In body shaping, if you have been focusing on numbers on your bathroom scale, perhaps you have been doing it wrong. All of us come in various sizes and shapes. Some of us gain weight easily at the waist or belly, others around the buttocks and/or thighs. A smarter way of achieving your dream physique is to design exercises according to body shape.
THE GIRLY STRAIGHT
If you have a straight-ish figure, focus on building your shoulders, chest and hips. To target shoulders, do side raises with light dumbbells and raise your arms out to shoulder level. Pushups will help strengthen the neck and rotator cuff muscles. Squats are great for toning hips and buttocks, and this is also a great way to increase the heart rate and burn even more fat.
THE PEAR-SHAPED
If your shoulders are narrower than your hips, you are probably pear-shaped. Apart from working on the chest with pushups, your can build muscles in the back by grabbing a set of moderately weighted dumbbells and doing the dumbbell row.
To shave some fat off the lower buttocks and hips, try ONDA fat burning or Coolshape (“banana rolls”).
THE APPLE-SHAPED
If you have some accumulated unwanted bulges in the abdomen, target the abs with leg raises and ab cycles. Leg raises uses gravity to target the lower abdomen, while ab cycles works the obliques as well. Fat in the abdomen is notoriously difficult to isolate via exercises alone though, so if there is more than just a little you wish to be rid of, consider Coolshape abdomen as well.
THE HOURGLASS
There is nothing with the hourglass shape for most people, but you may want to tone the upper and lower body more. Train the chest, and also the triceps with tricep pushups, or chair dips. Target the butt and thighs with plyometric lunges which gets the heart rate up while toning the glutes, thighs and calves at the same time.