Drop It in 30: 4 Moves to Firm Up Fast

One of the keys to long-lasting weight loss and a firmer more shapely body is strength training. Often done with hand weights, this type of exercise builds muscle and revs your calorie burning machine. So let's get started, and try these four moves. Each one of these moves involve both the lower body and the upper body to give you a total body workout. Beginning with the squat, take your feet a little wider than hip-width apart and we'll begin coming down with the bicep curl. Squat back, sit into that imaginary chair, keep your chest and heart lifted, knees tracking over the ankle. Squeezing up through the glutes, adding a bicep curl. Come up, lift over head to an over head press. Keep your shoulders relax, away from your ears as you press up, bring it back down, squat, bicep curl, over head press. Let's try the next move involving lower body and upper body; diagonal lunge. Take it over to the side, working your legs, track that knee over the shoelace, always be careful and sit way back into that imaginary chair. You take one weight and drop it down in front of you. We are going to add a mid-back row. As you come up, pullback squeezing your shoulder blade behind you. Come down into that diagonal lunge, come up, squeeze and pull. Come down, and come back up, repeat on both sides. Let's take it down to the mat to continue. This time I am going to work my lower body and my abdominal adding my triceps. Come all the way down on the mat, align your heels with your glutes and relax your body down. First come into bridge pose. Lift your torso up into one plank, you should be in ramp position from knees to shoulders, abs are nice and tight, glutes are engaged. Lifting your arms up over head, you are going to keep your elbow facing towards the sky as you bend the weight towards your forehead. Press back up feeling in the back of your arm, your triceps. Try it again, bend from the elbow, press back up. All the while, keeping your abs tight, squeezing through your glutes on the lower body, great job, relax the arms down and lower the body. Our last move, involving the lower body, the abdominal and the chest, the pectoral muscle. Again, relaxing your head, neck and shoulders on the mat, take your hand to two right angles and lift your feet to table top. As I chest press up, I am going to bicycle my feet, keeping your abs engaged, here we go. Press and back, press. Keep those low abs tight to protect your lower back and breath each time. Now try to do 12 to 15 of each of these exercises and do two to three sets. Nice. Alright, if you repeat these four moves and do this workout two to three times a week, you will see the results in no time.