How to improve your feminine looks

Is there a secret to building a sexy
female body?
A lot of trainers would say no. A lot of trainers
will say that you don’t need to differentiate
between men and women when designing
training programs. They’ll tell you that the
physiological needs are nearly identical and
only the hormones are different; thankfully, I’m
not like most trainers.
In fact, I disagree, and I believe that in a few
specific ways, men and women need to train
quite differently.
Firstly, the idea that only the hormones are
different is flawed, fundamentally. I’ve written
about this a lot, so I don’t want to rehash, but
the fact is that hormones change the game
significantly. The hormonal differences between
men and women account for more than 90% of
the differences in the way men and women
actually respond to training and nutrition.
So, while I agree that on just about any level
that there are a great deal of similarities in the
way you can approach training, I recognize that
there are some things that need to be taken
into account.
Secondly, I don’t design programs for clients
based on some arbitrary assessment of what
they are theoretically capable of responding
to. Rather, I approach program design based
only on the client’s goals.
Forgive me for generalizing, but men and
women typically have very different goals. Even
when a man and a woman have the same goal
—fat loss, for example—they will still have
different micro-goals within the context of that
macro-goal. Keeping those micro goals in mind
is of the utmost importance…especially if you
want to keep the client happy.
Having more than decade of experience training
people of all shapes and sizes, and with the
majority of them being women, I’ve come up
with the following list for helping women get
better results and achieving that sexy look that
most of my clients are after.
Submitted, for your consideration, my top six
rules for helping sculpt a sexy female body.
1) Ditch the Lame Warm Up
In most cases, your warm up should bear a fair
similarity to your actual training. Given that
we’ve pretty much established that slow paced
workouts—be they cardio or strength training—
are essentially useless, why would you think to
warm up that way?
And yet, more often than not, you see women
getting ready for fast-paced, intense workouts
warming up with a lame 10 minute walk on the
treadmill, or an even lamer series of stretches.
Both time wasted that could be spent getting
you to your goals.
Instead, it is much more effective to warm up
much in the same fashion you’ll workout: fast .
I always have my clients warm up with full
body exercises and dynamic bodyweight
circuits.
Skipping rope and
performing calisthenic exercises like jumping
jacks work the entire body, and prepare you
neurologically for the workout to come. This
will allow you to get more out of each exercise,
as your body will be primed perform as a unit
—this is especially true if you do a lot of full
body movements in your training.
In addition to that, dynamic warm-ups also get
your heart rate up over a shorter period of
time, and allow you to burn more calories and
get into the groove faster.
All of which is to say that whether your goal is
to drop some fat or tone up your muscles,
there is literally nothing that a lame slow-go
workout can do for you that can’t be more
effectively achieved with a fast one.
2) Don’t Be Afraid to Lift Heavy
Given that I maintain that men and women
should train differently for differing goals, it
stands to reason that I assert there should be
certain aspects of training that carry over
when goals are similar. One goal that men and
women have in common is that we all want a
firm, toned, sexy look . One of the best ways to
get that look, for men or women, is with heavy
weight.
How heavy and how often will depend on the
the goal–I have a lot of women focused purely
on gaining strength that almost always train
using close to maximal weight. I’ve also got a
number of athletes who use one heavy lift in
every training sessions.
For my clients focused on fat loss, neither of
those are necessary; however, I insist that all
my female clients spend at least two days per
month dedicated purely to heavy lifting (75% or
more of 1RM), regardless of their goal. Not
only is it great for fat loss, but lifting heavy will
help you look better once you’ve lost the fat.
You see, training in a way that utilizes heavy
loads is the fastest and most efficient way to
increase both neurogenic and myogenic muscle
tone ; that is, it’s the best way to give you firm,
toned look—even when you’re just standing
there.
I’m fairly certain my general readership is
beyond the whole “I don’t want to get bulky—
won’t lifting heavy make me bigger?” dilemma.
It pains me to even have to bring it up. But,
chances are we’ve got some newbz reading,
and for their sake I like to cover my bases and
be thorough, so I’ll just lay it all out.
Gaining muscle is a result of a few factors:
training methods, dietary considerations, and–
as alluded to above–hormonal environment.
In terms of diet, it is exceedingly difficult—not
to mention unlikely—to gain significant muscle
mass without purposefully eating a Caloric
excess. This is why athletes and bodybuilders
eat more than their daily energy needs: so that
excess will be used for the building of lean
body mass.
Regarding hormones, women will always have
a harder time putting on mass than men
because of certain sex hormones; mainly
testosterone. As a woman, your testosterone
levels are generally too low to make getting
“too big” a concern in a short period of time
(although in certain situations, some muscle
groups can grow faster than others; more on
that below).
So, if you do notice yourself putting on more
muscle than you’d like, just lower your caloric
intake, and tone down the training volume a
bit.
Speaking of training, that brings us back to my
main point. Heavy lifting requires low reps; if
you don’t do a greater number of sets , the
total workout volume drops dramatically, and
you are left without much stimulus for muscle
gain.
And THAT is exactly what we want: to keep
the weight and volume in the right balance to
allow us to reap the benefits of heavy training
without putting on mass.
To that end, I recommend that women spend
at least two days per month doing some heavy
training. To get you started, here’s a heavy full
body circuit:
3 sets of 5 reps for each of the following:
dumbbell squat
dumbbell push press
Inverted row (add weight if necessary–or
do pull ups!)
Alternating reverse lunges
Plank (hold for as long as possible)
To determine the correct weight, just pick a
weight you can lift roughly 5-6 times. If you
can get all 3 sets for 5 reps, increase the
weight next workout.
Again, I said at least two days per month. This
is the minimum. Speaking generally, I have my
female clients training heavy at least once per
week; further, there are a lot of women who
train almost exclusively with near maximal
weights (3-5 reps). So, again: don’t be afraid
to lift heavy!
3) Sit Down And Sprint?
Over the past several years, we’ve tried to
break people of the notion that if they want to
lose stomach fat, they need to do stomach
exercises. Now, we’ve got a pretty well
established belief in the fitness industry that
you can’t “spot” reduce fat…so if you are trying
to reduce the size of your thighs and hips, your
fat loss will come from all over and you just
have to let your body determine how much
visible reduction occurs.
What if that assessment is only partially true? I
contend it very well might be.
A few years back, I attended a seminar led by
Dr. John Berardi, who is an expert in the field
of sports nutrition. He is also a world-
renowned trainer who works with some of the
most elite athletes around. During the seminar,
Berardi made a remark about some Olympic
athletes he was training; he had an interesting
finding regarding fat loss.
As it turned out, when he had these athletes
(all women) do their high intensity sprint
workouts on a stationary bicycle, there was a
“disproportionately high” amount of fat loss in
the lower body. JB and I discussed this, and
although he had a lot of data to back this up,
no studies had been done. Instead, we just had
an interesting factoid.
That was about 8 years ago, and in that time I
have had a lot of opportunity to work
stationary bike sprints into a good number of
my programs; generally for women who found
that losing lower body fat was a hardship. And
you know what? IT WORKS.
But why? What makes the stationary bike so
special?
To be honest, I have no freakin’ clue. None at
all…at least, none that I can base on anything
but broscience and black magic. I will say,
however, that it seems to me that doing timed
sprints that you get more efficient and can
perform with more resistance overtime…seems
A LOT like a “cardio version” of my type of
density-based training , which as we all know
has been very effective for dropping lower body
fat (mainly, because it helps with hormonal
optimization ).
All I know is, it works—although I should point
out that from what I’ve seen, there is some
danger of losing some muscle mass on the leg
alongside the fat. For most, this is an
acceptable risk, and for the rest, an unexpected
benefit.
After all, I’ve had the preponderance of my
female clients say, “I have too much fat in my
lower body.” I have never had one say, “Gee,
Roman, I wish I had a lot more muscle in my
legs, and I don’t want to do anything that runs
this risk of compromising my lower body
development, even if it’ll help me lose a lot of
fat on my thighs.”
Just doesn’t happen. If anything, I have had a
number of female former athletes ask how they
can reduce leg muscle mass—and this works
for that, as well.
Again, I don’t have a study to back me up on
the exact way it works, but, again, I have 8
years of my own experience with clients to
back up the fact that it DOES work. If are
struggling with this area of your body and you
have access to the equipment, you MUST give
this a try.
4) Less is More. Or is it More is Less?
Or Maybe is be More IN Less. Oh
Whatever, Just Go Faster
As I’ve touched on so far, there are a lot of
factors we can make alterations to in order to
meet the goal of sculpting a sexy female form.
Variables such as training frequency, set and
rep schemes, and the aforementioned volume
and load (weight) are the most commonly
manipulated facets of training. However, one of
the variables you don’t hear much about is
also lends itself to making some of the best
progress.
I’m talking about training density. With regard
to training, density can be described as the
amount of work you do in a given time period.
Density is actually one of the easiest variables
to manipulate for progress: simply do more in
less time.
Doing more work in less time has a number of
incredible benefits: increasing the rate of fat
loss, aerobic and anaerobic training, and an
increase in work capacity. Over time, increasing
density will make you stronger, leaner, fitter,
and MORE capable of performing. That has
carryover to nearly every other type of training
and will have implications for accelerated
progress down the line.
One of simplest ways to increase density is to
shorten your rest periods. If you normally rest
45 seconds between sets, try cutting it down to
35 or less. Over the course of a 45-minute
workout, that adds up and you’ll notice you are
feeling a completely different stimulus.
Of course, my favorite way to manipulate
density is to structure your sets for TIME
rather than REPS. If you are going to squat,
rather than just do 15 reps, perform squats for
30 seconds and see how many reps you get .
On your next set, try to beat your previous
number of reps; maintain good form, but try to
in increase speed. Of course, eventually you’ll
max out, and can improve by either increasing
the time, or the weight.
These methods are great so fat loss, but
because of the increased work capacity, often
also help to increase neurogenic and myogenic
muscle tone: so, increasing your workout
density can increase your body density.
You’ll get leaner, firmer, and sexier—faster .
5) Focus on your Ass ets
Well, we made it this far without me getting to
graphic. Ooops. Look, I’m a butt guy, I like
butts. That’s my thing. I like when a girl has a
nice, well-formed, athletic booty . I’m not sure
if that’s me objectifying women, or just being
honest (or both).
Either way, this is an article intended to help
women build sexy bodies, and to me, nothing is
sexier than a good backside. Don’t agree? Well,
write your own article then. This is my show,
so I say we’re talking about butts.
Or training them, at least.
You already know two of the best exercises for
your glutes: the squat and the lunge. Here is a
quick way to make them more effective (at
least for your butt)
When it to comes to squatting for your booty,
go wide . Wide stance squats with your toes
pointed out place a greater emphasis on the
glutes; make sure to focus on flexing and
squeezing as you perform the movement. I’m
not going to bother writing a joke here—it’s
too easy.
For lunges , go back, not forward. While I don’t
want to encourage too much favoritism or fuel
the fires that scare women away from training,
it must be said that there are certain exercises
that put TOO much emphasis on some
muscles. For women who want shapely legs
and a nice butt without building up lots of quad
muscle, it’s often a good idea to use reverse
lunges in place of forward lunges.
Forward lunges place a lot more emphasis on
the section of the quadriceps at the base of the
knee–most specifically the vastus medialus—
especially eccentric emphasis. Think about it:
when you lunge forward, your lead leg has to
“catch” your entire body weight and stop/
absorb your momentum, and the muscles
around the knee will do the majority of the
work.
Conversely, when you lunge backwards, your
glutes get a lot more work (on both the moving
and non-moving leg) and the section of the
quads that run up and down the length of the
femur (rectus femoris) get a bit more work.
Overall, you’ll develop strong, shapely legs
without having to “worry” too much about over
developing the quads. Of course, I should
mention that most of the time this is majoring
in minutia, but there are those who do put on
muscle in the thighs a bit more easily so this
is relevant to some. (On a side note, those
people would do well with the cycle sprints
mentioned above!)
6) Be a Venus
When it comes to being physically attractive to
the opposite sex, it’s important to understand
that certain body dimensions are visually
important, from an evolutionary perspective.  In
fact, these things are so indelibly burned into
the collective consciousness of our species
that our definition of what makes a “good
body” are heavily influenced by them.
Our progenitors subconsciously credited
desirable traits like maternity, productivity, and
fertility to corresponding physical attributes.
Certain physical traits are what we call mating
qualifiers, which means that from an
evolutionary perspective, these traits are
attractive to members of the opposite sex
because of what they imply.
Just as a man with broad shoulders instantly
projects an image of strength in our
subconscious, a woman with a narrow waist
and shapely hips makes us (specifically men)
more attracted to that woman because she is
built in a way that implies fertility.
The cool thing about this is that even though
our perception of what is sexy changes as a
society, because of the way these qualifiers
work in terms of attraction is based on
unchanging ratios, they are still relevant.
For example, by today’s standards, Marilyn
Monroe might be considered on the “heavy”
side—but we still see her appeal—and can find
comparable beauty in modern female
celebrities.
The reason for that is the golden ratio, which in
this case is going to refer to hip-to-shoulder
comparisons and hip-to-waist
comparisons. With women, we want the
athletic shoulders to taper into a small waist,
and then bloom out into sexy hips. This is
something called the Venus Factor.
Just as Marilyn was “perfect” at 36-24-36, our
current standard of more lithe sexuality a
number like 34.5-23-34.5 would be more
attractive. The commonality behind those
numbers is the ratio of the waist to the hip and
shoulders (1:1.5).
There’s obviously a lot more to it, but that’s a
good primer. If you truly want to be sexy—in
the truly evolutionary and procreative sense of
the word—train in a way that helps you develop
a body that falls within those ratios.
This means spending more time focusing on
building strong, sexy shoulders using exercises
like the push press and lateral raise, as well as
worrying less about making your butt smaller
and focusing on the strength-building, multi-
joint movements that will improve its shape.