Booty Work!

Keywords: booty, glutes, squats, fitness, workouts, goals, progress, deadlifts, bikini 

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend? No. Squats are a girl’s best friend. Ladies, make your booty your best asset! :)

Training your glutes includes a lot more than just squats. Yes, squats are a great booty builder; however, it is important to mix in multiple different lifts to really round out those glutes.

One of my main goals right now is to grow and round out my booty. A good set of glutes is very important when it comes to competition judging! This process takes a lot of patience, but thankfully I've been seeing some good progress.

Kick-downs on the pull-up machine

Here’s a look at what one of my glute days would look like. I like to train hard on lower body days, so this workout is a bit intense.

• Barbell Glute Bridges: 4x12
• Barbell Squats: 4x12
• Sumo Squats with dumbbell: 4x15
• Barbell Deadlifts: 4x15
• Walking Lunges: 4x15 each leg
• Cable Kick-Backs: 4x15 each leg
• Kick-Downs on the pull-up machine: 4x15 each leg
• Heavy Leg Press: 4x12

Step it up a notch by adding jump squats between reps. I do 20 jump squats between each set of cable kick-backs, push-downs and glute bridges when I really want to get my sweat on. If you can walk correctly after this workout, you didn’t do it right.

No ifs, ands or buts. Get to the gym and work for your dream butt!

If you have any questions about the lifts above, please leave a comment below. :)

HIIT The Gym!

Keywords: lean, cardio, HIIT training, HIIT, body fat, fitness, healthy, nutrition, meal plan, workout

We have all had troubles with stubborn stomach fat.

My stomach has always been my problem area. My arms are leaning out, and my legs are becoming well-defined. I want to continue to lean-out my whole body, especially my stomach.

A lot of people think endless hours of cardio will get rid of unwanted belly fat. This is not true. High-intensity cardio for a long duration of time would maximize fat loss. Well, the only problem with that is, nobody can maintain high-intensity cardio for a long duration. So then, how do we maximize fat burn?

The answer is High Intensity Interval Training. This is known as “HIIT” in the fitness world. HIIT training is where you alternate between intervals of high-intensity cardio and low-intensity cardio.

Nobody can sprint for 10 minutes without stopping, but when you mix high-intensity and low-intensity cardio, you can still maximize fat burn without becoming fatigued.

Workout of the week:

A routine cardio session for me is 10-15 minutes of HIIT followed by 10-15 minutes of low-intensity cardio.

I start on the Stairmaster for 5-10 minutes. This gets my heart rate up and a good sweat going. I follow this by interval sprints on the treadmill. I do a one minute on, one minute off routine. I sprint for one minute at speed eight and incline two. I then walk for one minute at speed four and incline two. I repeat this sequence for 10 minutes.

Following my HIIT session, I walk at speed four and incline 15 for 10 minutes. This makes my total cardio routine about 30 minutes long. After cardio, I spend about 10 minutes working on abs.

This week’s goal:

This week’s goal is fat loss and leaning out. By the end of the week I would like to be able to step up my HIIT training. I want to be doing sprints at an incline of seven and speed of 8.5. I would alternate my sprints with walking at a speed of four and incline of seven.  

Another important part of leaning out is diet! Eating clean IS the difference between success and failure. I will talk more about diet in next week’s blog. For now, here is this week’s grocery list:

• Chicken breast
• Turkey breast
• Egg whites (lots of egg whites!)
• Spinach
• Baby tomatoes
• Feta cheese
• Asparagus
• Broccoli
• Quinoa
• Organic pesto sauce