It’s January and it can only mean one thing: time to overhaul our bodies by hitting the gym and saying no thanks to those leftover Christmas Quality Streets. We don’t know about you, but the red ones that we didn’t like the look of at Christmas have suddenly become all the more enticing. Stop right now!
And where best to find inspiration and motivation? From the celebs, of course. Not only do they (most of the time) have super-hot bods, but January and February are the months when they seem to want to show off even more by jetting off to sunnier shores to prance around in bikinis and shorts.
Last year a survey by Hollyscoop showed that women coveted Jennifer Aniston’s legs, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs and Gwen Stefani’s abs, while Fitbie revealed that men are after Taylor Lautner or Michael Phelps’ toned backs.
So we spoke to Adele McGrath, Director of Fitness at gym 37° Tower Bridge, about how to get the celebrity body we’re after.
WOMEN
Shoulders and Arms – Halle Berry
“The best combination in order for you to see your results is a healthy mix of cardio and resistance training,” says McGrath. “You will see results in four weeks if you inject the right amount of exercise into your week.”
And while women may not think heavy weights are best, the opposite is true. “Most women consider a dumbbell of about 10 pounds to be heavy. So, very often, women are not lifting what would approximate the weight to gain the desired results. The key to building muscle mass is going to exhaustion, no matter how heavy the weight you’re lifting is.
She advises doing side lateral raises, which develop the medial head of the deltoid.
1. Stand upright with your feet planted firmly on the ground about shoulder width apart and with your knees slightly bent. With a dumbbell in each hand, let your arms hang in front of your body with the palms facing each other.
2. Using your shoulders, lift your arms up and out away from your body until your hands are at shoulder level or slightly higher. Turn the wrists slightly, as if pouring water out of a pitcher on the top of the movement to further stress and isolate the medial head of the deltoid. The rear of the dumbbells should be higher than the front, or your pinkies should be higher than thumbs. At the end of the movement your arms should somewhat resemble a “T”.
3. Pause very briefly at the top and then lower your arms back to the starting position under control and blast through your set. Most people consider this a shaping movement. And it is, but you should still go heavy if you are trying to build size, side lateral raises are an effective mass builder as well.
You should perform three to four working sets for about eight to 10 repetitions with the heaviest weight you can handle with proper form. Beginners should perform two to three sets for 10 repetitions. The same applies to all the exercises below.
Back – Gisele Bundchen
How can women tone their backs?
McGrath advises: “In order to tone your muscles you need to do resistance work. There are a number of muscles in the back so to get the balance and results you desire you would need to work all of them.”
The exercise she advises to do is the neutral-grip lat pulldown.
1. Attach a straight lat bar to a lat pulldown machine.
2. Grasp the handles on the middle of the lat bar so that your hands are shoulder width apart
3. Sit down on the provided bench and position your thighs under the provided pads so that the weight does not pull your body up.
4. Allow your arms to fully extend upward so that you feel a slight stretch in your lats. This is the starting position.
5. Begin exercise by contracting your lats while pulling the weight down to your upper chest.
6. Your shoulder blades should be pinched together, elbows back, and lat bar against your upper chest at the end of the movement.
7. Slowly reverse movement back up to the starting position. This completes one rep.
Glutes – J-Lo
Oh to have a bum like J-Lo, we hear you cry (us too), but getting the perfect peachy behind isn’t as straightforward as it might seem.
“Your bum (gluteal) muscle is used all day every day and so cardio would not necessarily be the best way to work the butt but then no singular exercise is the best to target the bum area,” McGrath says. “You need to do a combination of exercises to hit all of the muscles in the bum. For me squats and lunges are the best and most compound exercises to target and shape the bum area.’
However, she adds, technique is key.
“Like all exercises unless you get shown the correct technique you may end up doing it wrong which could result in injury, couple this with the fact that you will not get the results you are after and you will only waste your time.”
McGrath details the perfect squat below:
1. Standing tall, make sure your core is tight to support your lower back
2. Push your bum back and down as if you are about to sit into a chair
3. Drop the bum until the hip and knee are level.
4. Driving from your heel – push the weight into the heel and push yourself up to a standing position.
5. Making sure you straighten the leg but do not lock the knee at the top of the move.
6. Be conscious that your core is held tight throughout the move and you do not collapse forward when you sit back.
Abs – Gwen Stefani
Getting abs like Gwen isn’t about cardio and sensible eating, it is all about balance, explains McGrath.
“You need to combine sensible eating, cardio, resistance and stretching for optimal health.”
Talking us through the perfect sit-up. McGrath says:
1. Sitting tall with your legs straight out in front of you, now bend your knees slightly and push your chest up and out in order to sit out of your lower back, breathe out and engage your core
2. Extend the arms out in front of you at shoulder height; pinch your shoulder blades together.
3. Start to roll back (maintain the pinch on your shoulder blades so you do not collapse through your chest).
4. Roll back until your shoulders are at a 45° angle to your hip
5. Breathe out and pull your belly button in tighter
6. Hold for 30 seconds
7. Gently roll forward back to your seated position
Legs – Beyonce
Who doesn’t love Bey’s legs? McGrath also advises to be mindful of what you eat and you need a healthy balance of everything in your lifestyle to achieve your goals.
She adds: “If you have no fat to lose then yes your muscular definition will pop up quicker than that of somebody who has to lose body fat in order for the muscle to be seen. By combining three challenging resistance training sessions with two high intensity cardio sessions per week, you will see results in four weeks.”
Lunges are key, she says, listing this technique:
1. Stand with your feet together, abs pulled in. Hold a dumbbell in each hand, arms by your sides.
2. Step forward with right foot, bending knees so right knee aligns over right ankle, left heel lifted; drop the left knee towards the floor.
3. Making sure that your back knee is directly under the hip and that you come down just one inch from the floor.
4. Straighten torso; next, push off right foot to return to starting position. Make sure you drive from the heel of the right foot and not from the toes.
MEN
Shoulders – Hugh Jackman
It’s not just the ladies who want to look like the celebs; the men are guilty too.
“The same principles apply as with results achieved by women, providing you are already lean, the weight is the right heaviness for your strength capabilities and your technique in performing the exercise is correct then you will see results in four weeks if your frequency of training is correct,” says McGrath.
“You need to choose a weight that can challenge your already existing strength without compromising your technique when performing an exercise. You need to choose a weight that will push your muscle to failure.”
She details the bicep curl below:
1. Standing tall and keeping your belly button in tight, shoulder back and down in a relaxed position.
2. Hold the dumbells by your side, with your palms facing forward.
3. Keeping your elbows tight by your side curl the weights up to the shoulder.
4. Lower the weights making sure when you lower the arms they go straight to ensure full range of movement.
Back – Taylor Lautner
For a back full of ripples and definition, you need to do resistance work, explains McGrath.
“There are a number of muscles in the back so to get the balance and results you desire you would need to work all of them. A basic but thorough workout hitting all of the muscles in the back would be to combine the lat pulldown, back extension, pulley row and rear deltoid row, do 3 sets of 15 repetitions on each machine.”
Here she talks through one good back training technique, called wide grip pull-ups.
1. Grasp a sturdy bar with a firm overhand grip and your hands separated by a distance roughly twice the width of your shoulders.
2. Separating your hands in this way ensures that you emphasise working the belly (main part) of your lats. Allow your body to hang from the bar with your arms straightened.
3. Pull yourself upward so that your chest nearly touches the bar and your chin is over the bar. When you perform the exercise, it’s helpful to focus on using your lats and that you pull your elbows downward toward your ribcage.
4. Also, focus on keeping your body straight without arching or swinging throughout the pull. Once your lats are completely contracted and your chin is over the bar, you can lower yourself to the initial position
Glutes – David Beckham
There is a reason Beckham advertises undies, no?
McGrath advises to do sets of gluteal kicks:
1. Take yourself down onto the floor on all fours.
2. Drop down onto your elbows and pull your core tight
3. Lean onto your right leg and lift your left leg up in the air
4. Keep your knee bent and in line with your hip
5. Drive the heel towards the ceiling.
6. Make sure you do not over extend and arch your back – move through your own range of movement and flexibility.
7. Lower the leg again just until the knee is level with the hip and repeat for 40 repetitions.
8. Repeat on the right leg.
9. Ensure your core is held tight at all times.
Abs – Matthew McConaughey
Matt seems allergic to shirts but we don’t hear the women complaining. But how can the ordinary man get a good six-pack?
“Anyone wishing to achieve a six pack must have a very lean midsection which would mean a healthy lifestyle for the most part,” McGrath says.
She advises to practice the plank:
1. Lie on your stomach resting on your elbows.
2. Make sure your elbows are directly under your shoulders.
3. Take a deep breathe in and as you breathe out start to engage your core by pulling your belly button into your body.
4. You should feel your stomach peel away from the floor, your back should be flat and your knees are still on the floor.
5. PLEASE do not push off your elbows or toes.
6. You will know if you are working the correct area because the core will be under pressure and will start to tremble, that is the plank!! Keep the belly button in tight and hold for 30 secs.
7. If you feel you want to do the advanced plank and feel strong enough repeat steps one to four.
8. When your core is tight add a tension through the quads on the front of the thigh and your legs will raise and your body will be in a FLAT plank position and should be only a few inches off the floor.
9. You should only feel the trembling in the front of the core (stomach area) the shoulders will start to burn after about 20 secs as they are assisting the core muscles. Your bum should never be up in the air and you should NOT feel anything in your lower back – if you do, STOP!!
Good luck people! Goodbye Quality Street, hello gym… We’ll be channeling J-Lo, Becks and Beyonce in no time…
Have you got any great workout tips for the new year? Let us know @Lovestruck
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