Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Facts About Fitness Programs For Women

Compared to general programs, fitness programs for women are designed with woman's specific body features and need in mind. We all realize that women are more prone to putting on fat and require more specialized technique to regain our sex bodies.

That being said, even women have widely different physical conditions from each other, and therefore there is no universal exercise regimen that works for everyone. To select your best fitness program, you will need to have some basic fitness know-how coupled with a really good understanding of your own body. The most reliable approach is to consult your doctor or a dietitian to find out what regimen is more realistic and effective for you. In case you have always been in good health and is not overly overweight, you may also get a reputable fitness guide and follow through. In fact, if you choose carefully, you can get hold of one which offers excellent customer support. That way, you will also have an expert next to you to provide professional advice.

In additional to the different physical conditions, women often have varied fitness needs. Let us take a look at what might be the best fitness programs for women in different situations.

1. For Fat Loss

To effectively lose your extra body fat, you will need to do both cardio and strength training. Cardio exercise along is not sufficient to help you continue to burn fat after the training is over. Likewise, if you only do strength training, you are likely to gain muscle without losing fat, and you will only look more bulky that way. If you want to get rid of extra weight the quickest way possible, you should also increase the intensity of your exercises at a moderate pace and add interval training into your routine. Obviously, cutting down your calorie intake in the mean time will get you faster results.

2. For Body Toning

For women to stay fit, a healthy level of muscle is a must. In general, women not only tend to have higher fat level than men, we also lose more muscle mass as we age. Less muscle, in turn, will lead to lower metabolism and difficulty to lose weight. What you can do to intervene this unhealthy cycle is to add strength training to your cardio exercises so that you can build some muscle while losing fat. You can do things like weight lifting, lunges, crunches and push-ups. This way, you will get toned up and feel more energized, younger, healthier and happier!

3. For Maintaining Weight

Many women cease fitness exercise as soon as they feel they have reached their goals, but, sadly, the weight lost is very easy to come back. For women to maintain a healthy body weight, experts suggest at least 40 to 60 minutes a day of moderate - intense physical activity, such as walking, jogging, running, gardening, or cycling. If you can keep to this routine, you are likely to maintain your ideal weight level.

With the many fitness programs for women out there, it might be a challenge to find one that are effective, safe and inexpensive. If you feel you need an opinion, you can simply check out the online forums, ask your best girl friend, or step into a few gyms and make a comparison. Either way, the key is to find a program which can produce results for you and which you feel you can stick to in the long term.

Reasons Women Must Take Up Fitness Program

Many women associate fitness with slimness. Women often start taking exercise primarily because they want to lose weight. They then often become frustrated because they do not seem to lose weight and give up their exercise program.

The basic problem here is that fitness and slimness are not strictly the same thing. Think of a football player or a wrestler. They are obviously fit but the may be much heavier than the ideal weight for their height.

Ideal height to weight ratios can be misleading. What we are really concerned about is fat. Excess fat is the danger to health.

Fat is formed by eating too many calories and exercise does not burn many calories. Shifting the fat depends on reducing your calorific intake. It is not unusual to lose as little as four ounces of weight a week from exercise alone. Over a year that amounts to quite a lot, but on a weekly basis is it hardly registers on most sets of scales.

Some women may even put on weight when they begin to exercise because they are creating muscle. This kind of weight gain is not harmful to a woman's health because it is not fat.

So if a woman's aim is to reduce her weight then she must focus on diet as well as exercise. In the long run the exercise will benefit her weight loss program because she is creating more lean muscle. Lean muscle burns more calories than fat even when sitting still so she will find it easier to maintain a healthy weight. There is less danger yo-yo weight loss and regain that afflicts so many women.

Weight training is of great benefit to women for this reason. Weight training creates lean muscle more quickly than cardiovascular fitness training. It is therefore a good idea for women to include some resistance work in their fitness regime. Even free weights can be beneficial. Don't be put off by the men. No woman will develop bulging muscles with weight training because women don't have as much testosterone as men.

Cardiovascular fitness training is vital for women as it is for men because it combats so many common health problems. Heart disease affects women as well as men. They can also suffer from high blood pressure. So it is important for women to do a frequent cardiovascular work out that will strengthen the heart and improve the circulation.

A good circulation is important for making a woman look fit. Cardiovascular fitness training will give a woman that healthy glow. Her skin, hair and eyes will all look healthy. A woman who radiates good health will get noticed. She will look good. Her vitality will shine through and say much more about a woman than a slightly overweight figure.

Cardiovascular exercise and resistance work are especially important for women because of the danger of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a common problem for women as they age and the density of their bones diminishes. It can result in breakages in older women. The best way to prevent osteoporosis is by fitness training.

Fitness training can also combat other common health problems in women. Painful periods can be helped by exercise. Depression and anxiety can both be reduced. Exercise increases the level of serotonin and releases dopamine which improve mood and reduce pain. Fitness training has been shown to have a definite effect on levels of serotonin and dopamine in women.

After exercise a woman will feel more positive about her confident. The stresses and strains of everyday life will seem more manageable.

Fitness and Health for Women

Only a few years ago, it was weird for women to enter the confines of the weight room of a gym. Instead, women were restricted to aerobics, jazzercise, walking and many other similar types of exercise to lose weights. But, nowadays, lots of women have no second thoughts in pumping iron along with the men in order to overall fitness and health body building benefits.

What is the reason behind the importance of weight training to women for achieving fitness and health body building? The answer is that it jumpstarts the women’s metabolism and hence gives a more effective and efficient way to burn your calories. As the muscles begin to gain mass because of training with weights, more calories are burnt to fasten the muscle transformation. 

The Balancing Act

When talking about fitness and health body building for the women, weight training doesn’t allow much fat to be lying around which is a great thing. Tweaking their diet and lowering calorie intake will help women lose some of their fat. By doing this, the fresh burgeoning muscle eat all the calories you take in and also take care of the few calories held reserve by the body fat.

A balance is required in your diet to stop the body from reversing by shrinking the muscle and storing much more fat than before in order to compensate. Adding to this, while weight training is not taken as an aerobic exercise, research has proved that it increases the heart rate of a person like cardiovascular exercise which is needed to burn fat.

Bulking Up Without Fear

In fitness and health body building just for women, hesitation on making a plan for workout shouldn’t be there. Introducing steroids in the blood stream is the only way to add some bulk mass to women as weight training is futile for women. Actually, weight training creates a fibrous, solid muscle with low fat for women which help in providing a svelte and smaller appearance.

Due to the genes, women are inclined towards lower muscle mass as of men and these results in women having beautiful feminine curves due to weight training. Lots of experts warn women who go through fitness and health body building not to hop on scale for some time.

This is because muscle weighs much more than fat and this can make you uncomfortable at first. But, with lower fat, women would discover that they can weigh the same as of before the weight training but get to wear a smaller size dresses. In fitness and health body building, what matters are more muscle and less fat!

Women Fitness Fashion- What Should you Wear

Sometimes all you need to get motivated to start a fitness program is some new threads. There was a time when the only sorts of fitness clothes were leotards and spandex pants. Not to many women were comfortable in wearing something like this. Thankful though in our day and age there is a wide selection of clothes to fit anyone's needs. For some people, especially once they start to lose weight, it becomes just as important to look good as it does to feel comfortable!

The first things to consider when looking for workout clothes are are they comfortable and not restricting? If you are going to be doing a high impact cardio workout you want to make sure that your clothes will be easy to move around in. The material should be flexible and breathable. You don't want to have soaking wet pants or a top after a good workout.

Check out the material that the clothes are made of. Wicking-material clothes are a good choice for runners or speed walkers. This type of material helps the evaporation of sweat and is quick cooling. You can also wear it under warmer clothing for when you are outside during the colder months. Fleece is another excellent choice. It keeps you warm without being bulky and is also water resistant. There are also nylon and supplex clothes too.

So how do you know which one is right for you? It all depends on your activity. If you are a runner, you might want to go with the wicking material to help keep you dry as you run. You can even look at clothes that are made with what is called 100% moisture transfer polyester. These clothes will take moisture away from skin and keep you dry and comfortable.

You also want to make sure you do not get anything heavy to wear and it is a good rule of thumb to wear lighter clothes than temperatures might be. If you dress yourself to warmly you might find yourself sweating more than you should which will put you at a bigger risk of dehydration. So make sure your clothes have plenty of breathing room. In fact if it is very cold out, you should think about dressing in layers. That way if you get to warm you can simply remove a layer. In the warmer weather, you might want to wear light colored clothes to reflect the sun's rays which will help you stay cooler.

What you wear on your feet is just as important as what you wear on your body . There are many types of footwear out on the market today so it is very important to choose the right one. You want to make sure you have plenty of cushioning for high impact activities and most importantly make sure they are comfortable for you. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you want to be comfortable when you are working out. Make sure you are comfortable in your clothes, so that working out will be that much more comfortable for you.

There might be some of you, who are looking for something a little more structured and instruction. Not to worry there is something for you also. Gyms all around the world are starting to offer dancing classes. Starting off there is Cardio Salsa. This class if offered at The Crunch gyms nationwide or you can look for it on DVD. It is a low impact high intensity workout that combines the hottest Latin dances such as the cha-cha, mambo, samba and more with traditional dance steps such as the grapevine, lunges and arm raises. What women are loving about this workout is that they can take what they learn on the videos or classes and take it to a night club if they want to!

Cardio Capoeira is also becoming another popular dance workout. It was featured briefly on the cool down segments of the hit exercise video Turbo Jam, but has come out on its own as a great workout. In fact for fans of the hit Movie Ocean's 12 might remember it being featured as the Night Fox dodges the lasers to get to the goods, or you might remember Catherine Zeta-Jones using a similar dance in the movie Entrapment. Cardio Capoeira is a basically a form of martial arts that is disguised as dancing. It was used to train Brazilian slaves martial arts without letting their captors know. It requires a lot of kicking, spinning and even cartwheels. What makes this workout so powerful especially on your buttocks and quads is the move the ginga which links one movement to the next so you will find yourself doing this often.

Cardio Striptease is another dance workout that is sweeping the nation. There are a number of DVDs out that offer a cardio striptease workout. This routine is part burlesque, part yoga, and part gymnastics. There are no concise steps and the whole point of the routine is to allow you to move freely and beautifully and learn to express yourself. You never have to worry about holding any sort of poses but move from one move to another by using slow moving hip and butt circles. The aim of this workout is to tone the hips, buttocks, thighs calves and abs.

OF course you can always go the more traditional route and sign up for ballroom dancing classes which will still give you a great workout. Which ever one of these you choose, you will burning fat and calories while having a great time. You won't even know you are exercising, that's how much fun you will have.

Women Fitness - Essentials of Workouts

As a woman your work out plan includes a diversity of dissimilar needs that she would want to meet with success. One wants to unfasten surplus body fat, build curves and tone your body so that she looks the best. Further follow on to find out how to get great curve along with health and fitness.

Women usually opt to start with the work out machines for their exercise and they normally opt for a step master or treadmill and a multi work out piece of tools, as well as a several other equipments. But what is very universal for a lady is to march out rightly preceding the liberated weights.

You must have often seen those commercials guranting you that they would surely let your weight down in just 5 weeks so that you can experience yourself back in that succulent and sculpted body. Keep in mind that they guide you that your arc fitness is merely more than a few hundred dollars away but it is presented to you only with a training videocassette. One should therefore exercise all her body parts without ever changing the tools to which she is often used to.

After completing some quick work do you ever come to a decision to give up the gym link and use the dollars on your new work out machine which will only require a small number of years to pay off the price and also think that in no time you are going to achieve those cheerful arcs from your arc fitness work out machines. But this wrong conception should be washed out of the mind as gym is the only place where a woman can dream of having a beautiful figure. She can't achieve the same results with the trendy machines as they would affect only a part of the body.

One of the major problems with that trendy equipment besides the high purchasing price is that they are too much convoluted. They are stiff to set up, hard to understand, hard to configure, and realize it or not it is going to be tough to get that arc fitness by just using these toy machines. Rather one will move away from the main motive of getting fit and healthy by coming under the influence of these toys like machines. With an appropriate work out and regular scheduled exercise one can get those arced curves in very less time.

How To Get Great Womens Fitness

As a woman your exercise program includes a variety of different needs than a male counterpart would be looking for. You will want to loose excess body fat, tone, and build curves so that you look your best. Read on to discover how to get great womens fitness.

When it comes to womens fitness women will usually head to the treadmill, step master, or multi exercise machines for their workout as well as a few other machines. But women commonly walk right past the free weights.

You've probably seen those infomercials that claim that in just 4 weeks you can have that toned curvy body? They tell you that your curve fitness can be purchased with their womens fitness equipment for just a few thousand dollars and you'll even get a training video. You can exercise the entire body and never change machines. 

Five minutes more and they've got you sold on giving up that gym membership and putting your trust in the new miracle womens fitness machine. Heck in just a couple of years it will be paid off and those curves are worth every nickel. 

What would you say if I told you could do just that for under a hundred dollars you could have all those curves and you would not have to have a room for all that womens fitness equipment. What would you say if I told you that a set of free weights for your workout is all that you need to get those sexy curves every women dreams of? 

One of the biggest problems with those fancy womens fitness machines is that on top of the huge price tag they are also very complicated. They are difficult to set up and configure, the instructions are next to impossible to understand, and contrary to what the infomercial says it is hard to get those curves. 

For womens fitness and to get those curves you don't have to spend crazy amounts of the money and you sure don't need to get complicated. With a proper workout with your free weights you can get those beautiful curves. And the great thing about free weights is that you can mix it up a little by changing routines any time you like.

Free weights are one of several very affordable ways to get those curves with a womens fitness program. There are other options. Pilates is has become very popular and it takes up no space and what an easy way to get those curves by using resistance. 

For womens fitness that entails toning those abs you are working on the hardest area of the body to get into shape but never give up because you can do it with real determination and you don't need any equipment to do it. 

As we get older those extra calories tend to land on our stomach and mid section and putting it on is much easier than taking it off but the right womens fitness will make it a whole lot easier. 

Now that you know how to get greats curve with your womens fitness program and on a budget and without having to learn complex equipment what are you waiting for?