The Best Exercises to Drop Three Dress Sizes
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| The Best Exercises to Drop Three Dress Sizes |
Get up and get moving to drop three dress sizes. To lose inches, employ a combination of strength and cardiovascular training. The best exercises to drop dress sizes involve high-intensity interval training and exercises that use multiple muscle joints. Dance classes are great, but you will see greater results by picking up some weights.
Strength Training
Incorporating strength training into your program will help you burn more calories while you are at rest. Many women fear that strength training will cause them to become too muscular, but women do not have enough testosterone to build as much muscle as men. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that healthy adults perform strength-training exercises at least twice a week, with eight to 12 repetitions per set. According to Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., from the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts, the average woman who strength trains two to three times a week will gain nearly 2 pounds of muscle and lose 3.5 pounds of fat. As your lean muscle increases, so does your resting metabolism -- and you burn more calories all day long. For each pound of muscle you gain, you will burn 35 to 50 extra calories each day.
High-Intensity Interval Training
According to fitness expert Michael Bracko, high-intensity interval training can boost your metabolism and accelerate weight loss. During HIIT, you consume more oxygen than in distance running, and this can increase your post-exercise metabolism. One session of HIIT can help you continue burning calories for up to two-and-a-half hours after your workout. You can perform HIIT on a treadmill, elliptical, stair climber or spin bike -- and even by weightlifting. HIIT workouts alternate between intense bouts of activity and slower-paced movements. For example, if you are doing HIIT intervals on a treadmill, sprint or jog as hard as you can for one minute and then jog for one minute to let your heart rate come back down.
Multi-Joint Exercises
Multi-joint exercises are compound exercises that use many different muscle groups. The No. 1 multi-joint exercise is the squat. Squats utilize many important muscle groups in your body such as your hamstrings, quads, glutes and core. You can use many different pieces of equipment to do squats -- barbells, dumbbells, machines -- and even your own body weight. To perform a squat, drop your hips and back as if you are sitting in a chair until your thighs are parallel with the ground and then push back up through your heels.
Another great multi-joint exercise is the pullup, which will help you create definition in your back and arms. You can do pullups using your body weight or a pullup-assisting machine. To perform a pullup, keep your core tight throughout the exercise and focus on isolating your back muscles to pull your chest up to the bar and then slowly release your body back down.
Frequency
Two to three days of weight training will be sufficient for beginners. Perform each exercise for eight to 12 repetitions with two to four sets. Train each body part once a week and allow enough time to recover between sessions. The ACSM recommends that adults should get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. The more often that you exercise the faster you will drop three dress sizes. Give each muscle group enough rest time between strength-training sessions. For beginners, split workouts by upper- and lower-body sessions.
