Muscle Toning Exercises for Men & Women: How to Tone Your Body

It’s a common misconception that, in order to tone all of your muscles, you need to perform high repetitions combined with little resistance and moderate rest periods. But to truly get a firm body with flattering muscular definition and shape, you’ll need to do more than just high repetitions to reach this goal.
In fact, the body can only tone-up and remove the “jiggley” arms with an increase of muscle tissue, along with a low percentage of body fat. That said, read on to discover the best methods for toning your body.

Losing Fat/Strength Training

Strength training is a very important part of toning muscle, and it also contributes to fat burning since it builds muscle; plus growing muscles burn calories. Strength training is also important to drop the layer of fat lying on top of your muscles.
Of course, if you are only practicing resistance training alone, you won’t be seeing results. This is even truer if you’re training only using high repetitions and low resistance, which puts very little stress on your muscles.
Some of the most common strength training exercises like push-ups and chin-ups are every effective at building muscle because they force you to use your own body weight. Good strength training exercises that involve weights are bench press, shoulder press, squats and lunges – just to name a few.
It’s also worth mentioning that there is no special “toning” technique for your muscles. Instead, those who want the toned look, which is looking muscular without being too big, need to combine strength training with some cardio to get that all-important fit look. A good goal to shoot for with cardio is at least three, 20-minute sessions each week.

Compound Exercises

One common misconception about toning is that you should stick to isolation exercises which work one muscle group such as bicep curls, lateral raises (shoulders) and hamstring curls. But the reality is that the average person will benefit far more by doing compound exercises because these work multiple muscle groups. As mentioned before, bench press, squats, shoulder press and lunges are good exercises, and the reason why is because they work several different muscles at once.
By using compound exercises, you cut down on the amount of time you’re in the gym, and you’ll still be effectively building muscle in the process. In short: leave the isolation exercises to the professional bodybuilders who have all day to spend working out.

Resistance Training done Properly

Even if you are worried about becoming too bulky, you’ll still want to challenge your muscles by using weights that make exercising uncomfortable, but not impossible. In order to change your body’s muscles, they need to be stressed, which requires pushing your weight amount up when you notice that smaller weights are easy to lift. If you are merely moving your muscles with little effort, you will not see any results since your muscles don’t have to work harder to produce results.
Try: An example of resistance training is doing sit-ups since they use your body’s own weight as a resistance force. If you are able to do 13 sit-ups with no problem, you may need to increase your resistance. If this isn’t challenging enough, do the sit-ups with 5-8 pounds of weight in your hands to add extra resistance. If you are becoming fatigued after 10 repetitions, consider it a success because this is the amount that produces the most results.

Exercises to Tone Back, Shoulders/Chest, Biceps/Triceps & Legs

Toning Your Back Muscles

Getting into specific exercises, begin by standing with your feet a shoulder width’s apart while holding something in your hands such as a weighted ball, gallon of water, 10-pound dumbbell, or anything else that you have available. Proceed by bending your knees, tilting your pelvis a little forward while holding your abdominals tight. Keep your back straight and touch what you are holding to the floor; or as close to the floor as you can; stand back up, and repeat.
These movements will definitely tone and strengthen your back, as well as your legs. But be sure that you are always bending your knees so that you’re not causing a back injury. Also, 2 sets of 10-12 repetitions are good with this exercise.

Toning Your Shoulders/Chest

There are several different shoulder exercises you can do in the weight room such as shoulder press and bench press. With the shoulder press, begin by holding weights level to your shoulders, then raise the weights above your head; slowly lower the weights and repeat. Shoulder presses are nice because they not only tone your shoulders, but also the triceps too. Do 2-3 sets of 10-12 repetitions for best results.
The bench press is another exercise that will build up your shoulders, and work your chest at the same time. This simple exercise involves lying on a flat bench, slowly bringing the barbell down to your chest, then raising it back up. Please note that you should always do bench presses with the proper equipment (found at your local gym). Also, a good goal is to do 2-3 sets of bench pressing for 8-10 reps.
Another chest/shoulder exercise is the simple push-up, and you can do this without even using equipment! Aim for 10 push-ups, and set out to increase this amount by 2 push-ups every week.

Toning your Biceps/Triceps

Many people use isolation exercises to tone their biceps and triceps, which as we discussed before, involves a lot of wasted time. So focusing on the compound exercises, bench press will work both muscle groups (more so the triceps), which makes this exercise perfect for your biceps and triceps. And as mentioned in the previous section, the shoulder press also works your triceps.
A compound exercise that you can do for your biceps is the pull-up, which also works your lats and upper back. Most beginners find pull-ups to be extremely hard though, so you might aid yourself with a chair in the beginning; this involves standing on the chair while pulling yourself off of the chair so you don’t have to support your body weight the entire time. Assuming you have the time, you can also do some bicep curls since this muscle group isn’t targeted in many compound exercises.

Toning your Legs

Squats are the ultimate exercise for legs since they work your hamstrings, quads and glutes. Anybody looking for a bigger, toned butt will definitely benefit from these! To begin with squats, you need to rest a barbell on your shoulders behind the neck. Next, you should lower your body using only your legs while keeping the back straight. Try to get your legs as close to parallel as possible before coming back up.
Another exercise worth discussing is the lunge. To do this, have weights or water jugs in your hand, and step forward with one leg; the goal is to touch your knee on the ground before coming back up. After this, step forward with the other leg and keep alternating. One more good exercise for the legs are calve raises because these work both the calves and stabilizing ankle muscles. These are simple since you just need to have weights in your hands, raise up on your toes, then come back down before repeating.
If you combine all of the aforementioned exercises (great for both: men and women) with cardio, you will be moving towards a much more toned look. Also, be sure to switch up your muscle-building exercises every few months so that the body doesn’t adapt to these workouts. Otherwise, you’ll be getting minimal-to-no gains after a while.

How to Get Beautiful Legs

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You may not be a beauty queen who needs to parade your legs in a swimsuit competition. However, when you have a beautiful pair of legs, you can consider this as one of your greatest assets. As a matter of fact, not all women are gifted with beautiful legs. There are only few who come with the gift of beautiful pair of legs that can be flaunted and paraded. Another fact is that many people particularly women are insecure because there are specific parts of their body that are imperfect and these include the legs. Consequently, imperfect pair of legs with different flaws may definitely limit a person’s choice of clothing, wardrobe, or activities.
The Downside of Unattractive Legs
Some individuals who have unattractive pair of legs also think that they look funny right in front of other people. This is the reason why people with imperfect legs often use jeans and long pants to cover their legs’ imperfections. This also makes them not capable or ashamed to wear skirts or miniskirts that the women with beautiful legs usually wear. Many women would do all their best to get their legs in perfect shape and form. The sad thing is that these women do not know the simple and easy ways on how they can make their legs look slim and appealing.

The Plus side of Fashion
As of today that the fashion and trends in clothing and wardrobes are at their peak, many of the women all over the world feel the urge of wearing flaunting dresses and wardrobes. Some of the most common types of dresses which can be worn to show the legs are miniskirts, light leggings, trousers, and others. You may want to think that getting advice on how to get beautiful and slim legs is some kind of impossible but the mere truth is that achieving slim and beautiful legs is plain and simple.

Here are Some Tips for Beautiful and Slim Legs

Tip No. 1: Be Conscious With What You Eat

If you are someone with huge legs and thighs, there is definitely a two-way procedure that you need to learn to achieve slim and beautiful legs. The first way is to have a keen eye on what you eat. Many women today are so careless about the types of foods that they take in as most of these foods contain high sugar, fats, cholesterol, and calories that only enhance the development of stored or excess fats which can momentarily deform the body and the legs as well. So if you really want to have slim legs, why not try cutting down food intake particularly those foods that induce fat formation?

Tip No. 2: Stay Active

If you were used to staying at home and sitting or lying down on your couch then this is the best time to change that unhealthy lifestyle. Adopt a lifestyle that is active and free moving. Having an active lifestyle simply means implementing a regular exercise every day. This should be done without skipping to ensure you that you will have one of the best ways to burn excessive fats and calories that have been accumulated in the body. You will be surprised to discover that even a thirty-minute walk in the park or in the vicinity every day can do great wonders to your body and to your legs as well.
Now those are just the simple procedures to maintain or change the way your body and legs look. What about the texture of your legs?

Tip No. 3: Buff the Flaws

There are few things that affect the appearance of the legs such as having ingrown hairs, dry skin and other imperfections. The truth is that no one in this world is spared from getting leg problems. However, there is a simple way to make those imperfections disappear by simply buffing them with loofah, brush or cloth regularly. This is a procedure that will definitely help exfoliate dead and old skin cells that only make your legs look ugly and unappealing. But you have to take note that while you do this procedure, you have to do it gently as brushing or scrubbing hardly can cause further problems such as abrasions and bruises.

Tip No. 4: Shave that Leg Hair Goodbye

Ingrown hairs can make the look of your legs unappealing. The best way to deal with these hairs is to shave them away. Do this procedure gently and carefully to get rid of cuts and bruises surrounding your legs. Now, if you are someone who is not an expert particularly in using shaving devices, there are other hair removing alternatives that you can use. Waxing your legs is an effective yet very painful procedure of removing hair from your legs; you may also want to use depilatory creams. Whatever type of product or procedure you choose, always do it watchfully to prevent further damage on your legs.

Tip No.5: Moisturize Your Legs

Using a potent moisturizer is definitely one of the gateways to achieving beautiful legs. Moisturizers keep your legs feeling soft and silky even during the winter days of the year. Do this regularly to achieve great results.
The aforementioned tips to follow are easy and simple and once you have followed them thoroughly, you get to achieve slim and beautiful pair of legs within just a small span of time. This will soon be a way for you to wear the dress that you’ve been dreaming for a long time and this will also be your time to walk down the streets with your legs shown without the shame or embarrassment.