The Best 30-Minute Boot Camp Workout

Time: 2 minutes

Works: hips, thighs, butt—plus cardio

Stand with your legs together and your arms down at your sides. Keeping your arms and legs straight, separate your legs about 3 feet and raise your hands above your head in one jumping motion. Return to starting position in one motion and repeat the move for 2 minutes. Return to the beginning of Your Healthy-Weight Workout Plan, and repeat the entire circuit twice.

RELATED: This Inner Thigh Workout Will Transform Your Legs

To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter

Source link

Why Your Butt Is Staying Flat No Matter How Much You Work Out

I Tried Vanessa Hudgens’s Ab Workout – WundaBar Review

What Happened When I Stopped Using Exercise as a Way to Lose Weight

Tanner Tolbert Addresses Controversial Comments About Bonding with Baby and Sex with Wife Jade

The 12ish Style Blogger Kate Sturino Opens Up About Body Confidence

This profile is part of Health’s #RealLifeStrong series, where we are celebrating women who represent strength, resilience, and grace.

Three years ago when Katie Sturino launched her blog, her goal was to provide fashion inspiration for women with similar body types to hers. The 12ish Style struck a chord: Today, Sturino has 225,000 followers on Instagram (if you haven’t seen her #SupersizeTheLook posts, you need to) and a new line of personal hygiene products that address realities—like under-boob sweat and thigh chafe—that the beauty industry tends to ignore. Here, Sturino talks about overcoming insecurities, loving the skin you’re in, and what she wants designers to know.

When did you realize there was a need for The 12ish Style?

The Man Repeller team asked me to do a curvy style profile, and when it came out, so many women commented that they had never seen their own body type on a blog before. And they were right—you normally see plus-size women or a size zero. There was really no in between.

The article was about styling hacks I use, and the brands I shop. And the fact that I have to get dressed with hacks is a really weird way to think about clothes. Like, “How do I shimmy my way through this retail industry that isn’t actually trying to dress me?” In my opinion, that was the most interesting thing about starting the blog. The body positivity message came later.

What was your biggest struggle getting the blog off the ground?

Well, it was really awkward at first. It’s hard to find your own tempo about what you are going to share and what you are not going to share. It can also be difficult to determine what people are interested in, and what resonates with them. You especially don’t want to make people feel bad.

RELATED: These 13 Women Prove Every Body Is a Bikini Body

How did you overcome that awkwardness?

It’s as Internet as it gets, but to be honest, it was the positive feedback. I had this “aha” moment when I saw women commenting, “this is my size!” I truly had forgotten that other women were my size. I forgot that I’m not the only woman shopping in the men’s department at Barneys. There are other people out there who are also trying to figure out how to exist in an industry that doesn’t welcome them.

The internet will tell you if what you are doing sucks. But I saw that people liked it—especially videos, and #SupersizeTheLook—so I kept giving them more of my personality and that’s what grew. These days, I constantly receive direct messages from women about their struggles and journeys. They tell me that I have helped them take a step in the right direction.

What is Megababe, and how does it tie into The 12ish Style?

Megababe is my message in a product. Thigh Rescue and Bust Dust are for women just like me who thought they were the only one who had to buy Gold Bond Men’s Stick to walk in a dress. I am trying to make women feel less alone about issues that are not niche. These are not issues just a few women have—women of all sizes have thigh chafe and boob sweat.

Last month you launched the #MakeMySize campaign. What inspired you to start that movement?

I had an online shopping order come in and nothing fit me. I’m a fashion blogger in New York City and I have a really tough time finding something to wear. And if I have a tough time, imagine how the regular woman who’s not a fashion blogger feels. I’m hoping that designers will take note and extend their sizes. And if they don’t already have plans to introduce extended sizing, I want them to see how many beautiful women they’re missing out on.

Have you always been confident and comfortable putting yourself out there?

I have always been confident, but I have not always been comfortable with my size or my body. When I first moved to New York City after college, I was working at a big fashion house and I felt inadequate every day. My clothes weren’t good enough, I didn’t have a boyfriend with a driver, I was too big to fit into the samples in the fashion closet so I had to wear the accessories. It was a real domino effect to a not-so-awesome cycle.

To get more inspiration to live your healthiest, happiest life, sign up for our newsletter

How did you break that cycle?

As you move on in life, you realize that people are drawn to people who are genuine. I began to realize what is important, what’s real, and what makes you happy. I saw that I had things that a lot of people didn’t—a great personality, unique style, things you can’t buy. I started to see myself in a way that I had not seen myself since I moved to New York City.

What advice would you give someone who is struggling with self-image?

Put your confidence on first, and stop talking shit to yourself in the mirror. When you walk by the mirror after you have gotten dressed and feel deflated, cut that negative conversation short. Try to get out of your micro thought process and instead say, “I really love my dress. I’m happy that I am doing so well at my job that I can afford this dress.”

Also, don’t look at another person and think, “God, their life is perfect,” or “She looks so cute in those shorts—I wish I looked cute in those shorts.” Because then you go down the rabbit hole of thinking you would look better if you didn’t eat that sandwich or if you went to Pilates last night. Realize that every girl, even with all of her perfect physical attributes, has their own issues and insecurities too.

We want to hear more amazing stories about #RealLifeStrong women. Nominate yourself—or a friend or family member—here. We’ll be sharing the most inspiring stories we receive in the months ahead.

Source link

4 Fat-Burning Barre Exercises You Can Do at Home

Want a long, lean physique? We give you permission to head straight to the barre. These ballet-inspired movements have been shown to flatten abs, sculpt thighs, tone arms, and lift your rear. Even better? The fat-blasting moves can be done just about anywhere—no ballet barre required.

To get started, we talked to Sadie Lincoln, author of Love Your Lower Body, and founder of barre3, for a workout that combines ballet barre work, the wisdom of yoga, and the strength of Pilates. And since Barre3 workouts are often done in 10-minute segments, you can put the lid on that “I don’t have time” excuses jar—we’re not having it!

“Every workout includes an isometric hold, small one-inch movements, and a dynamic, functional range of motion,” says Lincoln. Try one of all of these moves while cooking dinner, watching your favorite TV shows, or as a quick break at the office. It’s time to raise the barre!

Do-Anywhere Barre Exercises

 

Firm arms

Where: The office
Targets: Arms, chest, and back
How to: Place your hands directly on your desk or a sturdy chair that can support your weight, shoulder-distance apart, and step back so you’re on the balls of your feet. With the arms extended and spine long, engage your core. (a) Bend your elbows and draw your chest towards the counter. (b) Next, press through your palms and extend the arms bringing you back to the start position. (c) Continue for 60 seconds while maintaining solid form.

RELATED: 6 Exercises for Strong, Lean Arms

Sculpt your seat

Where: The kitchen counter
Targets: Glutes, core
How to: Stand tall and lightly rest your palms on the counter. (a) Bend your knees slightly and draw your right foot behind you. (b) Lift the leg directly behind you a few inches and hold. The standing knee should be soft, hips squared towards the desk. Make sure the core is engaged, spine is long and you’re leaning slightly forward. (c) Next, lift the right toe up one inch and lower, then slide the same leg out to the right one inch and pull it back to center. (d) Perform this L-shaped move for 30 reps, then repeat on the left side.

Photo: Courtesy barre3

Tone thighs

Where: The living room
Targets: Inner thighs, legs
How to: Facing the back of your couch or a sturdy chair, rest your hands on the support and plant your feet wider than your hips. Bend your knees slightly and hold, making sure the knees aren’t locked. Your toes should be turned out, knees tracking over the middle toes, hips squared, and core engaged. (a) Drag the right heel towards the left foot until feet are together and you’re standing tall. (b) Next, step out with the left foot until you’re back in the wide straddle position with your bent knees. (c) Draw your left foot back towards your right foot until you’re standing tall. (d) Then, step the right foot out to the right until you’re back in the straddle pose. (e) Repeat the back and forth exercises for 60 seconds. For a more advanced move, work on your balance by trying this exercise without the support.

Photo: Courtesy barre3

RELATED:Â 7 Ways to Get Fit in Half the Time

Flatten abs

Where: Living room or bedroom
Targets: Core, obliques
How to: Sitting on a mat, knees bent, feet flat on the floor, lean back and place the barre3 core ball or a rolled up towel between your shoulder blades on the mat behind you. (a) With your backside rooted into the mat and spine long, engage your core and rest the weight of your head into your hands. (b) Inhale and slightly open your chest over the ball or towel. (c) As you exhale, draw your low belly down while lifting your head, neck and shoulders up and taking a small cinch to the right by angling the right elbow towards your right waist. (d) Inhale back through center, then exhale and repeat to the left. Be sure to focus on the belly and rib cage drawing down and in towards your hips to target all layers of the core. Continue for 60 seconds.

Photo: Courtesy barre3

RELATED:Â 7 No-Crunch Exercises for Six-Pack Abs

Boost Your Barre Benefits

Have a need for speed? Remember that rushing through the movements won’t get you far. To maximize your time at the barre (or support), follow these essential tips to reap the most benefits from your workout.

Embrace the shakes

Quivering muscles are a good thing with these isometric movements. An isometric hold strengthens your muscles since you aren’t taking breaks for muscle recovery. As you engage your muscles to stay in a posture, you’re taxing both the large and small stabilizer muscles. Holding your muscles during a contraction helps to increase your strength and endurance without having to add weight. Remember to always stop if you feel sharp pain or any other discomfort.

Listen to what your body needs

Customize the workout to your needs and fitness level. At barre3, they say, “Work smarter instead of harder.” Sometimes the most simple and basic exercises are the most challenging and effective. “Those who listen to their body’s wisdom get better results faster,” says Lincoln. When you’re starting out, feel free to modify the moves, do fewer reps, or take a break whenever you need to. It’s better to do fewer repetitions correctly than to sacrifice form and try to muscle through the recommended reps.

Stretch out

Incorporate at least five minutes of stretching at the end of each session or class to safely bring the heart rate down and release tension in the muscles. We guarantee you’ll be feeling it the next day, so make your recovery count. Lincoln also recommends rounding out barre workouts with cardiovascular activities like brisk walking, swimming, or cycling.

RELATED: Are You Doing These 5 Stretches All Wrong?

Hydrate and refuel

To make sure you’re adequately hydrated, weigh yourself before you work out so you’ll be able to tell how much water weight you’ve lost, suggests The American College of Sports Medicine. The ACSM recommends drinking 8-12 ounces of water 15 minutes before any workout, 3-8 ounces every 15 minutes during exercise, and 20-24 ounces of water afterwards for every pound of body weight lost. Lincoln also suggests having a post-workout snack that includes fat, fiber, and protein, like a handful of raw nuts.

Need some extra motivation to commit to your new workout routine? Enlist a friend—or find support online—to help you stick to a program you’ll love all season long. For added incentive, put a few dollars in a “bathing suit” jar (or whatever reward you set) every time you complete a workout. Before you know it you’ll be cashing in on your hard work.

This article originally appeared on Life by DailyBurn.

 

Source link

4 Lower Body Exercises You Can Do in Front of Your TV

Drop it like it’s hot? How about drop it like a squat? If you usually shy away from lower body exercises in favor of above the belt training, it’s time to wise up. Whether or not weight loss is your goal, you’ll get serious pay-off by training your lower half. Your quads, hamstrings and glutes are home to some of the biggest muscles in your body, and those muscles will torch calories both during and after your workout, thanks to excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), the process by which your body replenishes its oxygen stores.

Plus, working your lower body will pay off in about a million different ways. “Lower body strength, much like your core, is a foundation for all fitness,” says Justin Rubin, Daily Burn trainer for True Beginner. Challenging your legs and glutes will translate to better balance, strength and agility — all of which are important for day-to-day activities like racing up the stairs (without burning thighs) or even getting low on the dance floor.

Best of all, you don’t even need a pimped-out gym to get started. We asked Rubin to demonstrate four beginner-friendly moves that can be done pretty much anywhere. (Translation: No equipment required!) For a solid workout, repeat each exercise for one minute, doing as many reps as possible. Then recover for 30 seconds. Complete five rounds and you’ll start to feel the burn! If you want an extra challenge, try the optional towel modifications listed below each description to engage your upper body as well.

RELATED: 15-Minute Leg Workout to Tone Up Fast

4 No-Equipment Lower Body Exercises

1. Reverse Lunges

Targets: Quads, hamstrings, glutes, core

How to: Begin standing with your feet hip-width apart, hands on your hips (a). Shift your weight onto your left leg and step your right leg straight behind you (b). Lower directly downwards until your front and back knees are at 90-degree angles. Hold for one second (c). Next, engage your left thigh and push off your right leg, coming back to a neutral, standing position (d). Repeat on the other side, alternating sides for a minute.

Extra credit: Hold a towel taut between your hands. When you step back for a lunge, twist your upper body in the opposite direction of your back leg. (Example: Twist to the left when you step back with your right leg.)

RELATED: Hate Squats? 7 Glute Exercises for an Instant Butt Lift

2. Squats

Targets: Glutes, quads, hamstrings

How to: Begin with your feet under your hips, legs no wider than your shoulders. Your bodyweight should be in your heels and your arms should be relaxed by your sides (a). Keeping your chest upright and your shoulder blades pulled back, bend your knees and sink down, making sure your knees do not extend beyond your toes. Your arms should extend straight in front of you. Imagine you are touching your butt to a chair (b). Now, drive through your legs and squeeze your glutes to stand back up, letting your arms come down to your sides again (c). Repeat for one minute.

Extra credit: Hold a towel taut between your hands. As you squat down, bring your arms overhead, so your face is in between your biceps. When you drive upwards to stand back up, slowly let your arms come back to your sides.

RELATED: Are You Foam Rolling All Wrong?

3. Side Lunges

Targets: Quads, hamstrings, glutes, core

How to: Stand with your feet hip-width apart, hands on your hips (a). Take a wide step to the left, letting your left foot point diagonally away from you and keeping your right foot planted (b). Keeping your weight in your heels and your chest lifted upwards, turn your left foot and knee out slightly as you sink down into a lunge. Make sure your knees do not come over your toes (c). Next, push off with your left leg, engaging your inner thighs and glutes, and bring the leg back to the neutral starting position (d). Repeat on the other side, alternating sides for a minute.

Extra credit: Want to engage the muscles in your arms? Hold a towel taut between your hands, with your arms extended straight upwards. When you step to one side for a lunge, bring your arms down so the towel touches your outer thigh. Bring your arms upwards as you step in.

RELATED: 3 No-Equipment CrossFit Workouts You Can Do at Home

4. Curtsy Lunges

Targets: Glutes, quads, inner thighs

How to: Stand with your feet hip-width apart, hands on your hips (a). Shift your weight to your right side and step your left leg behind your right leg so your legs are crossed. If you imagine a clock underneath you, your left toes should be at roughly 4 o’clock (b). Bend both knees, not letting them come over your toes, and sink into the lunge, keeping your chest upright (c). Engage your quads and squeeze your glutes as you drive off your left leg, standing up and bringing it back to the starting position (d). Repeat on the other side, alternating sides for one minute.

Extra credit: When standing upright, hold the towel taut in front of your chest. As you step to each side for the curtsy lunge, extend your arms and bring them down so the towel is in front of your shin. Be sure to maintain good upper body posture. Once you drive off your back leg, bring your arms and towel back to your chest.

12 No-Bake Energy Bites Recipes 

Source link

Kirby Koo’s Yoga For Inner Peace

Kirby Koo’s routine brings total calm in just 15 minutes.

If life (read: work, family, relationships, etc.) is stressing you out, you might be in need of some peace and quiet. Yoga instructor Kirby Koo takes us through a 15-minute calming yoga flow to help achieve inner peace. Follow along in the video above to help reconnect with yourself and find your calm.

“Go ahead and find a nice comfortable seat,” Koo says at the beginning of the video, encouraging yogis to use a pillow or block for extra support. She prefers to sit in a cross-legged posture but also suggests sitting on your shins. “Whatever makes you feel comfortable,” Koo adds. Close your eyes and focus on your breath as you inhale and exhale through your nose.

RELATED: 3 Basic Yoga Poses You’ve Been Doing Wrong—and How to Fix Your Form

After this meditative breathing exercise, Koo opens her eyes and begins to roll her neck gently in a circular motion. Repeat in both directions three times.

Next, Koo reaches her arms toward the sky and interlaces her fingers together, stretching over to both sides. While gently twisting her body, she reminds viewers to focus on their breath.

Shortly after, Koo transitions to a stance on her hands and knees and suggests a couple rounds of cat-cows to warm up the spine. For this, she recommends bringing your bellybutton to your spine on the exhale and articulating through your vertebrae when you inhale. “Just moving as organically as you need to, waking up your body, releasing tension.”

RELATED: 13 Ways to Beat Stress in 15 Minutes or Less

Shifting to a classic downward-facing dog, Koo says, “I always like to pedal out my feet here, maybe shake my tail–or my hips–from side to side.” She lifts her leg into three-legged downward dog, which helps to open the hips. From here, Koo moves between the downward dog and cobra poses, mixing in warrior two and peaceful warrior, so that yogis hit a nice, deep lunge and stretch.

Afterwards, Koo comes back to a seated position for the staff pose. She flexes her toes toward her face and keeps her legs and back as straight as possible. Then she says to bend the right leg, place it into your left inner thigh, and fold your body forward. “The goal of this posture is not to be able to reach your toes but to really feel the stretch on your hamstring, elongate your spine, and just to be able to surrender forward,” she says. The idea is to lengthen, lift, and stretch (make sure you’re not hunching your back).

“A common misconception we have when we move is we only move each body part separately, but all movement should be with the entirety of your body,” Koo shares at the end of her flow. She wraps up the session by returning to a centered, seated posture. Repeat the routine as necessary.

Source link

The ‘Split-Second Decision’ That Changed an Abuse Survivor’s Life & Helped Her Start to Heal

Sassy Williams’ Ballet-Inspired Leg Sculpt Workout

This routine will help you get the definition of a dancer.

Even if it seems like a lifetime since you stopped going to those ballet classes you took as a kid, no amount of time is long enough to make you forget the burn you get from conditioning like a ballerina. In this video, Sassy Gregson-Williams, founder of the Naturally Sassy online studio, leads us through a 10-minute session that combines her Ballet Blast and Swan Lake Leg Sculpt workouts.

RELATED: Sculpt Stronger Arms With This Quick Ballet-Inspired Workout

Sassy says the warm up is all about engaging your muscles. She emphasizes that while doing swan arms, the more you press, the more you’ll feel it. You can do this move just about anywhere, and it’s one you’ll see throughout the entire session.

Plies are also a key part of any ballet routine, and if you’ve never tried them before, make sure to stack your hips, knees, and toes in a straight line and engage your glutes. Sassy reminds us that unlike a squat, plies call for your toes to stay planted on the floor. (When you hear the term “big toe connection,” that’s what she’s referring to.)

This type of workout aims to sculpt long, lean muscles, which is why Sassy pushes us to stretch our bodies as much as we can. If your arms are overhead, reach them to the sky, and when they’re horizontal, try to make yourself as wide as possible. Breathing in through your nose and out through pursed lips will help you lean into the stretches.

RELATED: What a Pure Barre Class Is Really Like

Think of engaged muscles and planted toes as your two guiding forces when doing this workout. For those who are new to ballet-inspired fitness, explore more of what the genre has to offer by heading over to Sassy’s online studio to learn what it really takes to get the definition of a dancer.

Source link