If you are someone who loves to work out and be active, whether that’s with weightlifting, Pilates, or yoga, there are so many tips to help improve your fitness routine. This article mainly talks about weight lifting and Pilates since those are the ones most college students and people who aren’t in college do. Weightlifting requires using a weight for muscle gain and to help lose fat in most areas, and building muscle strength using barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, or even resistance bands. Pilates helps with sculpting your body and helping you look more toned, and it builds lean muscle. I personally weight lift and have certain days where I go to my school’s gym, like Monday – Friday, after I study or come from class. What helps with all of these different methods for working out and being active is a good diet, which is really important. Finding what type of workout best suits you or even all, with a balance of course, helps you with what to work on.
WeightliftingÂ
For the girls who like to lift weights, the first tip I recommend is finding five workouts to do twice to three times a week that can be for leg and glute days. For the other two days, it can be a light workout like core focused, upper body with arms and chest, or something that involves using the stairmaster. There is no need to overdo a routine with a lot of workouts, which can be tiring and sometimes even work the same muscle. When it comes to using weights like a dumbbell or kettlebell, it’s all about the right pound to start with, whether you are a beginner or an advanced fitness girl. With being a beginner, starting off with a lightweight is good, and then moving the lbs up more and more helps. Using a machine at the gym and the number of sets and reps to do helps you know how much you can do, and you can change the amount of reps as well. For reps, if you are doing leg day, maybe like 3×10 or 4×15 which means 3 sets of 10 – 8 -6. Doing the same reps every time means that you are doing them with a light weight or need to increase the reps. Also with doing sets, you can increase the weight of each set like 15 for the first, 20 for the second, and 25 for the third set. Form is important because if you are doing a workout set and you’re moving too fast then that would be wrong. Moving too fast during a workout won’t help you gain muscle and you would see slow progress which isn’t the ideal you would want. Eating protein helps build muscle which is what you need after or before a workout as well. It’s ok to have cheat days but not too much sugar in a week if you want to see progress, meaning to still eat protein.
PilatesÂ
For the girls who like to do Pilates and want a toned body, I recommend starting off with a YouTube channel of some people who help beginners learn what this type of workout is. Especially if you want a free at home workout, because with pilates you would have to pay for it in class with other people including an instructor. Madeleine Abeid is a great example and helpful when it comes to starting Pilates at home and her videos are short and effective. IsaWelly is someone who does core and focuses on all the parts of the body to become toned and fit. When it comes to knowing about this particular workout, YouTube has plenty of videos available of lots of different women online who show the steps and have certain routines. For the girls who are able to have time to go to a class that’s instructed, there are usually some great prices for those. I know that when taking a class it can be hard but also so worth it once you get the hang of things and aren’t usually long. Overall Pilates helps with core strength, flexibility and posture which is really good.
With all of this being said, there are many other helpful tips for each workout that can really make a difference. Protein intake is important to hit your goals in fitness and make sure you are staying healthy. Cheat days are ok every once in a while. These tips should help with training and building strength, knowing what to work on, and how to start a routine as well.