When to Work Your Abs

Lots of people work their abs every day, but that is not usually the best way to do it. Treat your abs like other skeletal muscles and work them every other day for best results. Do two or three different exercises, with two or three sets of each. Do your ab exercises slowly and to the point of fatigue.

Weight Training Twenty Minutes a Day

Take your time when toning your body. You can maximize the benefit of a biceps strength training exercise, a back strength training exercise, a chest strength training exercise, and so on, by doing them in small blocks of time every day. Although the USDA recommends at least thirty to sixty minutes each day, you don't have to spend all of it weight training—you probably do physical activity that counts as exercise every day (such as walking up stairs).

In your weight training routine, you don't have to work all your target areas at once. Instead, work one area a day for about 20 minutes. For example, your program might look like this:

• Monday: Chest and Back Weight Training for 20 min.
• Tuesday: Shoulder Strength Exercise for 20 min.
• Wednesday: Abs Weight Training for 20 min.
• Thursday: Biceps and Triceps Strength Training for 20 min.
• Friday: Grab Bag/Wild Card for 20 min.
• Saturday: Hip and Thigh Weight Training for 20 min.
• Sunday: Chest and Shoulder Strength Training for 20 min.

Choose a set of exercises for each day and follow your weight training program. You can vary it, especially as you add more reps to your arm curls, incline chest presses, shoulder presses, and kickbacks. Remember, you don't have to devote countless hours to working out to look and feel good.

Strength Training and Resistance Bands

Get on the resistance bandwagon! Resistance bands are easier and more flexible than barbells, dumbbells or even hand weights. Your weight training routine will benefit from adding at least one strength training exercise that uses a resistance band.

Try doing squats while pulling on the resistance band wrapped around a doorknob (this weight training exercise strengthens the butt, thighs, back, chest, triceps and biceps).

Be careful in your resistance band strength training to:



• Secure the band around objects, otherwise the ends can come loose and possibly cause an injury

• Before and during every session of your weight training program, make sure your hands aren't damp, sweaty or slippery



If you're accident prone, look into buying a resistance band with safety features (the B-Lines Resistance Bands Upgrade Kit includes a door attachment with safety strap, so you can attach your band to a doorjamb or even a tree and pull, pull, pull without fear).

Staying Flexible

Bend and flex! Weight training helps maintain or even improve flexibility. Just remember during strength training exercise to fully extend and retract, and stretch thoroughly. Use full range of motion in your weight training routine.

Drop Sets

Don't drop the ball. You can incorporate drop sets in a weight training routine sometimes for variety, but don´t make them the mainstay of your strength training workout. They are best done on selectorized machines, but you can also go down the rack of dumbbells.

Start your strength training exercise with a weight you can lift 8-10 times. Do a set to fatigue, immediately put the pin in the next lighter weight and do another set to fatigue, then do the same thing one more time. If you can do more than 10 reps on any of them, start with a heavier weight next time.

Diet and Weight Training

No fat, no muscle gain. Sumo wrestlers in Japan know this. (So does Hilary Swank, who had to eat 210 grams of carbs per day while weight training for “Million Dollar Baby”).

Before embarking on a weight training routine, adjust your diet. Try infusing your diet with flaxseed oil, high in fat (Omega-3 fatty acids), and also egg whites, which are high in protein. Drinking protein shakes can also give you energy during your weight training program.

You might not need to eat quite as demanding a diet, depending on how demanding your strength training exercise is. But as Suzanne Somers has said, fat is not the enemy. This is doubly true if you're doing strength training. “Eat your greens,” Mom's sage advice, holds true for a weight training diet as well. You'll need to add nutritional supplements, particularly if a high-protein diet (or egg whites) doesn't agree with you).

Changing Routines

Getting bored? Not overtraining but thinking of giving your weight training program a rest? Make changes in your weight training routine every 6-8 weeks to keep from getting stale and reaching a strength training plateau.

Neurological Conditioning

Don't get nervous if you don't bulk up after your strength training workout. Your first response to strength training is neurological--the nervous system learns to recruit more of the muscle to complete a weight training routine. So your initial strength gains are due to nervous system response, not muscle growth, which comes later. You start to get strong before you start to get big, and that's a good thing.

Best Exercises

There are many good weight training exercises, and you will probably experiment with a lot of them and choose your favorites. Still, there are some classic exercises that are generally considered among the best for their muscle groups. The best chest exercise is the bench press, with free weights or machine. The lat pulldown machine is the most popular for upper back, and is a good one. For biceps, it's arm curls, but no one exercise stands out for triceps. Overhead presses are the classic shoulder exercise. For your legs and butt, it's squats or lunges; leg press is the machine. And for abs, do those crunches.

Women´s Muscles

Strong women really do stay young...with strength training. Women build up their muscles in response to weight training, but it is usually seen in the form of firmness and muscle definition. Very few women can build huge, bulging muscles through a weight training routine, even if they want to. They don´t have the right hormones. But they'll increase their health and fitness levels, and look younger!

How Hard to Grip

Don't be so hard on yourself! During strength training exercise, don't grip the weight or machine any harder than you need to, unless you´re training grip strength. A too-hard grip during a weight training program can raise blood pressure.

Split Routines

Split the difference! Doing split weight training routines instead of working your whole body each time allows you to do more sets for the body parts you are working and/or spend fewer hours in the gym, although you will be there more days. You can do 6 days a week total, but 4 is enough for most.

Just remember to allow recovery from your weight training program and not work the same muscles 2 days in a row. Typical strength training exercise splits are: upper/lower body; push (chest, shoulders, triceps)/pull (legs, back, biceps); arms, legs, and abs/chest, shoulders, and back.

Stretching While Working Out

Reach for the sky! Stretch up, down and from side to side between weight training sets if you feel your muscles starting to cramp up. During any strength training exercise, stretch the muscles you are working.

Starting Out

Don't take strength training shortcuts if you're starting out. Beginning weight trainees should build a strength base by doing the standard versions of exercises in a weight training routine, not variations they think will target their weak points.

Glamour Muscles

Ah-nold knows that the glamour muscles for men--abs, pecs, and biceps--are all on the front of the upper body, and many men spend most of their strength training time on them. But the Governator didn't get a healthy physique by just focusing on glamour. Balance your weight training routine like Ah-nold balances the budget. For a nice, symmetrical look, as well as to prevent potential problems caused by postural imbalance, it´s necessary to train your back as well. And set aside some time to do strength training exercise for your legs, too.

Spot Reducing

Can your spot a scam in strength training claims? There´s no such thing as spot reducing, despite efforts in some bodybuilding magazines to prove otherwise. Although weight training crunches will tighten up your abs and make them look better, as well as protect your lower back from injury, they will not melt the fat on your midsection. You still need a low fat diet and a weight training routine that includes cardio exercise.

Locking Out Your Joints

Think you've got a lock on the weight training competition? Be careful about locking out (hyperextending) your joints when doing a weight training routine. You can put too much stress on your joints. This is more of a problem with weight training machines. With free weights, the balancing involved lets you lock out on certain strength training exercises without hyperextending.

Proper Breathing

Just breathe! When doing your strength training exercise, always remember to breathe properly. Exhale on the contraction and inhale on the return. Example: in doing arm curls you would exhale as you curl the bar towards your body and inhale as you stretch your arm out, then return the bar back to the starting position. Establish a rhythm during your weight training routine.

Weight Training and Flexibility

Flex your power like Elastigirl of "The Incredibles". Weight training, rather than making you muscle-bound as some think, can actually improve flexibility. You just need a weight training program that uses full range of motion on your strength training exercise. Soon you can stretch long to defeat the supervillain!