So what is the solution for women to know the best balanced workout routines? When you go to a gym, you’ll generally see women crowded around the cardio equipment while men are lifting weights. Why exactly do women gravitate towards treadmills, elliptical trainers and stair-masters while men grunt and lift dumbbells? Do the two sexes really need to workout in different ways or is this just a result of how we’ve been trained to view ourselves by society?
If you want to lose weight, you do need to get a lot of cardio. And since most women are aiming for this, you’ll see them in the cardio section most of the time. If you want to build muscle, you need to lift weights. And men have been trained to view an extremely muscular body as the ideal one. So they’re always lifting weights (sometimes with extremely bad form!)
Balanced Workout Routines for Women
The truth is that both, men and women need a combination of weights and cardio, with some stretching thrown in. Here are some tips to come up with balanced workout routines for women:
Assess Your Goals
What exactly are you aiming for in terms of fitness? If you’re overweight, you might want to lose weight. In order to figure out if this should be your goal, calculate your BMI with this BMI calculator from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is normal. If your BMI is over that, you’re overweight and if it’s under that, you’re underweight. If your weight is normal, your aim should be to tone up rather than lose weight.
Combine Cardio and Weights
To have a balanced workout regimen, you need to combine cardio and weights. If your main aim is to lose weight, you’ll need to do a little more cardio. If your main aim is to tone up, you can do a balanced combination of cardio and weights. But every balanced workout routine for women needs to combine both these elements. You can alternate cardio workouts with full-body resistance training workouts days. Or you can do a combination of cardio and weights everyday, as long as you don’t work the same exact muscles the next day. This will give your body some time to recover.
For example, the P90X program consists of 12 workouts which include resistance training, cardio, plyometrics, abdominal exercises and yoga. On the other hand, TurboFire is a 90 day program with just cardio conditioning. You can choose the program that aligns best with your goals. Or if you prefer to do something different everyday, you can move back and forth between programs as long as you’re getting a good combination of weights and cardio, without fatiguing your muscles. There are programs such as Beachbody On-Demand which will give you access to over 150 workout programs and on-line coaching, enabling you to get the right mix of strength-training and cardio for your needs.
The advantage of another one of Beachbody’s most popular workout programs for women, like the 21 Day Fix Extreme, it combines weights, cardio and other forms of exercise, is that it makes the time go by very fast. You don’t have time to get bored with what you’re doing because you’re constantly moving and pushing yourself.
The Importance of Stretching
Stretching is an important part of any workout routine and most of us don’t do it enough. The more you stretch, the less you’re going to have muscular aches and pains because of your workout. And this will help you to keep going longer. You won’t feel that urge to skip a workout because your entire body is stiff.
Some strength and cardio workouts already have stretches worked into them. If your body feels limber enough with these stretches, you don’t need to do anymore. But it never hurts to take an extra 5-10 minutes after a workout to stretch both, upper and lower body. You don’t have to stretch very far, only as much as feels good to you. As you keep working out and stretching, your flexibility will probably increase.
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