In spring, we usually face a difficult choice: sticking to a diet or building muscles? The two things can be combined easily if you do everything right.
Home Exercise and Slimming Diet Mistakes
Doctors warn that only a carefully selected diet will bring health and strengthen the body. Actually, people are generally recommended to forget about diets, and it is better to change the food habits – give up fatty, salty, and smoked food, eat more grains, fruits and vegetables. It is just the same with muscles. Everything is fine if you visit a fitness club and build a seductive body under the supervision of a competent instructor. And if you train your muscles at home? You are sure to make one of the following errors.
Warming up before Exercising
Exercises should begin with warming up and stretching. Clasping hands behind one’s leg and pulling upward to stretch the quadriceps (front thigh) is a quite popular method. However, doctors believe that such stretching is a gross error. Too much pressure is produced on the knee joint, and the exercise can lead to injury and, therefore, periodic pain.
How to: Stand on your knees, rest your hands on the floor behind you, and lean backwards as far as possible. Do you feel the tension in the quadriceps?
Squatting with a bar
Squatting with a barbell or a body bar is a classic exercise for strengthening the back muscles and legs. A typical error here is too deep squatting, which also produces an unwanted load on the knees.
How to: Put your feet shoulder-width apart, try to do shallow squatting at the angle of 90 degrees, and keep your back upright. Breathe in after squatting down, and exhale as soon as you stand up.
Bench Press Tips
Bench press is a popular exercise for training biceps and pectoral muscles. Choosing a too heavy barbell, you can dangerously overload the connective tissue of your back and neck, without gaining the desired result. An incorrectly selected weight can inhibit the growth of pectoral muscles and shoulder girdle.
How to: choose adequate weight, the bench should be at an angle of 30 degrees, hold the barbell slightly wider than shoulders, move the elbows apart at right angles to the torso, and hold the back pressed tightly to the bench.
Abs Exercises
Training the press, hold your ears! You might laugh, but it is true. A typical mistake is putting your hands on the neck, which can cause muscle strain. To get the six pack in the abdomen and waist, you do not need to completely rise from a prone position as it is enough to stop “halfway”. In this case, the fat will be burned more efficiently, and the workout of the abdominal muscles will be better.
How to: Perform the exercise smoothly, without jerks, rising only by muscle tension in the press, keep your hands on your head, and do not put your fingers in a lock behind your neck.
Exercise Intensity
It is believed that active fat burning begins after 25-30 minutes of continuous cardio or strength load. However, a short training session is no less effective. American doctors conducted an experiment involving women with excess weight. One group was engaged in aerobic exercise three times a week for 10 minutes, the second – 2 times for 15 minutes, and the third – only once, but for 30 minutes. Within three months of the experiment, all the participants equally increased their endurance and reduced body weight. The conclusion is in the importance of getting daily aerobic rate, using either a single long workout or multiple short sessions.
We believe that by following these tips you will prepare your body for the summer beach season and will look great in a new bikini!
