I get asked by many women, what routine should I follow if I want to lift weights and not use the machines or do cardio. Below is a good routine that works really well and will build muscle tone, shape and firm up the upper chest, back of the arms, butt and thighs.

Performing your workout correctly:

1. On the first training session, start off light, do 1 set per exercise. You might ache the next day, this is normal and shows you have trained well. Training well results in your body adapting to the stress applied. This causes your muscles to get stronger, firmer and more toned to cope with the stress you have put them under. You tend to ache the most the first few sessions, a dull ache however is good, often desirable and is a true indication that you have trained hard! It is common for ‘competitive’ types to train more than they need to, as they appear that they have far more energy and therefore they must ‘use it up’. Avoid this attitude at all costs, as you’ll end up with 3-4 days of real bad muscle soreness and will end up cursing you ever used weights. Just go gently into weights and build up the sets and reps as you get stronger, you’ll make great progress, avoid over training and still enjoy training.

2. After a few weeks, perform 2 sets for each exercise. After around 3 months, perform a maximum of 3 sets per exercise. Always do an additional easy warm-up set of around 20 reps, to get the motion right and the blood into the muscle.

3. Perform a maximum of around 10-12 reps for each exercise. The weights you are using should be heavy enough, so that the last rep should be near impossible. Try and increase the weights or reps you are doing every session, to ensure you are progressing. When I say increase, it only needs to be a very little increase in weight, (in some instances, a tiny 1 or 2lb plate or extra 1-2 reps is fine.). Don’t ego train, i.e. throwing two additional big plates on the end of each bar or picking up a too heavy set of dumbbells and thinking you can lift it, only to struggle or bounce it up, is a waste of time. You’ll end up using bad form, which makes you look silly, increases your chance of injury and on top of that you probably won’t even be using the actual muscle you are trying to work!

*Get proper instruction on all exercises or invest in a personal trainer to show you how to perform each exercise properly.

(If you want to know how to do an exercise,
click on its name and you’ll see an animated
graphic like this appear)

1 - 3 sets of each exercise with 10 - 12 repetitions.

Monday

Squats
Leg Extentions
Leg Curl
Lunges
Crunches
Hanging Leg raises

Tuesday

Rest day

Wednesday

Flat Bench Press
Lat Pulldown
Lateral Raise
Dumbbell shoulder press
Triceps Pushdown
Dumbbell Biceps Curl
Crunches
Hanging Leg raises

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