Oh well, I'll never see 50 again – in fact I'll be 60 on my next birthday – so take courage. If I can stay in shape, you can do it too, and without spending every waking hour working out. For a small investment of 20-40 minutes, four to six days a week you will receive a bevy of benefits. Let's start with the most obvious, and work our way down to those unseen to the human eye.
First and foremost your entire body shape will improve to a better shape than you had in your best day. Yes, you read right. I'm a case in point. Even in my twenties I had no shoulders, wide hips and big, shapeless legs that made my hips look even bigger. But the workout has given my body symmetry. I even look taller because of it. (I'm only five feet tall).
Next, and maybe I should have said this first, your body will become firm to the touch and defined, giving it that healthy athletic look. And most, if not all of the cellulite you have will disappear. Yes, cellulite is bunched up fat that shows through thin skin, the thinner your skin the more it shows. But when you work out with weights the right way, you put a sleek muscle under the skin and the cellulite vanishes. Of course if you're overweight you should also follow a low-fat eating plan.
Next, your posture and balance will improve along with your energy level. These will help you in any sport, and for sure, when lifting up your current or pending grandchildren. I know I would never be able to cart my two along at the same time if I were not in shape. (Sibling rivalry. The three year old demands I carry him when I carry the one-year old!)
Finally, you will build bone under every muscle you make because muscles are attached to bone, and as the blood circulates through the working muscle, it circulates through the underlying bone and boosts bone density. This is a medically proven fact. In general you will see a marked improvement in bone density within nine months of any of my weight training routines, and it only keeps getting better. Okay, so how do you get started?
The answer is simple: Calmly, slowly, deliberately, until gradually your body becomes tight, toned and defined. At that point you will look and feel up to twenty years younger. You must work out with weights the right way, not in a haphazard, hope to get lucky kind of way. You must do a specific number of exercises per body part in a certain way. You can start out by doing one exercise per body part, but you must pyramid your weights and do three sets of exercise. Let me explain further.
First, pick a body part, let's use the basic bicep curl as an example. Your first set will consist of 12 repetitions with your lightest weight. (A repetition is one full movement of the exercise, from start, to mid-point and back to start again.) The second set will consist of10 repetitions with your middle weight, and for your final set you will perfrom eight repetitions with your heaviest weight. What? Heavy weights? No. You can start as light as one, two and three pounds. Start out with hand-held weights, also called dumbbells. You will need two dumbbells each, one for each hand. As you get stronger, you will raise your weights, and you'll get stronger faster than you think. This workout can be found in my Workout 101 Video.
Your next step will be to move to a more intense workout, performing more exercises per body part, (3-5 are ideal) but still using the pyramid system. (This workout can be found in my Weight Training Made Easier video set.) But how do you stay motivated? It won't be difficult. After 10 days of working out you'll have so much more energy you won't want to stop. And, if you started out overweight, it will only take three weeks, to lose a dress size. In 9 weeks your metabolism will kick up to a higher level, so you can eat more (healthy foods, of course) without getting fat. Even while you sleep you'll burn more fat than you used to burn. In 16 weeks your entire body will show major reshaping, and you'll be thrilled.
Another way to stay motivated is to keep switching weight training routines. I'll talk more about that in a later article.
No comments:
Post a Comment