She wants to tone up and drop ten solid pounds before mid March. I have her lifting four days a week with reps at 10-15 and working each bodypart once a week except abs which are hit every day as of last week. Her self proclaimed problem areas are "loose" triceps (although not huge just need toning), abs/obliques, from mid thigh to butt, and butt. She wants to lean her calves out too. They are bigger than she wants from previously working on the beach. Please let me know what I can do/advise to help her.
cap, are you having her lift pretty heavy? I am not a personal trainer nor a nutritionist, so feel free to accept or decline any of this post.
I'd have her using enough weight that her 15th rep would be the max number she could do w/proper form. And if you can, you should be there and spot her. It's so easy to fall into crappy form because our bodies seem to automatically try to take the easy way out.
I guess I never really understood why people train abs more than once a week but many do. When I did a show I didn't do abs until the last 3 weeks of my prep. I guess we forgot! But when the fat melts off, the abs are there. I think it's important to do them for core strength and to help avoid back problems though.
You say you have her doing one bodypart a week (not counting abs) and she is lifting 4 days a week. Is she training biceps, triceps, shoulders, back, chest and legs?
In my experience if you have a lagging bodypart (one that needs a lot of work) you should train that bodypart twice a week if you can with a few days in between those workouts, and use different workouts.
I'd also have her do plyometrics between her sets instead of just resting. But you don't want to overdo it initially or she may start to hate to workout.
I'd also have her do cardio 6 days a week for at least 45 minutes each session. If she has kind of a long way to go to reach her goal, she could do a second cardio session later in the day or at night 3-5 days a week.
Cardio should be something somewhat intense like the eliptical, stairmaster, stepmill, jogging or walking at a good incline while squeezing her butt cheeks with each step. She can mix them up if she gets bored....15 minutes on one machine, 15 on another, etc.
Have her use an IPOD or something for her cardio sessions and download some Crystal Method or something like that if she likes it. It can keep her intensity up and help the session to go faster. I'd also buy her Oxygen Magazine for inspiration. They have excellent sample pre-contest diets that would probably be very beneficial for her if she can stick to them.
Jodi as well as many others here should have some good information for you.
Do you have her workout pretty much established? I can PM you one if you'd like when I get more time. Let me know......but mine will be mixing a couple diff. bodyparts together each day.
Get her the Oxygen Magazine!
OH, and she may want to buy a new bikini and try it on every other day or so. I tried on 2 today and it was not pretty
but it was motivating
