Today’s children are much less physically fit than previous generations, and in the United States, the percentage of obese children has more than doubled since 1976. Poor food choices, lack of exercise, computer games, and TV, as well as other distractions are causing severe obesity and nutritional problems in our children. The consumption of sugar of all kinds by kids, from candy to soda, to donuts, has witnessed significant increases in juvenile diabetes. However, there are healthy ways to reduce the caffeine, sugar, and fat in your child’s diet.

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The Truth About Caffeine, Sugar, and Fat
Sometimes, the truth about food, especially what children eat, is difficult to find. Television and magazines tantalize consumers with images of delicious, sugary foods. Your child’s doctor may tell you that your child’s diet is too high in fat; too high in sugar; or that he or she doesn’t exercise enough. But what’s the truth?

There’s a very popular ingredient in an ever-increasing fluid we drink as adults. Caffeine in coffee! Do you want your children needing a morning buzz? Caffeine is totally lacking in nutritional value and does not add taste, texture, or color to a soft drink. Caffeine affects children and adults similarly. However, children are much smaller in size and typically get overstimulated from caffeine. A typical cup of coffee contains 85 milligrams while the average soda contains about 30-35 milligrams of caffeine. While your children may not be drinking coffee, there are quite a few other sources where they get it from without realizing it.

As a stimulant, caffeine can interfere with sleep and may affect children who are sensitive to it, making them restless at night and very tired the next morning. Does this sound familiar? You wake up your child to get them ready for school, about twenty minutes later you go in the bedroom and they’re fast asleep. This can and often is the result of over stimulation due to both caffeine and sugar. Also, because caffeine is a diuretic – causes the body to eliminate water – it can contribute to dehydration. Caffeine is an especially poor choice in hot weather, when children need to replace water lost through perspiration. And, children who drink lots of caffeinated beverages may miss getting the calcium they need from milk to build strong bones and teeth. The body requires a phosphorus/calcium ratio to function properly. The typical dark cola is loaded with phosphoric acid, which will overload the body with phosphorus and cause calcium loss from bones to help balance the required ratio. This causes weakening of bones and can be extremely detrimental in old age if the child continues this nutritional habit.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggests a maximum of 6 tablespoons of sugar per day for someone consuming 1,600 calories (an amount typical for children 5 years of age). One 12-ounce soft drink (the average can) contains about 3 tablespoons of sugar, so in one drink, your child is getting almost half the day’s recommended amount of sugar, not to mention the affect high sugar drinks and food have on teeth and the cavities that generally prevail with a nutritional diet high in sugar. It’s a proven fact that children and even adults develop more cavities than those who do not consume as much.

The effects of sugar are sometimes mis-perceived. Sugar does promote tooth decay, but studies show no link between hyperactivity and sugar. When 5-year-olds are running around at a birthday party after eating cake and ice cream, parents joke that they’re “high” from the sugar. The reality is they’re just being 5-year-olds, excited in the moment with friends. But, a combination of both sugar and caffeine, for example from soda, will have this effect on children.

Although sugar does not cause hyperactivity, it does generally contribute to excess weight gain. Foods that are high in sugar also tend to be high in calories and fat and low in other valuable nutrients. As a result, a high-sugar diet is often linked with obesity.

There’s an important link between calories, sugar, and fat. A calorie is a unit that measures heat, or energy. So, calories describe the amount of energy that different foods supply. The amount of heat, measured in calories, is that food’s caloric content. Before you eat, the energy contained in the food is trapped in the food. The energy is released when your digestive system breaks down the food. Because sugary and fatty foods often are high in calories, it takes the body longer to use up those calories. As a result, excess calories from sugary and fat foods equals excess pounds on a person’s body, generally.

On the fat front, the American Dietetic Association (ADA) recommends that after age 2, children should consume no more than 30% of daily calories from fat, which is relatively the same guideline for adults. Infants and toddlers need more fat as they’re developing. Excess fat in a child’s diet may lead to weight gain. Obese children have a higher incidence of depression and orthopedic problems. Kids who carry excess weight into adulthood have greater risk of heart attacks, high blood pressure, and early death.

Kids who fill up on sugar, fat, and caffeine don’t get the nutrients they need from healthy sources, putting them at risk for malnutrition. The average teen consumes about twice as much sugar as the USDA recommends and doesn’t get the recommended amounts of fruit and low-fat milk. The list seems almost endless.

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In addition to diet, kids must exercise more. This can be done by getting them involved in school sports, time in the park or playground, taking them with you to the gym, going on a family hike, and many other ways. But, most of all, it will likely require much time and effort from you, the parent, if you want to achieve success! Be willing to go the extra mile to help them to be healthy. Remember, an unhealthy person – child or adult – is more prone to repeated visits to the doctor. For some, this may even cause financial problems. If you’ll remember that about 93 percent of all our ailments are due to both improper nutrition and lack of physical activity, it may be the catalyst you need to prod you along.

What Can You Do?
Just as with nutrition, weight control, and exercise problems that many adults face, you should strive to help your kids eat healthier and help them to get adequate exercise. If you help your children get the exercise they need, you will also get most if not all the exercise you need. The best thing you can do is be an example for them in exercise and nutrition. Doing this will help you and make what many consider a choir to be a pleasure.

Walk as a family to share time together and to also increase your metabolism so that you can burn some extra calories along with them. There are many articles on this website that will guide you in the right direction. However, you must develop a plan and stick with it. Work on you and your children’s nutrition and exercise. These are the two keys to being your healthiest.

This article is geared toward competitive-level athletes in sports, bodybuilding, and related areas or those individuals who aspire to compete in such sports activities. It is therefore, written slightly above the lay level.

To achieve the ultimate performance level and to become the type athlete you know you can be requires that you focus on three primary areas:

1) Sports Specificity;

2) Overloading; and

3) Range of Motion.

Increased skills in each of these areas, regardless of which sport you participate in, will increase your individual athletic performance.

Sports Specificity

This term implies performing training motions, exercise regimens, and training techniques that mimic as closely as possible the sport or activity you participate in. For example, to improve the range of movement for a specific joint movement, you must perform exercises that involve that joint action. Using the shoulders as an example, you would be performing a quick bench press that would mimic a push-off that is commonly done by linemen in football. The idea would be to press the weight back up as soon as it touched your chest during the exercise, changing from concentric to eccentric contraction as quickly as possible. The movement would be very explosive, not a stop and go as is common practice by the average fitness buff, body builders or power lifters. This manner of exercise also enhances fast-twitch muscle fibers. Also, working on specific joints will increase range of motion for that joint only, not others. For example, practicing shoulder mobility exercises may improve your shoulder mobility but it will not affect your hip mobility. To improve hip mobility, you must perform other exercises specific to this joint.

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To develop general levels of all around mobility as an athlete, you must consider the specific mobility requirements of a given sport. You must analyze the technique of the athletic event, identify which joint actions are involved, and determine which joint needs to be improved in terms of the range of movement. Let us examine two examples: A baseball pitcher may require improvements in shoulder and spine mobility and would require exercises specific to those areas in addition to all around training. However, a 200-m hurdler might need to develop hip mobility. You can see that the training for the latter would be much different for the specific joint(s) and muscle(s) involved.

The amount and nature of mobility training required by each athlete will vary according to the individual, athletic event requirements, and an individuals current range of movement for each joint action required for the event. For best results, you should measure the range of movement or motion for specific joint actions to determine the present range and where you wish future improvement to be. Ascertaining this and setting a goal will yield best results.

Thus far, we have discussed joint mobility. As important as this may be, specificity is an important principle in speed-strength training also, where the exercise must be specific to the type of strength required. Thus, strength is related to the demands of the athletic event. To be able to accomplish this, you must have in-depth knowledge of the predominant types of muscular activity associated with your event, the movement pattern involved, and the type of strength required. There are four types of strength. However, we’ll discuss these at a later date. The result of this effort is, that while you should include specific speed-strength training methods that are specific to your event, once again you should also include exercises that are more general in nature to achieve a well-rounded development of physique, speed, and strength. These exercises may not relate too closely to the movement of your athletic event, but they will give you a balanced development, and provide a strong base upon which highly specific exercises can be built.

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There are many types of athletic events. Typically, we tend to think of most in forms of moving or throwing heavy objects, moving the body weight quickly such as in running hurdles, or in track and field competitions with the shot put and javelin. There is always the opinion that the heavier the object we can throw or move, the better athlete well be. Such practices have permeated training facilities everywhere and always appear to be at the forefront of the obvious solution. However, we now know from experience that doing so can cause an athlete to unconsciously develop compensatory movements within a technique by adjusting to the weight used in training. As a result, most authorities feel that for throwing events, the training implement should be kept within 15% of the competition weight.

Speed-strength athletes often ask me if there is justification for training slowly by those athletes who move so quickly such as sprinters, ball players, martial artists and others? While it is true that training at low velocity increases low velocity strength substantially, such training has little effect on high velocity strength. However, slow velocity training can be of value in stimulating maximum adaptation within the muscles. Muscle growth, with its subsequent increase in contractile strength, is related to the amount of tension developed within a muscle. As a result, when an athlete performs speed-strength work, i.e., high velocity or speed, the force generated is relatively low and therefore fails to stimulate substantial muscular growth. Consequently, if one performed such exercises extensively, he or she may not be inducing maximum adaptation within the muscles. It is important therefore, for the athlete to use fast and slow movements to fully train the muscles. This means that you must work on training both muscle fiber types regardless of what sport or activity you perform, this is especially true if you wish best results and long-term progress.

Overload

To achieve greatest range of motion, you must overload your muscles and stretch to the end of your range of motion. In active mobility, the end of this range is termed the active-end position. Improvements in mobility can only be achieved by working at or beyond the active-end position. This requires overloading of muscles on a frequent basis. To do this requires using passive exercises and kinetic mobility exercises. Passive exercises involve passing the active-end position. This is where the external force can move the limb(s) further than the active contracting of the protagonist muscles. In comparison, kinetic mobility exercises use the momentum of the movement to bounce past the active end position.

You should note that your muscles will only strengthen when forced to operate beyond the customary intensity. There must be a progressive increase in load to enhance the adaptive responses as training develops, and the training stimulus is gradually raised.

Overloading can be achieved by:

1. Increasing the resistance, e.g., adding 10+ pounds to the weight being used;
2. Increasing the number of repetitions within a set or sets with the weight being used; and
3. Increasing the number of sets per exercise which, increases intensity; concurrently you may also reduce the rest cycle from 60 seconds to 45 seconds or, 30 seconds to 20 seconds depending on weight load used.

Persistence

To maintain and improve you must be persistent. An improved range of motion can be achieved by training, but will be maintained only through regular use of mobility exercises, i.e., persistence in training. If you stop sports specific and mobility training, your range of motion will generally decline with time. It will be fixed to the range achieved by the physical activities you perform. For example, if you train continuously, results will maintain themselves at or near peak levels. However, with a cessation or great reduction in training, your improvements will be limited to that training. In other words, when training ceases, the effects due to training will also cease. This will continue at a rate about equal to 1/3 the rate of acquisition.

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To optimize training, you should train at higher volumes and lower intensity during off season and continue strength training throughout the competitive period with a lower volume, but higher intensity. If you do not, any newly acquired strength will be lost.

Diet
Everyday on the news there is talk about this diet and that one; so much talk that you’re weary of it. This diet, that diet, they never end. But, what many of them tell you is to quit eating carbs. You can’t have ice cream, cake, cookies, pasta, there’s no end to it. It doesn’t have to be that way nor, should it – your body needs carbs. Here’s why! There’s an old nutritionist adage that says, “fats burn in a carbohydrate flame.” What this means is that to burn fat adequately, you must have carbohydrates. How many carbs are adequate? At least 100 grams of carbohydrates per day are needed to prevent fatigue and dangerous fluid imbalances. To make sure you get enough carbohydrates, eat 6-11 servings from the Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta Group on the Food Guide Pyramid every day or modify to the Choose My Plate method, which the government has used to update the older food guide pyramid. When you compare the two, there is not a significant difference.

USDA Food Guide Pyramid

USDA Choose My Plate (Replaces the last Food Guide Pyramid above)

Like everything in life, carbohydrates are good for you when eaten in moderation such as one serving instead of three. In addition to carbs, a daily fiber intake of 20 to 30 grams should be consumed. Adequate fiber helps with proper bowel function. If you were to eat 1 cup of bran cereal, 1/2 cup of carrots, 1/2 cup of kidney beans, a medium-sized pear, and a medium-sized apple together in 1 day, you would get about 30 grams of fiber. That’s quite a bit of food so, you can readily appreciate that you do not need to starve yourself. Factually, by eating a balanced meal plan you’ll get all the calories, energy, and fiber you need. But most importantly, you can enjoy what you eat.

What about fats? No more than 30 percent of calories, on average, should be consumed from fat per day, with less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat (examples are fat from meat, butter, and eggs). Limiting fat to these levels reduces your risk for heart disease and may help you lose weight. Additionally, you should limit the amount of cholesterol in your diet. Cholesterol is a fat-like substance found in animal products such as meat and eggs. Your diet should include no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol per day (one egg contains about 215 milligrams of cholesterol, and 3.5 ounces of cooked hamburger contain 100 milligrams of cholesterol). For eggs consider egg substitutes and egg whites to limit cholesterol from this source. If you’re a real meat lover, consider eating grilled chicken and fish rather than beef. This will greatly lower saturated fat intake. Also, use skim milk rather than whole milk. There are also other milk products on the market that are very healthy and taste good. Small changes can make big differences. If you’d like to know the best foods to eat, check out our good foods area in the nutrition section.

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In addition to basic carbohydrates and fats, you also need protein. A good rule of thumb is about 1/2 to one gram per pound of body weight per day. Also, you need fluids to keep the body functioning properly. At least 8 to 10 glasses, 8 ounces each, of water or water-based beverages, per day. You’ll need more water if you exercise a lot. Choose nutrients that come from a variety of low-calorie, nutrient-rich foods.

Types of diets

Fixed-menu diet. A fixed-menu diet provides a list of all the foods you will eat. This kind of diet can be easy to follow because the foods are selected for you. But, you get very few different food choices, which may make the diet boring and hard to follow away from home. This is normally the type diet you would get from most companies because they’re easy to design. It’s like a one-size-fits-all situation. In addition, fixed-menu diets do not teach the food selection skills necessary for keeping weight off. If you start with a fixed-menu diet, you should switch eventually (4-10 weeks) to a plan that helps you learn to make meal choices on your own, such as an exchange-type diet.

Exchange-type diet. An exchange-type diet is a meal plan with a set number of servings from each of several food groups. Within each group, foods are about equal in calories and can be interchanged as you wish. For example, the “starch” category could include one slice of bread or 1/2 cup of oatmeal; each is about equal in nutritional value and calories. If your meal plan calls for two starch choices at breakfast, you could choose to eat two slices of bread, or one slice of bread and 1/2 cup of oatmeal. With the exchange-type diet plans, you have more day-to-day variety and you can easily follow the diet away from home. The most important advantage is that exchange-type diet plans teach the food selection skills you need to keep your weight off. This kind of plan will help you more quickly become your own nutrition expert.

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Prepackaged-meal diet. These diets require you to buy prepackaged meals. Such meals may help you learn appropriate portion sizes. However, they can be costly. Before beginning this type of program, find out whether you will need to buy the meals and how much the meals cost. You should also find out whether the program will teach you how to select and prepare food – skills that are needed to sustain weight loss.

Formula diet. Formula diets are weight-loss plans that replace one or more meals with a liquid formula. Most formula diets are balanced diets containing a mix of protein, carbohydrate, and usually a small amount of fat. Formula diets are usually sold as liquid or a powder to be mixed with liquid. Although formula diets are easy to use and do promote short-term weight loss, most people regain the weight as soon as they stop using the formula because of the craving created for other foods. In addition, formula diets do not teach you how to make healthy food choices, a necessary skill for keeping your weight off.

Questionable diets. You should avoid any diet that suggests you eat a certain nutrient, food, or combination of foods to promote easy weight loss. Or, diets that prescribe completely cutting certain macro nutrients such as carbohydrates or protein. Some of these diets may work in the short term because they are low in calories. However, they are often not well balanced and may cause nutrient deficiencies. In addition, they do not teach eating habits that are important for long-term weight management.

Flexible diets. Some programs or books suggest monitoring fat only, calories only, or a combination of the two, with the individual making the choice of both the type and amount of food eaten. This flexible type of approach works well for many people, and teaches them how to control what they eat. One drawback of flexible diets is that some don’t consider the total diet. For example, programs that monitor fat only often allow people to take in unlimited amounts of excess calories from sugars, and therefore don’t lead to weight loss.

It is important to choose an eating plan that you can live with. The plan should also teach you how to select and prepare healthy foods, as well as how to maintain your new weight. Remember that many people tend to regain lost weight. Eating a healthful and nutritious diet to maintain your new weight, combined with regular physical activity, helps to prevent weight regain.

Physical activity
Regular physical activity is important to help you lose weight and build an overall healthy lifestyle. Physical activity increases the number of calories your body uses and promotes the loss of body fat instead of muscle and other nonfat tissue. Research shows that people who include physical activity in their weight-loss programs are more likely to keep their weight off than people who only change their diet. In addition to promoting weight control, physical activity improves your strength and flexibility, lowers your risk of heart disease, helps control blood pressure and diabetes, can promote a sense of well-being, and can decrease stress.

Any type of physical activity you choose to do, vigorous activities such as running or aerobic dancing or, moderate-intensity activities, such as walking or household work, will increase the number of calories your body uses. The key to successful weight control and improved overall health is making physical activity a part of your daily life.

For the greatest overall health benefits, experts recommend that you perform 20 to 30 minutes of vigorous physical activity (see the following Activities Chart) three or more times a week and some type of muscle strengthening activity, such as weight resistance, and stretching at least twice a week. However, if you are unable to do this level of activity, you can improve your health by performing 30 minutes or more of moderate-intensity physical activity (see the Activities Chart) over the course of a day, at least five times a week. However, twice this amount of time will give you very good results in a much shorter time.

When including physical activity in your weight-loss program, you should choose a variety of activities that can be done regularly and are enjoyable for you. Also, if you have not been physically active, you should see your doctor before you start, especially if you are older than 40 years of age, very overweight, or have medical problems. For a comparison of calories burned by activity, see “Facts about Burning Fat.”

Physical Activities Chart

Vigorous activities
Aerobic dancing
Brisk walking
Cycling
Running
Spinning class (cycles)
Sprinting
Swimming

Moderate-intensity common daily activities
Playing actively with children
Using a push mower to cut the grass
Walking up the stairs instead of taking the elevator
Walking part or all the way to work
Walking after work just to get started

Now that we’ve refreshed the basics for you on diet and exercise, you must decide to eat healthy and exercise regularly on your own. This is the most difficult part. To do this requires that you to modify your behavior. Sounds easy enough.

Behavior change
Behavior change focuses on learning eating and physical activity habits that will help you lose weight and keep it off. The first step is to look at your eating and physical activity habits thus, uncovering behaviors (such as watching television 40 hours or more per week) that lead you to overeat or be inactive. Next, you’ll need to learn how to change those behaviors. Getting support from others is a good way to help you maintain your new eating and physical activity habits. Changing your eating and physical activity behaviors increases your chances of losing weight and keeping it off. For additional information on behavior change, you may wish to ask a weight-loss counselor or refer to books on this topic, which are available in local libraries.

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The single most important choice for this process is to determine what works for you? However, one simple fact stands above all others. If you do not enjoy it, you will not stick with it for long. This means that you must choose a diet type with foods that you like and that you must choose exercises that you enjoy and can perform easily, at least in the early stages. Remember this key and you’ll do well.

So, let’s create a habit. How? By performing the task each day for at least three weeks. For example, you have not exercised for a long time and cannot seem to get into it because you just do not like it, try this: while you’re watching your favorite television show, choose two commercial breaks and exercise throughout each of these two commercials. You can try sit ups, in-place squats, dumbbell weights, a stationary bike, pushups, stretching, jumping jacks, almost anything that will increase your heart rate. Then, do this for three weeks straight. Don’t be surprised when it becomes a habit. Work yourself into your diet and exercise plan slowly, increasing about 5-10 percent in activity each week. As an example, if for the first week you do 10 minutes of exercise each day, for the second week do 11-12 minutes per day. Before you know it, you’ll be exercising every commercial break and you know what, once you’re there you’ll absolutely love it. What are you waiting for?

A variety of options exist to help you lose weight and keep it off. The key to successful weight loss is making changes in your eating and physical activity habits that you will be able to maintain. This website will help provide information for you to succeed!

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It’s quite simple once you know how. There will be no need for supplements, wraps, or fat creams. However, you will have to invest about 60 to 90 minutes per week, split into 3 or 4 days working out. If you’re willing to do that, read on, if not, exit now. “Using the correct exercise program, one can rid themselves of cellulite and once again, make the lower buttocks and back of the legs smooth, not to mention much firmer,” says Lifestyle expert Dr. Tindall in his book 90 Days to a New You: Total Body Makeover. From those he has trained, as well as others using the program, over 80 percent have reported significant cellulite loss to near unnoticeable levels or gone completely.

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During this program, which has taken place the last 6 years, the average participant lost about 4 pounds of fat around the buttocks area, while adding 3 pounds of muscle, sometimes much more, but not to the point of looking unfeminine. This loss equates to approximately a two-inch reduction in hip girth. The basic facts are that it doesn’t take much reduction to make a vast improvement in appearance. The average thickness of fat loss was measured at about 1.5 mm resulting in a smooth, firm look.

What’s the Real Story About Cellulite?
Cellulite is in fact fat cells that are separated into compartments, or at least that’s about as easy as one can phrase it. The development of cellulite is not a medical condition or some unsolved mystery of science, it’s not toxins trapped beneath the skin, nor is it poor circulation; cellulite is simply fat!

The reason cellulite looks like it does is because of the way it is arranged as components of connected fat cells that connect skin to muscle tissue. Men rarely develop cellulite because the development of these cells are accomplished in a x-type, horizontal pattern, which presents the ever-present dimple seen on quite a few women. This connective fat-tissue pattern in women takes the shape of a honeycomb that resembles deep dimples or volcano’s as some refer to them. As you age the connective tissues that form cellulite thickens, but at the same time, your skin gets thinner, so the cellulite looks worse. However, regardless of what you call it or what you think it looks like, or your age, you can get rid of it. However, there is one thing you should be aware of; as you age you develop a condition called sarcopenia. In effect, this is the loss of muscle mass with age if you don’t remain relatively active. And, this muscle loss is usually accompanied by a gain in body fat that replaces the lost muscle. Read more about sarcopenia. In addition to this, firm skin and muscle will keep a smooth look, fat cannot keep skin neither firm nor taught. As a result, you get the ever-increasing bulge. But, not to worry. We will help you cure it.

You must do two things: 1) eat a healthy diet with calories intake proportionate to what you burn each day; and 2) most importantly, you must exercise. The key to step 2 is to do the right kinds of exercises. These exercises will reduce the underlying fat stores that cause the cellulite look. This is the only way. Wraps, creams, cosmetics, and other processes will not work and if by some miracle they do, the results will last less than a few days. The key is to firm the muscles in the buttock area and back of the legs.

What You Must Do!

1. Eat well, don’t overeat – determine your daily calorie needs.

2. Perform the following basic exercise program at least 3 times per week for 20-30 minutes each time:

Step 1: Warm-up first before beginning your exercises. This can be done by walking on a treadmill, using a stationary bike, swimming, elliptical stepper, or other exercise of the aerobic type for approximately 8-10 minutes. Work so that you begin to breathe a little hard and develop a mild perspiration. Once you feel sufficiently warmed up, you’re ready to start the core exercises.

Step 2: The exercises are strength exercises. In this case, they are mostly squats of all types. Perform each exercise with a weight heavy enough that you can only do about it 12 times (repetitions) per set so that you fatigue the leg and buttocks muscles. The importance of the amount of weight and repetitions cannot be overstated. This is crucial! Select from the following list, 3 to 4 exercises for each workout day. Perform 4 sets of 12 repetitions for each exercise, 3 days per week. It is preferable to skip a day between, i.e., Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. On your next workout day, choose different exercises than you did the previous workout day. Add some cardio exercises such as sprinting, jogging, swimming, etc. for days you do not lift weights.

The Exercises

40-meter Sprints (8 repetitions per workout day)
Back Squats
Double-Leg Straddle
Dumbbell Squats
Split Squats (with weight)
Front Squats
Goblet Squats
Hack Squat
Jump Split Squats (no weight)
Leg Press
Lunges (walking and weighted – 4 laps around a basketball court)
Lying Leg Curls
One Leg Squats
Side-to-Side Hop
Squat Jumps (with weights)
Step Ups (weighted)
Sumo Squats

Step 3: Stretching. After you perform each exercise for the required number of sets and repetitions and, before you proceed to the next exercise, stretch the same muscles worked for about 15 to 20 seconds. This will give you best muscle development over time, with firmer results.

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The best part about these exercises is that most are full range of motion that really stretch the muscles and because they work the large muscle groups, they burn more calories than working upper body muscles such as triceps, biceps, or chest. These exercises work the best. Others can be added, but usually do not work as well. They include good mornings, adductions, abductions, and kickbacks. If you are not familiar with some of these, any trainer can show you how; they are also described in the ‘exercise descriptions’ located in the fitness section of this website.

What are you waiting for? Got Cellulite? Not after 12 weeks of persistence on this program. Good luck and have fun.