Do you spend hours on the treadmill, but somehow the pounds don’t want to fall off? The reason for this may be that you are not focusing on the four major muscle groups.
Big muscles make all the difference when exercising
If your main goal is to burn calories with your workout, then it’s high time to redesign your training.
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To lose weight, it is beneficial to incorporate strength exercises into your workouts in addition to endurance training. This increases the basal metabolic rate because muscles consume calories even when resting.
This means: The more muscles you have, the more calories your body burns throughout the day – regardless of whether you are moving or not.
Calculate your basal metabolic rate with our FIT FOR FUN calculator
This is how good strength training is for the body
Strengthening your muscles ensures a balanced and stable body. This counteracts, among other things, back pain from sitting for long periods of time. Your posture also becomes more upright and you generally feel more energetic and balanced.
Don’t worry, the smaller muscle groups such as calves, biceps, triceps and shoulders are not neglected during this training. Training large muscles automatically strains the entire body. The smaller muscles are trained automatically.
We’ll show you which muscles you can easily train at home with which exercises and get a little closer to your dream weight.
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1. Butt and legs
Let’s start with the largest muscles in the body. Training your legs and buttocks is very strenuous, but a good leg workout also burns the most calories. Especially people who sit a lot in everyday life should train their lower body to compensate for the one-sided stress.
One of the best exercises for the lower body is deep squats. You train strength and flexibility and should be on the plan at least once a week. You can also incorporate lunges or glute bridges (pelvic raises) into the plan.
Tip: Start with three sets of 8 to 10 repetitions each and try to slowly increase the number of repetitions with each workout.
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2. Strengthen your back
Back training not only burns a lot of calories, but also makes your waist look smaller and your posture more upright. Reason enough to integrate a few back exercises into your workout. Anyone who sits a lot and suffers from back pain also benefits from back training.
If you have a pull-up bar at home, try doing pull-ups. If the exercise is too difficult at the beginning, you can initially concentrate on the eccentric movement by jumping into the upper position and slowly lowering yourself down.
Another good exercise for the back is bent over rows with a Super band. To do this, place one leg on the band, lean forward with your back straight and pull the band up toward your hips.
If you don’t have any equipment, you can do the float exercise. To do this, lie on your stomach, stretch your arms straight out in front of you and make short, powerful movements – like when crawling.
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3. Focus on the core of your body
A strong core provides stability for every movement you make in everyday life and is therefore one of the most important parts of the body to train. A strong core protects the organs, improves breathing and strengthens the pelvic floor. With a strong core, you will also improve in other exercises and can prevent injuries during sports.
There are many core exercises that add variety to your training. Crunches, leg raises and planks are some examples that you can use to strengthen your stomach.
4. Train chest muscles
As a counterpart to your back, you should also train your chest muscles. Because we often round our backs when sitting, the chest narrows. Targeted training stretches the chest area and ensures a healthier posture.
The best exercise to strengthen your chest muscles is push-ups. If the push-up position is too difficult for you, you can also do it on your knees.
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