A workout for toning the body should include both resistance and cardiovascular exercise. Resistance training targets fat burning specifically because it burns fat both while you do it and for up to 48 hours afterward, according to "The Abs Diet" by David Zinczenko. In addition, some targeted training techniques can increase your body's production of fat burning hormones. Combining these techniques can help you tone your body in no time.
Step 1
Do resistance training workouts five days per week, targeting a different muscle group each day. For example, a good five-day split would be shoulders on Monday, arms on Tuesday, legs on Wednesday, chest on Thursday and back on Friday.
Step 2
Begin each workout with one or two sets of a compound movement for the muscle being trained that day. Compound movements target the muscle fibers more effectively, according to "Xtreme Lean" by Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman. Compound movements include squats for legs, pull-ups for back, bench press for chest, upright rows for shoulders, barbell curls for biceps and triceps extensions for triceps. For chest day, for example, you would do two sets (following a lighter warm-up) of bench presses for eight to 10 repetitions.
Step 3
Choose an isolation movement and do one 15-to-20 repetition set. According to "Xtreme Lean," this causes occlusion, forcing blood into the muscle. It also creates a build-up of lactic acid, which triggers production of the potent fat-burning peptide growth hormone. Examples of isolation exercises include leg extensions for quadriceps, leg curls for hamstrings, straight-arm pull-downs for back, dumbbell laterals for shoulders, concentration curls for biceps and dumbbell kickbacks for triceps. For the chest example, you do one set of flat dumbbell flyes for 20 repetitions.
Step 4
Go back to your compound movement, and do one more set of eight to 10 repetitions. Only this time, you use the negative-accentuated technique. This means lowering the weight to a slow six-second count on every rep. Choose a lighter weight because this set will be much more difficult than your first one or two. Following the chest workout example, you would do a slow set of bench presses.
Step 5
Return to your isolation exercise for a drop-set. Drop-sets mean doing one set to exhaustion of an exercise, then "dropping" or lowering the weight and immediately doing another set. For example, start with a pair of 35-lb. dumbbells and do seven repetitions of dumbbell flyes for chest. Then immediately grab a pair of 30-pound dumbbells and do another set of as many reps as possible, aiming for five.
Step 6
Do "super cardio" after this body toning workout to burn even more fat. According to "Combat the Fat" author Jeff Anderson, this technique directly targets body fat. He recommends 30 to 60 minutes of low-to-medium intensity cardio. Examples include walking on the treadmill, riding the exercise bike or using the elliptical machine.
References
- "Combat the Fat;" Jeff Anderson; 2008
- "Xtreme Lean;" Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman; 2006
- "The Abs Diet;" David Zinczenko; 2004
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