Ladies!! A Key Tip About your Workouts I Think Will Change your Whole Outlook on Fitness!!
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Like I've said before, the key to consistently gaining muscle, losing weight, or maintaining muscle growth is consistent effort. This includes in our meal planning/prepping/eating. If you make it a habit, it will not seem so daunting. But at first, you have to try! Make it simple. Don't overthink it. Eat similar things each week. Plan ahead. Here is a great article with tips for how to do this! Click here--> No Cook Meal Prep Tips
1- Breakfast Ideas like waffles, yogurt and berries
2-Snacks include cottage cheese and veggies and fruit
As mom's and women in general, we tend to put ourselves last. In everything. This includes eating. As part of my meal prep 10-day course, we are learning how to meal prep to help ourselves. In fact, part of the reason I meal prep for my kids is so I have a chance to eat breakfast, myself. I workout early in the morning, so its crucial I eat afterward. There's no skipping breakfast here. So I make sure to bake foods ahead for my kids to grab and go, just as much for them, as for me. BUT, if I'm running behind and absolutely without a chance to prep any real foods, I scoop up 1/4 of my protein and 3/4 of my superfoods AND grab a fruit/veggie squeeze pouch to get my fruits and veggies and out the door we go!
As I scan through all the Pinterest boards...over and over I see a fitness tab...filled with 100's of AWESOME workout ideas...
But I can't help but feel like everyone clicks them, pins them, reads through them...and they collect dust in the back of their Pinterest closet like all their workout videos, dumbbells, and clothes drying treadmill...
Am I right?!
Well, let's pull some of those workout tips out and make a week's worth of workouts out of them. Because they are valuable and can serve a real purpose, its just hard to know what to do---when---and how often.
First, let's determine how often?
4 days a week, ok...CHECK.
How much time do you truly have to dedicate to these 4-days of workouts?
30 minutes?...ok. CHECK.
What are your goals?
Toning your arms for summer?...ok. CHECK.
Decreasing fat overall? ...ok. CHECK.
And improving endurance? ...ok. CHECK.
Here's how a trainer would typically approach a program.
1) Work all muscle groups over the span of a week. Add extra emphasis on areas of trouble. So if you are wanting upper body toning...make that 2 days of your 4 workouts.
2) Work antagonist muscles. So for every pulling type exercise (pull ups, banded rows, deadlift)...do a push movement. (push ups, chest press, squats)
3) Incorporate cardio into your strength sessions. So to get 30 solid minutes of exercise in...add 1 day of high intensity exercise, 1 day of longer slower cardio, and one day of heavy strength, and one day of all cardio.
4) Add warm-up and cool down to your 30 minute list. So make sure to stretch, foam roll, mash soreness...and warm-up muscles according to what areas you are working. As well as cool them down slowly when finished.
5) Make sure your nutrition matches your energy output. You can't out-exercise a bad diet. SO DON"T sabotage your 4-days of workout efforts. Figure out your macros beforehand and work to stick to them. Allowing 1 day of cheats a week.
There are key ways to improve upper body strength and develop that shoulder definition you are desiring for functional and physical reasons.
1) Consistently working at those muscle groups. For women, this includes working the upper body 2-3 days a week in some way, shape, or form. As a trainer, I typically like to change it up and work heavy weights, high volume, gymnastic and bodyweight strengthening, and power movements as part of the combination of series I will use to train my female clients. This also includes pushing the volume and the weight during these movements. Most women are weak in their upper body and it hurts to push the weights...but it is the only TRUE way to manipulate the shoulder muscles.
2) There are 4 joints in the shoulder, not to mention many ligaments, tendons, and muscles holding it all together. It is a sensitive area that needs to be approached with expertise and proper programming. In addition, full range of motion needs to be in place for maximum effectiveness, meaning all 4 heads need to be moving and acting efficiently. For most people, this isn't the case due to bad posture, desk jobs, etc. The 3 biggest cues I use for shoulder alignment is: sit up tall, scapula retracted (in other words, shoulder down and back), and chin tucked in (NOT jutted out)...and proper warm-up and cool down stretches for the shoulders as well.
Here are some of my favorite shoulder warm-up tips:
How to Relieve Shoulder Pain/Trap Soreness
My #1 Tip for Overhead movements involving the shoulder!
