By: Hindy Cortright for the BioFit Center and Sports & Health Magazine.
Many people, who undergo dramatic weight loss, especially in a short period of time, tend to end up with excess skin, which may give them a «flabby» appearance. This can be highly frustrating if they have reached their weight loss goals. The most effective way to resolve this problem is by incorporating resistance-training (weight lifting) exercise to their weekly regimen. This type of exercise increases muscle mass tightening up the skin surrounding a specific body part.
Most shapeable body areas and recommended exercise
Area Practice
- The abdomen (crunches, leg ups and sit ups)
- Arms bicep curls, triceps extensions and pushups)
- Legs and buttocks (squats, leg extension, hamstring extensions, dead lifts and other movements to isolate the smaller hip muscles)
- The back (pull ups, rows and lat pull downs)
- Chest (chest presses, chest flies and push ups).
The hardest areas to change through resistant training exercise are usually the inner thigh, ankles, hips and neck. This is due to the fact that the shape and the volume of body fat found in these areas are determined more by your biological build up (inheritance) than by lifestyle.
It is important to remember that as you incorporate weight training in your weekly routine, you must continue to practice fat burning cardiovascular exercise as well. Maintaining a balance between resistance training and fat burning cardio is necessary to be able to tighten your excess skin. Fat burning cardio allows our body to use fat for fuel; in addition, eating a balance and calorie conservative diet, helps the body to stay at the desired weight.
In some cases where there has been a weight loss of above 100 pounds the excess skin may be too great to counteract by exercise and proper diet alone; therefore, plastic surgery may be required. Although, plastic surgery is helpful to remove and repair excess tissue that otherwise cannot be removed, it doesn’t really help to improve a person’s health. This is why, even if the person undergoes surgery, nothing can replace the benefits of a good exercise and diet regimen.
FIVE Steps to follow to tighten up skin in «problem» areas:
1. Fat Burning Cardio 30 to 45 minutes sessions (5 times a week).
2. Resistance training routine (Full body) 50 minutes session (2 times a week, preferable with certified trainer such as BioFit Center)
3. A balanced diet with sufficient protein in it.
4. Daily consumption of multi vitamins and minerals.
5. Consistency
Getting the results you want may take a little longer that you expected. Everybody is different and some people achieve results faster than others. Stick to your plan and continue to exercise and eat right.
The sky is the limit when it comes to creating changes to your physique with the proper method of training and dieting. Our bodies are incredible malleable, it only takes the right plan and a steadfast determination to execute it!
