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I’m sure you’ve seen as many magazine articles as I have about common female body types. But there’s one problem with most of these stories that compare your body to a piece of produce: They often advise that the ideal exercise routine for you is one that focuses mainly on your trouble spot: thighs for pears, belly for apples, lack of curves for string beans (I like to say chili peppers).
While we should all learn to embrace the beauty that is uniquely ours, it is possible to make the most of what Mother Nature gave us by training to even out our body’s cosmetic imbalances — not just slim down in a single zone.
I’ve mapped out a seven-day workout plan for each of the three body types — pear, apple and chili pepper.
Find the shape that’s most similar to yours and see how a workout routine customized to your particular body type can rebalance your shape, not fight it.
Best workout if you’re a PEAR body type
Pear-shaped women carry most of their body weight below the waist, so often their primary goal when exercising is to shrink their hips, thighs and glutes. This emphasis on shaping up the lower body frequently results in the neglect of upper body training.
In reality, an exercise program for the pear body shape should incorporate a healthy dose of heavy upper body weight training to help make the upper half more proportional to the lower.
Don’t worry … we definitely won’t neglect your hips, thighs and glutes. And of course there’s also plenty of cardio in here to burn fat everywhere.
Day 1: Start with a total body cardio-sculpt workout like Total Muscle Shaping. Remember that all-over workouts are excellent fat burners — and while you’re hefting those weights, focus your mind on the fact that muscle tissue burns more calories than fat does.
Day 2: Turn on the calorie burn with a routine like Cardio Overdrive. In addition to burning fat and calories, this workout also contains light four-limb sets that tone the upper and lower body as well as the core.
Day 3: Rest. Time to let those muscles recover!
Day 4: OK … you’ve rested, so now it’s time to tone your upper body with the big-girl weights in a workout like Jiggle Free Arms. Then do Slim and Sculpt Stability Ball, using the ball to give that upper body a little extra push while also shaping your core, hips and thighs.
Day 5: Ditch the weights for now to give your upper body time to recover. You’ll still burn lots of fat and calories (not to mention shake your booty!) with Cardio Dance Express.
Day 6: Back to cardio-sculpt again. Best bet: Aerobic Body Shaping. If you have time, do the bonus lower body segment as well!
Day 7: Take a day off and start again!
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Great article! It's great to see information that is custom to one's body shape and not just general stuff about cardio/weight training. As a side note, I have found that following guided meditations and guided meditation videos has helped me lose weight as well.
Meditating has decreased my stress and anxiety levels and as a result has really cut back on emotional and late-night eating.
There are even guided meditation videos that focus on stopping emotional eating. I strongly recommend it!
Edited by: Sonia Gallagher on Sep 2, 2009 4:04:52 PMSep 2, 2009 4:04:02 PM
Great article! I like the chili pepper instead of the string bean, as I too suffer from this...
jh
Dec 3, 2008 4:24:04 PM