Get Fit with Ayla

by Ayla Riggle

Ayla Riggle is an Everett resident and owner of Thrive Fitness, providing customized fitness programs for all fitness levels.  Certified by the American Council on Exercise as a Personal Fitness trainer, she provides personal training in home, at Anytime Fitness in Lake Stevens and outdoor fitness boot camps. For more information on Ayla and her services, visit www.thrivefitness.info.

Spring is here and the gyms are starting to fill again with people in a cardio craze, trying to melt away winter weight by tank top season. What puzzles me is the lack of occupancy in the free weights section of the gym. Cardio has a time and place, but if all it took was cardio to shape up, how come you're still not seeing any definition in your arms? Add weight training to your routine and spring into fitness.

If weight training is a foreign territory for you, your body is in for a treat. By incorporating weight training into your workout routine, you will tone and define muscles you forgot (or didn't know) you even had! Weight training adds precious pounds of lean muscle to your body, which boosts your metabolism and helps you burn more calories at rest.

Weight training transforms your body. With cardio, you can go from being a large apple to a smaller apple, but with weight training you can go from being an apple to a banana in terms of transformation. When you perform cardio, you're improving your cardiovascular system (the heart, lungs and blood vessels) and burning calories while doing so. However, cardio alone isn't sufficient for sculpting.

I often hear the term "tone" regularly used to describe fitness goals. Unfortunately, hyperactive spandex-clad "fitness mavens" have led many astray to believe that "lifting light and doing more reps will tone" and "going heavy will cause you to bulk up." I must say, that's just not true!

When you lift weight adequate to overload your muscles, you create tiny tears in your muscle fibers. As a response to your fibers being torn, the body repairs and rebuilds them stronger, which creates muscle.

Some general guidelines for successful weight training:

· Begin with a full body workout that incorporates exercises for every body part, performing at least two times a week.

· If you're unfamiliar with free weights, ask a trainer to help; or use the machines until you learn some proper form (proper form makes all the difference)

· Do 2 sets of each exercise for each body part, using weights heavy enough to fatigue your muscle within 12 reps, meaning that 13-14 reps would be really challenging.

· Rather than doing a set of a certain exercise, sitting/resting and then doing a second set, use your "rest time" to perform an exercise for a different body part (saves time and keeps your heart rate up).

· Rest 1-2 days between your weight training sessions. As I mentioned, you are tearing your muscle fibers and they must have a day or two to recover and rebuild. Switch to a cardio workout on your off-days.

· And finally, have fun with it! Mix it up, use a variety of equipment to target muscles and avoid the same ol' routine of weight machines. Otherwise, your body and your mind will get bored and want to move on.