Butt Workout: Modified Bridge with a Ball

You probably have done the regular bridge. Here's my twist on "the bridge". You'll need an exercise ball. How to do it: 

• Lay on your back with your hands straight beside you. 
• Lift your knees and bring your feet closer to your butt. 
• Open your knees and put the exercise ball between them.
• Squeeze the ball tight and use that energy to lift your butt off of the floor. 
• Keep squeezing your butt as you hold your hips up. 
• Try to hold your hips up for about 1 minute. 
• Hold your core tight the whole time. Then release back down. 

The lift works your glutes but holding the ball adds in more tension and works your inner thighs. This should burn!

Cheers Eights & Weights!

Proper Squat Form - Eights & Weights Video

I got a chance to make a video for my favorite exercise! Today, we're looking at the proper form for a squat. As you know, this exercise works out your bum, thighs, and even your core if done right. Here are a few points to note with the squat:

• Keep your knees behind your toes. If your knees are going beyond your toes, you're not working your bum as hard and you could hurt your joints.
• Keep your upper body as upright as possible with your shoulders down and core tight. You get a core workout if you do that as well.
• For balance, you can straighten your hands out as you lower in to the squat. Otherwise, keep your arms beside you.
• Squeeze your bum as you lower down and as you come up. You get an even better workout that way.

So I've told you how to do it, and now I'll show you how to do it. I put together the video below. Watch and enjoy.

Cheers Eights & Weights!

I Exercise But My Thighs Still Rub Together. What Gives?!

If you are a woman that isn’t super skinny, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of or experienced the “Chub-Rub”, which is a colloquial term for thighs rubbing together when you walk or run. (I didn’t make up the term; It really is called the Chub-Rub). So your questions probably are “Is this normal?”, “Can it be changed?”, “Why does it happen?”

On TV, you see all these skinny girls with their butts as tight and as high as their backs. And you begin to think that if you can’t get that way with all the exercise you’ve been doing, there is something wrong with your body. No, there isn’t. Our bodies accumulate fat in different areas. Trust me, I’m pretty bummed about this as well because we really can’t control how and where we store fat. Consolation? Folks like Beyonce who do exercise consistently, but still have this problem.

However, that said, we can still control our fat by losing weight all over and toning specific areas. To lose weight and tone your muscles, you need a combination of cardio exercises and strength training. The cardio (running, spinning, swimming, etc) helps to burn fat all over, while the strength training helps to define muscles.

Because our inner thighs aren’t used for a lot of the daily exercises we do, they need to be specifically targeted with strength training to get them toned. So besides the regular squats and lunges, what are a couple of great strength exercises for your inner thighs? There are very may, but I will highlight two amazing ones:

Plie Squats

Lying Ball Squeeze

Now, depending on what culture you come from as you read this, what you determine to be a beautiful body might vary as well. Some cultures love really skinny legs, and some want women to have some junk in the trunk (which also comes with junk in the hips mostly). So there also is the question of “What am I willing to give up?”. If you are targeting fairly large hips, it usually comes with some thigh friction. If you are willing to give that up for skinnier legs, you can do a lot of cardio to burn more fat all over, and that should remove the thigh friction problem.

Unfortunately, some people are more blessed than others in this department. I do know people who are fairly big, but do not have this thigh issue, and I also know folks who are skinny but this is a huge problem for them. So it all depends on what body you’ve been blessed with.

If you find that you are getting chaffed from walking or running, it may be time to find a temporary solution like powder, Spanx, or deodorant between your thighs so it doesn’t burn from the constant friction. But whatever you do, do know that you are not alone.

Cheers Eights & Weights!

Photo credit: Exercise.About.com, YouChoiceFitness.com, RealSimple.com