Your hands will be slightly wider than your shins when you grab the bar. Put your hand where your elbow was so that your hands are underneath your shoulders when you walk up. You can also add some explosive moves like the ones listed below to increase the calorie burn.

Throw one of these moves in at the end of your circuit to elevate the heart rate before you repeat the circuit or perform them separately as a final burnout before you cool down. Do sets of reps for these spicy moves. Strength training is the best way to tone the muscles.

Instead of choosing exercises that only focus on one part of the body, perform compound movements moves that incorporate multiple joints at once to give you the best bang for your buck. These moves target multiple muscle groups at once and increase the calorie burn of the move.

Genetics and gender will often determine where in your body you lose weight first as you begin the journey. Many people believe that working out will be the key to seeing their body composition change, but nutrition is the heavy hitter when it comes to weight loss!

Some women worry that heavy weights will make them bulky, or that very low weights and high repetitions will help them get the physique that they desire. The truth is that developing muscle tone requires you to lift heavier weights for your muscles to have something to adapt to. Think about the objects that you might lift daily: a heavy purse, kids, pulling a heavy door open, lifting, and moving a big bag or object, etc.

Most of these everyday items weigh more than lbs. Therefore, it requires lifting more than what you already lift to see a change in your body. The short answer: Usually, no. Additionally, anyone who has actively tried to bulk knows how difficult it can be.

It requires an excess of calories and high-volume strength training usually training at least times per week for an hour or longer per session. The lifter will also need to follow a specific training program that continually progresses them using progressive overload so that they are constantly focused on putting on mass.

Bottom line: You can get toned without getting bulky by following a healthy nutrition plan and consistent exercise routine that includes strength training and cardio.

Vingren, J. Testosterone physiology in resistance exercise and training: the up-stream regulatory elements. Sports medicine Auckland, N. Kinsey Mahaffey, MPH, is a Houston-based fitness educator, personal trainer and health coach who developed her commitment to lifelong fitness while playing Division I volleyball.

You can follow her on LinkedIn here. org Fitness CPT Nutrition CES Sports Performance Workout Plans Wellness. Workouts Trending Best Toning Exercises for Women. What Are Toning Exercises? The Best Toning Exercises to Try These exercises are great to incorporate into a well-rounded fitness program that also includes flexibility, balance, and cardio.

Squat to curl with an overhead press. The Author. Kinsey Mahaffey Kinsey Mahaffey, MPH, is a Houston-based fitness educator, personal trainer and health coach who developed her commitment to lifelong fitness while playing Division I volleyball.

Related Posts. Workouts Trending What to Eat on Rest Days to Best Support Muscle Growth. Place a barbell across your shoulders, or hold a dumbbell in each hand at hip height or shoulder height, and perform basic squats and lunges.

Both of these exercises help strengthen your quadriceps, hamstrings, hips and glutes according to ACE Fitness. Train your calves with calf raises.

With a barbell on your shoulders or with dumbbells at hip height, stand on the edge of a step or other raised surface and complete sets with your toes pointed forward, inward and outward to strengthen your central, outer and inner calves. For toning, perform three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions of each lower-body strengthening exercise.

Your abdominal muscles can be trained with body-resistance exercise, meaning that the only weight you need for toning is your own body weight. Perform traditional crunches to strengthen your central abdomen, or modify this exercise by twisting from left to right at the height of the exercise as your chest approaches your knees.

Twisting crunches target your obliques to tone the sides of your abdomen and your lower abdominal muscle, the rectus abdominis according to ExRx. If you have access to a Roman chair, stand with your forearms and elbows resting on the arm rests to support your body and lift your knees to your chin.

This exercise will help tone your lower abdominal muscles, an often forgotten section of the abdomen. Perform three sets of 15 repetitions of each abdominal exercise. Read more: The 20 Best Body-Weight Exercises.

While strength training is critical for developing and toning lean body mass, aerobic exercise is essential for cutting fat off your body to reveal your newly-sculpted muscles. Perform at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day to blast fat from your body.

The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend getting to minutes a week of moderately-intense cardio; or for greater benefits 75 to minutes of vigorous cardio.

The more intense the aerobic activity, the more calories and fat you will burn from your body. For maximum fat loss, try running at a moderate to high speed or using a rowing machine or elliptical machine for 30 minutes. Fitness Workouts Exercises and Workouts. Muscle Toning Workout for Women By Tina Pashley Updated Jul 30, Reviewed by Aubrey Bailey, PT, DPT, CF-L1.

Dumbbells are an efficient strengthening tool for multiple muscle groups in your body. Video of the Day.

If you have access to a Roman chair, stand with your forearms and elbows resting on the arm rests to support your body and lift your knees to your chin. This exercise will help tone your lower abdominal muscles, an often forgotten section of the abdomen.

Perform three sets of 15 repetitions of each abdominal exercise. Read more: The 20 Best Body-Weight Exercises. While strength training is critical for developing and toning lean body mass, aerobic exercise is essential for cutting fat off your body to reveal your newly-sculpted muscles.

Perform at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day to blast fat from your body. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend getting to minutes a week of moderately-intense cardio; or for greater benefits 75 to minutes of vigorous cardio.

The more intense the aerobic activity, the more calories and fat you will burn from your body. For maximum fat loss, try running at a moderate to high speed or using a rowing machine or elliptical machine for 30 minutes.

Fitness Workouts Exercises and Workouts. Muscle Toning Workout for Women By Tina Pashley Updated Jul 30, Reviewed by Aubrey Bailey, PT, DPT, CF-L1. Dumbbells are an efficient strengthening tool for multiple muscle groups in your body. Video of the Day.

Upper Body Training. Lower Body Training. Body Toning Exercises for Females. Aerobic Exercise Is a Must.

net: "Dumbbell Bench Press" ExRx. net: "Crunch" ACE Fitness: "5 Variations of the Body-weight Squat". Was this article helpful? Yes No. Deadlifts are a fantastic exercise because not only do they work the hamstrings and glutes, but holding that weight in front of you and staying tight is going to engage your core, arms and back as well.

Check out my favorite variation of the deadlift, the sumo squat. One of the most beneficial and difficult upper body movements you can master. No matter who you are, being able to do unassisted pull-ups is one of the best ways to get into shape and build muscle. It can take some time to be able to actually do an unassisted pull-up- and that is ok!

Try learning on an assisted machine or using a band to help you hold negatives at the top of the movement. As you become stronger, you can make your way down to less and less assistance until you are eventually pulling up your body by yourself.

Pull-ups work various upper body muscles such as your lats, shoulders, arms, back and core. Pushups are one of those exercises that, like pull ups, hit a lot of your upper body muscles which allows you to burn a lot of calories while helping to build lean muscle.

There are tons of lunge variations and almost all are great. Lunges work many lower body muscles depending on what variation you are doing. Increasing the difficulty of a lunge by doing a walking lunge for example, incorporates more balance and stability which forces your abdominals to fire which in turn burns more calories.

When done properly, kettlebell swings work may different muscles in the body including the glutes, hamstrings, back, core, shoulder and quads. The explosively of the movement is a sure way to get the heart rate up and break a sweat.

Bulgarian split squats are great for adding muscle tone to the quads, hammys and glutes. They help to build single leg strength which decreases asymmetries in the body and help to increase overall stability.

Start doing these with just your body weight and try to get the full range of motion. As they become easier, add weight and focus on the contraction in your core and butt as you come up and down in the movement.

Compound exercises are an awesome way to torch calories and burn fat because they use more than one muscle group to complete the movement. But I personally like to think of a compound exercise as combining two big exercises into one.

Some examples of this would be:. There are tons of plyometric exercises to choose from but these are some of my favorites. They help build strength and endurance without risking losing lean muscle which can happen when you do a lot of steady state cardio.

Women cannot be afraid to build muscle. Muscle burns fat and when we have more muscle on our bodies, our RMR resting metabolic rate naturally goes up which means at rest, you will be burning more calories than before.