs Anyone?
I doubt I’ll get any takers on that one! Unfortunately, every club feels the need to an Inner/Outer Thigh Machine. Why? Because people demand it. You should have HEARD the women FREAK on us when we got rid of the hip abductor machine (same type of machine) when we were getting our new line of equipment. OMG! It was a piece of crap machine and we were getting MUCH better stuff – but those ladies were addicted to the thought of what that machine could do for them and couldn’t bear the thought of being without it.
Every woman who’s ever been a member of a gym has probably been on one of these machines. And if you’ve ever had the unique pleasure of sitting in the contraption and spreading your legs in front of God and everyone else, I guarantee you probably felt it work too. BUT, that doesn’t mean it’s going to do what you want it to do. Sure, women are dying to get rid of their saddlebags and the inner thigh jigglies, but this machine ain’t gonna do it! It will develop muscle UNDER the fat and potentially make that muscle larger, but the fat will still be there. If you want to get rid of saddlebags and jiggly thighs, you tackle that with diet and cardio.
Think of your quadricep muscles as straps that crisscross up and down the leg attaching at the joints. If you tighten those straps, it will naturally pull everything inward to prevent a wide load. I doubt anyone wants a wide load if you know what I mean!
Your inner and outer thigh muscles are there to support movement and stabilize you, so instead of sitting in a chair to isolate them, do more functional type movements that require using balance and overall leg strength. Plié squats, walking lunges, side lunges and one-leg leg press, among many other leg exercises, will hit the inner and outer thighs and tone the entire leg. Even side lying leg raises, using your own body weight is fine for toning. Much like weighted side-bends, it’s really best you only tone those muscles not build them with resistance.
More bang for your buck
By switching out the inner/outer thigh machine for a funcational movement, you are now hitting many more muscles and you’re probably getting your heart rate up higher too – all in the same time! Plus, if you stay dedicated, you will start to see your inner and outer thighs shrink as your legs tone up.
The Real Secret to Ditching the Saddlebags
No matter what exercise you decide to do to tone your legs, remember you can’t target fat loss. The only way to get rid of fat on your legs is to get rid of fat on your body. You can’t specifically exercise the fat off your thighs. If you are one of those people who just carries weight on your hips or thighs, that is just where you carry your fat. Getting rid of your saddlebags will require reducing your caloric intake and burning more calories to decrease your body fat – no matter where it likes to hang out. Now, get to work! You’ve got some training and dieting to do!
Need some fresh new leg exercises? Try one of my 25 Butt Blasters - great for whipping your butt and legs into shape!
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