For Women With 'Toning' in Their Vocabulary

Seventy-five percent of women in the UK do not like their upper arms. Men, however, remain indifferent, preferring bums instead. Asides from this being a subjective statement, it is  in fact a surveyed, national truth; I would be surprised if it wasn't a global one. Today's session looked at finding a half-way house: Aniston's arms for the soul; and rear attention for ours. 

Now, before I start scribbling out sets, it's important to understand one or two fundamental facts when it comes to getting any part of your body to look “good”. If you read anything today, read the following three points:

You Are Not Putty:

You can not burn fat from just one specific part of your body. You can strengthen muscle, increase it's density and thus “firm up” an area but unfortunately, unlike a scalpel, 'spot reduction' is fictional.

Maths:

Sixty percent of your muscle mass is in your lower body. Therefore, neglect your legs and you ignore the vast majority of your fat burning potential. Pay lavish attention to what to lies below and your resting metabolic rate WILL increase. In short: don't get caught up in a tide of isolation exercises and lose sight of the bigger picture.

Lower Reps and Larger Weights Lead to Better Bodies:

Put down that plastic dumbbell, stop your hundredth bicep curl and dare to lift more. “Some science, please”, I hear you cry? Right, well..basically, contractions in the higher repetition range trigger an increase in sarcoplasm. Sarcoplasm is a protein liquid substance that saturates and surrounds everything in a muscle cell with nutrients. Just doing high reps means your muscles have plenty of fluid in them. On the other hand, if you want a harder, denser muscle then you ought to play around with lower repetitions as you will increase the volume and density of your myofibrils (the stringy fibres that constitute muscle), leading to a much firmer looking muscle. Hence why tiny female Olympic weightlifters are exactly that: “tiny...female...and a weightlifter”, not the fire breathing, testosterone dripping, Birkenstock wearing, cat owning, father hating persona you've got pictured.

Formalities aside, let the workout begin...

Warm Up:

• 5 minutes of cardio
• Dynamic Stretches: air squats, leg swings, lunges, half press ups, arm rotations etc.
• Glute Activation (if you want to lose weight, better your posture, reduce back pain and get an arse that brings all the boys to the yard, then please, please do this!): 2 x 30 seconds holding the plank, 3 x 10 seconds holding the bridge and perform 'the clam' 20 times for each leg...look it up and you'll know what I mean, sister.

The Workout:

The following routine will be working with lower repetitions but can easily be done outside of the hormone filled confines of a consumerist gym. Please make each exercise as hard as possible for yourselves, apathy kills 'n' all that. Don't do this routine more than once a week.

Lower Body Attention: Perform 6 reps, on each leg, of the first exercise, followed immediately by 10 reps of the second exercise. Rest for a minute, then repeat another 3-4 times.

1. Single Leg Bench Get-ups – sit down on a surface that is just below knee height, lift one leg in the air, tense your stomach and stand up, squeezing your bum at the top of the movement, now try and lower yourself - still standing on one leg - back down onto the bench....as slowly as possibly (eccentric movements are better for muscle strengthening).

2. Box Jumps – Jump up onto a surface that is a challenging height above the ground (knee height). When you land, make sure you stand up straight, squeeze your bum before getting down again; we want full extension at the hips.

Upper Body Acceptance: We want to really pre-exhaust your muscles here, so make sure you perform the first exercise until you can't do another repetition. Then move straight onto the second exercise and do as many as you can with PROPER form. Rest for 2 minutes, then repeat another 3-4 times.

1. Changing Press Ups (or half) – start with your hands as close as possible together and as you start to fatigue, bring them wider and wider. Take 1 second to push up and 5 seconds to lower.

2. Dips – on a bench, chair or dip bar; keep the lifting tempo: 1 second up, 5 down. Don't let your upper arms go below parallel to the ground.

For Balance: Perform both these exercises back-to-back, rest a minute, then repeat 2-3 times. The same lifting tempo applies. Also, if you haven't yet noticed, this last section is in order to iron out imbalances – you can't train your anterior chain and then neglect your posterior.

1. Single-leg, Romanian, Bodyweight Deadlift – keep your back straight, shoulders back and drive up through your heel. 8 reps/leg.

2. Superman Back Extensions – squeeze shoulder blades together at the top of the movement. 10 reps.

Warm Down:

• 5 minutes cardio
• Extensive stretching -stretched muscles look better than tight ones, contrary to popular belief; i.e. the belief of the male population in Essex on a Friday night.

Now go eat something substantial. You need to repair your muscles or risk failing to capitalise, fully, on the last forty-five minutes.