What's best program which helped you to tone up?

I'm curious. I often hear people talking on here about women 'lifting heavy'. For an average sized woman, what is 'heavy'? I mean in lbs or kilos, for free weights one in each hand say?

So many people swear by this, but I am totally clueless about what this would involve. My gym has some free weights in a corner, but the room with all the serious weights is just full of men who are serious about lifting. I would feel quite intimidated going in there.

Is it possible to still build muscle lifting the hand weights and doing things like bicep and tricep curls, and so on, or do you think that's a waste of time?

One where you have to lift some weights. While body weight exercises are good, as weight gets lost, the resistance lessens meaning that you're not increasing strength. It's like when people who were heavy try to do a pull up, couldn't, then lose 50lbs and now can. They didn't get stronger per se, they're just pulling up less weight.


A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

by Stew Smith

Lose Fat, Build Muscles With Circuit Training

When the weather turns cold, I receive many emails discussing running in the cold weather, or alternative exercises you can do in the weight room that will also have a cardiovascular effect. Circuit training is one of the best ways to make a resistance and strength training workout that is also challenging for your heart and lungs.

This workout is a 20-minute workout that will take you to your maximum physical effort as well as your maximum heart rate. The object of this workout is not to rest in between exercises. You will see that one minute of a particular exercise will burn out the targeted muscle group as well as increase your heart rate to a fat and sugar burning zone. Try the 20 minute workout below - if it is not challenging enough for you try it again, totaling only 40 minutes of your time in the weight room.

20 Minutes Circuit Workout

(*choose light weights for max reps)

1) Bench press* or pushups - max in 1:00
2) Squats - max in 1:00
3) Pullups or pulldowns - 1:00
4) Bike or jog - 3:00
5) Military press* - 1:00
6) Lunges - 1:00 each leg
7) Bicep curls - 1:00
8) Bike or jog - 3:00
9) Tricep extensions.- 1:00
10) Leg ext - 1:00 (requires leg machines - or repeat squats with weights)
11) Leg curls - 1:00 (requires leg machines - or repeat lunges with weights)
12) Situps - 2:00
13) Crunches - 2:00
14) Stretch

There is an unlimited number of ways to organize a circuit workout. The above workout is organized with upper body, lower body and cardiovascular exercises. By simply doing the above upper body and lower body exercises in such a way, you will be able to rest your upper body muscles while you workout your lower body muscles, but you will never rest your heart. This is how you make the circuit workout challenging to your cardiovascular system as well as your major muscle groups. Studies have shown that mixing a resistance training regimen with a cardiovascular element will increase your metabolism, therefore burning fat and building muscle. The result is a decrease in body fat percentage.

So, if you are looking to lose inches and body fat, workouts like this coupled with 4-5 smaller meals and 3-4 quarts of water everyday will help you achieve your goal. The best thing about this diet program is that you do not need a single dietary supplement - just good old fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish and other lean meats. The key is to burn more calories than you take in and this workout will help you with that - promise.

Definitely P90X. I've done several of Jillians's workouts, and while they are effective, she merely copied a few moves from Tony and they're not nearly as good as the original if you ask me.

Hate to tell you that many of those "moves" have been around for decades. It's how it's packaged and advertised that made it popular.

Actually as a certified personal trainer you should know there are tons of possibilities to progress with bodyweight only. Classic pull up getting to easy? Do it with one arm or move onto salmon ladder where you move the bar up! It doesn't end with a classic pull up.
Did you ever watch Ninja Warrior? They don't look like they have difficulties to build obstacle courses and make them tougher and tougher. Contestants only move their body through them. And believe me they are not beginners.