Your Friendly Neighborhood Gym Girl: Mindy’s Training A-List – 2

#6 WEIGHT TRAINING – Seated leg Press (legs positioned for glute targeting.)

Why I enjoy this activity: Heavy lifting makes me happy inside. The increased heart rate and the agonizing burning in my glutes from so few reps get’s me excited. I can feel the transformation happening right on my backside mid-workout. I‘m all about efficient training.

How it transformed my body: I have to say that genetically I have a prominent backside and the mass is a combination of fat and muscle. There’s no way around it, fat accumulation on the buttocks equals cellulite. I sincerely believe this exercise erases cellulite. I’m 33 and can put 20-year-olds to shame in the glute area. Yes, I work hard to keep my body fat percentage down, but it’s the muscle I build in female problem areas that fights gravity, unsightly rippling and fat accumulation. Yes cellulite is hereditary, but if you want it GONE badly enough, you can erase it like I did.

#7 WEIGHT TRAINING – Smith Machine Standing Overhead Press

Why I enjoy this activity: It works so many muscles and I feel I can lift heavy while avoiding injury.

How it transformed my body: This exercise was integral in building my core strength and it also allowed me to target my shoulders and triceps while suffering from a wrist injury (I had to use my wrist for it to get better and this helped.) The best way to sum up the results for this exercise is that all of the finer muscle groups that look great in a tank top, start to pop. After I implementing this exercise, way more people asked me how they can have arms and shoulders like mine. Enough said.

#8 STEP MILL/STAIR CLIMBER

Why I enjoy this activity: Just 30 sweaty minutes a couple of times per week and I have to TRY to keep fat from falling off. This is probably the most efficient fat loss method I’ve encountered, and it came from using the machines with PERFECT form. This is one reason I can eat so many kinds of foods including plenty of carbs and fats, without risking weight gain.

How it transformed my body: Ultimately this exercise is responsible for fat loss while also maintaining my leg muscles. It’s a difficult 30 minutes, but so worth it. Nobody can tell me they’re too busy for 30 minutes, three times per week. The best part about the stair-climber specifically is that it significantly works your lower abs when you apply perfect form. My hip-flexor and oblique areas pop when I’m consistently using a stair-climber properly.

#9 ROWING MACHINE

Why I enjoy this activity: It’s a great warm-up activity for weight training days, but it is also a very intense muscle builder. If I’m feeling low in motivation, I start my workout with 10 to 15 minutes of rowing and it gets me sweaty and excited for more. It’s perfect for gym goers who haven’t worked up to heavy lifting yet, but want to see muscle development and feel a burn in their workout.

How it transformed my body: This is a NEW passion. I took it easy at the gym after completing four consecutive bodybuilding shows from June to September. I wanted to give my body a rest. In doing so it also meant I had to work back up to the heavy weights I was lifting, and wanted to do this without injury.

I was also battling fatigue from sleeping issues and just wasn’t incredibly stoked for my gym visits post-competition season. That lack of enthusiasm was short-lived, because when my coach added rowing into my regimen my attitude changed for the better. Rowing is just FUN! I know it doesn’t matter if I head to the gym while I’m not totally pumped, because I can just hit the rowing machine and find my fitness mojo again.

Pretty much from the waist-up I’m commonly quite sore and stiff when I row regularly. I can see major definition coming back to my upper body, and muscle growth even though I’m not lifting as heavy as I was in the Summer. I can also see smaller muscles developing that I probably haven’t developed much in the past. In four weeks of rowing for 10 to 15 minutes a few times per week, I’m seeing changes in my body I haven’t seen before. It’s just what I needed at this time of year.

#10 Um …who says I have to have 10?

I suppose number 10 is the general practise of EXPLORING FITNESS. The rowing example emphasizes the importance of exploring fitness. You never know what your body is going to respond to best, until you try it CONSISTENTLY. You also don’t know what exercises you will thoroughly enjoy, to the point of getting out of a fitness plateau, until you try them.

I’ve used a rowing machine before. I’ve tried many avenues of fitness before. I never would have guessed that jump rope and rowing would be my go-to warm-ups to get me fully pumped and ready to give 100 percent effort to my session. I also never would have guessed how much I loath being kicked, if I hadn’t tried kickboxing. I’m fine taking hits to the face in boxing, so why do I hate kickboxing so much? If you enjoy kickboxing and can handle goose-egg shins every week, go for it! I’d like to live through you vicariously.

Take a look at professional kickboxers and just try to refute that the activity doesn’t bring incredible results on all levels. Lats, calves, quads, delts, biceps, abs, traps… oh MY! My point is you don’t have to like all types of fitness just because they’re beneficial, and you don’t even have to like the gym, BUT please find your own A-list exercises and do yourself a favor; put in 100 percent – you’ll see the rewards.

Happy Lifting!