If you’re hoping to lose all the excess weight on your thighs by doing spot exercises, you’ll be sad to hear that spot exercises don’t melt the fat on just the thighs, but all over your body. While you can’t expect to target specific areas of fat with exercise, what it does is build muscle tone and help change total body composition of muscle to fat. That not only helps reduce thigh jiggle, but also helps eliminate the cottage cheese appearance of cellulite.
Get your cardio every day.
The 10,000 step technique is one way to encourage cardiovascular exercise. Nobody is sure that 10,000 steps is the exact number of steps needed, but everyone agrees it’s a good place to start, particularly if you’re sedentary. Find ways to vary your cardio to help work your thighs. Ride a bike to work or take the stairs instead of the elevator. All these work the muscles of the leg, burn fat and help tone your legs. Climbing steps is particularly good for thighs and weight loss.
Bodyweight workouts can tone the thighs.
Squats are good for improving thighs, but also good for everyone, no matter what their goals, especially seniors. You use the same muscles in a squat as you use for getting in and out of chairs. Squats can be tricky at first if you’re doing them right, so you can use a chair for balance or do wall squats. To modify the area worked, adjust the width of your feet from close together and narrower than shoulder width, to shoulder width and wider. It will work all the muscles in your legs and keep workouts interesting as you add the modifications to your workout.
Ballet strengthens the legs and thighs, so mimic the movements.
There are a number of exercises that look like ballet moves. In fact, plie squats are named after one. It’s a regular squat that uses a wider stance and has feet pointed outward, like in a plie. Those tone the inner thighs dramatically. Be your own exercise machine by supplying resistance when you work your inner thigh muscles. Sit with feet and knees about 12″ apart and put the palms of each hand on the inside of the corresponding thigh. Try to push your thighs together, while you create resistance with your hands. You can then put your thighs together, place your hands on the outside of your thighs and try to open your thighs with your hands providing pressure to keep them closed.
- Combine toning your thighs with weightlifting. Since you lift with your legs, it only makes sense that you’ll build thigh muscle tissue when you lift weights. You can also use weights while doing lunges and squats for your thighs.
- Exercise is important, but so is a healthy diet if you want to lose fat and make your thighs slimmer. Don’t forget to eat healthy, skip the sugar, fatty foods and those highly refined options. Stick with whole foods for nutrients, weight loss and less cellulite.
- Get a rubber playground ball or rolled up towel and exercise while you watch TV. Put the ball/towel between your knees and squeeze it as hard as you can, rest and squeeze again.
- When you’re ready for a really tough exercise, try raising up on your toes. It doesn’t sound hard, does it? However, the second part is moving into a squatting position without ever letting your heels touch the ground! You can start by using a wall, chair or table for support. Now that’s a workout for your thighs and the rest of your body.
For more information, contact us today at Hawaii Fit Camp!
