When it comes to weight loss and working out, men’s and women’s bodies are completely different from each other – and not just in the obvious ways. Any workout plans for women should really be designed to differ from those of a man. Men are built differently, they carry a lot more muscle mass than women, and women’s bodies naturally carry more fat. These are things that need to be taken in to account when designing your workout, regardless of your goals.
Although this is not to say that many things which work for men while working out, will not work for women. Most often men and women have different exercise goals and therefore want something from a different from a workout. Women sometimes have a distorted view of themselves and thanks to the media, try to lose fat and attain an unrealistic look for their body. This truly is unfortunate because there are many women who spend their lives worrying about what they look like and wonder what else they can do to make themselves look more like their idols. Men are no different and will do close to anything, including taking illegal and dangerous drugs, to get massive arms and a huge chest.
I am not saying that getting fit and healthy is not a good goal, but it is important to understand that looking good may not always mean you are healthy. Most people do not understand the difference between being fit, and being healthy. Just because you have such a low body fat level that you can see your abs, does not mean you are healthy. If you really wanted to you could diet for weeks, eating nothing but drinking plenty of diet soft drinks, and you would lose weight. Is this healthy though? It definitely is not. You should strive to find a healthy balance in life that is based on eating well and exercising regularly, that does not go to any extreme.
So, lets discuss a good workout regime.
The best workout plans for women all have these two things included in them:
#1 – Resistance Training; and
Two – Interval cardiovascular training
It is best to workout three times per week with each session being about an hour long, along with reducing the amount of calories you consume so that you burn more calories than you eat.
Training with Resistance
You can successfully carry out resistance training at home just as well as in a gym. If you do not wish to go to a gym or would rather not exercise around some of the steroid popping gym rats, then just workout at home. A lot of people misunderstand what it is like in the gym, they assume it is packed with people in wonderful shape who do extreme exercises showing off their fitness. The truth is that the real story is very different, most of the time you will be surrounded by normal people just like you trying to lose a few pounds. However, every gym has that one person or super couple that looks like they could grace the cover of the top fitness magazine without any air-brushing, coaching or extra work. If you just try the gym once you may be surprised at the atmosphere, and maybe even meet some new people who become friends.
Dumbbells, workout balls, resistance bands and body weight exercises, which may just be the best, are all involved in strength exercises. Bodyweight exercises are great and do not require any extra equipment. In fact, if you do train at home, you will need very little if you are going to concentrate on bodyweight exercises. A lot of people really swear by the results that they have achieved just through doing body weight exercises alone, so if you’ve never tried them you should give them a chance. The U.S. military uses bodyweight exercises in training and nobody will say their workouts are not strenuous, and all they involved were bodyweight exercises carried out in the middle of a forest. With bodyweight training you can push as hard as you want.
The more lean muscle mass that you have, the more calories you will burn. This is one of the reasons that men can sometimes lose fat a little easier than women. Not always, but if you have a muscular man and an overweight woman both go on a diet, and all things being the same according to their size, such as calories and amount of exercise, the man with the muscle is going to lose more fat than the woman. This is one of the reasons that resistance training will help you to lose fat if you do it right. You need to have a progressive overload or progressive resistance each time you train. It is important that you do not just keep lifting the same amount of weight and doing the same number of repetitions that you did at your last session. You need some kind of progress, whether it is another rep, more weight, or even a shorter rest period. Doing this progressive style of training will help your body to get stringer faster. You will begin to grow your muscle mass, which takes more energy to maintain. This increases your metabolism and you burn more fat and calories all day long! Interval cardio is the second part of your workout.
* Interval Cardio Basics
Interval cardio is going to be a little different than what most do and is going to be a lot more effective. Interval training lets you get faster results so you work out less for better results. You only need to do intervals for about 15 minutes or even shorter.
Here is an example of what interval training on a stationary bike will look like. You can do this type of training on a treadmill or any other type of cardio machine, it is just a little easier to adjust the speeds up and down on a bike. First lets make a scale, 1-10, 10 being pedaling as fast as you possible can and 1 being practically resting.
+ Spend 2 minutes of so just warming up at around a 3
+ Spend a minute on 4
+ Then for 30 seconds pedal at a 9
- take it back to a 4 for one minute.
- Go back to a 9 for 30 seconds.
+ Do this for about 13 minutes
+ then stay at a 4 and slow down to a 3 for the final 2 minutes
Do this program three times a week with a goal of working up to about 45 minutes for the entire workout. Commit yourself to about 30 minutes to do the resistance training and about 15 minutes total for the interval cardio work. Give it a try because this really is one of the best workout plans for women.