Bikini Body Summer Prep

Bikini Body Summer Prep: Simple workout and Nutrition Tips!

 

The summer always comes around sooner than expected and its time to stop hiding in your winter woolies and get ready for the fact that its bikini seasons only a few months away!

 

Want to get rid of that last pesky 5 kilos? Or tone up those love handles? Then this is the simple equipment free workout for you! To achieve these goals it is important to incorporate progressive overload in training for continual gains whether it be changing repetition ranges, exercises, weights, tempo, intensity as well as diet.

 

When training and aiming for weight loss or toning it is all about utilizing and burning your bodies fat stores as efficiently as possible. The best way to achieve this is targeting large muscle groups with minimal rest, as the muscle is metabolically active and requires calories to activate and use the muscle, hence larger muscles group exercises will burn more calories. Resistance training is the best method for weight loss when done efficiently as it will also increase your metabolism outside of training to recover and resynthesize muscles where as cardiovascular training does not as efficiently.

 

Weight training is crucial as it allows you to preserve your muscle mass as your body weight decreases resulting in higher metabolic activity, leaner and more toned physique, as opposed to cardiovascular exercise alone which looses both fat tissue and muscle tissue and slows down the metabolic rate. Workouts do not need to be lengthy for success as high intensity short duration exercise utilizing large muscle groups will raise your metabolism post training more than long duration steady state cardiovascular exercise alone, if your workouts are taking longer than 45 minutes your not training hard enough! If you get bored easy mix it up! Try some beach sprints, boxing, rock climbing, anything that get the heart rate up!

 

And lastly and most importantly it comes down to 80% nutrition and 20% exercise and there is no way of out training a poor nutrition! People who say I exercise so I can eat more only lead to weight gain or disappointment. Often people forget how crucial nutrition is in weight loss goals, simple changes such as consuming 5-6 small meals a day including small portions of lean meat, healthy fats, lots of vegetables and reducing starchy/simple carbohydrates intake to low GI sources such as sweet potato or brown rice can increase metabolism and promote weight loss and increase your lean mass to fat ratio (body fat %) in combination with strength training. Stick by the rule that if man made it check the ingredients, the less processed and more natural the better! Read the ingredient list and aim to not consume foods with added salt, non-natural sweeteners, trans fats, preservatives and additives which may be blocking weight loss and building up toxins in the body.

 

The circuit below is a combination of large muscle group areas that target every aspect of the body meaning overall strength and muscular gains. By working from upper body to lower body and front of the body to back it allows for minimal recovery periods to keep the heart rate up without doing steady state cardio training. The circuit includes basic exercises using your own body weight but can be adapted into a gym environment to add more resistance and progressions to progressively overload the muscles.

 

Aim to complete the circuit in 30 minutes getting in as many sets as possible. Begin with 10-12 reps with no cardio exercise in weeks 1-2, weeks 3-4 increase to 12-15 reps and add in the cardio exercise to progressively overload. Always record you’re training at aim to beat it every time, this circuit can be completed up to 3 times a week in combination with mobility and cardiovascular training for overall body composition gains. So grab a friend and give it a go!

 

1. Athletic Lunges (quads/glutes)

(Alternate sides moving down the room, lift your knee between steps and squeeze your glutes, lunge down low and slow breathing in and push up through the heel fast breathing out)

2. Inverted Row (back/biceps)

(Wide grip overhand on the bar, keep chest up and core tight, feet flat on the ground, pull up fast breathing out and slowly lower back to plank position)

3. Cardio: 45 seconds high intensity (sprint, skipping, high knees, rower,burpee, sled)
4. FB Hamstring Curl/Ham Leans (hamstrings/calves)

(lay on back, feet on the fit ball, lift hips and hold, pull the fitball in with feet while lifting hips, slowly roll back out keeping hips high)

5. T Push Ups (triceps/chest/core)

(hands just past shoulder width, body in plank position, lower down slowly breathing in, breath out push up and rotate to one side extending that arm to a T position and back into push up)

6. Burpees or mountain climber (mobility)

(start standing, jump up then squat down, jump back keeping arms strong into a plank position and quickly jump back in and repeat)

7. Reverse Crunch (Abdominals)

(laying on your back, hands overhead or under glutes for weak lower backs, legs in the air, thrust up using your upper abdominals rather than the legs breathing out, slowly down)

The best part about this simple workout is it can be done at HOME and modified or at the gym when you have limited time. The reason its so efficent is the compound movements and upper to lower body changes improving blood flow and circulation.

 

Give it a go at home and let me hear your results! Use the #teamround on social media so I can find you!

Go smash it!

Alice Round your head coach