A great way to challenge your workout and really get your muscles to bulk a bit is to spend more time on your actual movements. Instead of doing fast reps with small to medium weight to exhaustions try this technique: make your movements take 3-5 counts in both directions. For example, when doing a chest press work slowly to extend the arms. Once in extended position take the same amount of time to come down.



Talk about a quick burn and exhaustion! You are not only lifting the weight but you are taking gravity into more consideration. Just think how hard you have to concentrate on the movements to get a nice slow stable form. This really challenges the muscles and joints and makes those tiny tears necessary to build great definition!

Once too tired to lift any more reps take a quick break (no longer than 60 seconds and repeat). The shorter the break the better workout your muscles are going to get AND your heart rate will stay up to increase calorie burn. It takes about 3 minutes for muscle recovery therefore your rest should never be this long, the goal is to tire your muscles out after all. I recommend 30 second rest breaks.

Post workup refuel with a protein shake, a good cool down and lots of water!

Make your whole body workout follow this plan- legs, arms, backs, shoulders, abs, etc. Keep the movements smooth and controlled. With this slow plan you are also going to improve stability and help to strengthen the joints and connective tissue.

When doing squats using your butt muscles for control move slowly in position, a great addition is to stay in the squat for 5-10 seconds, or you can do bouncing squats for this time before slowly coming up. Back extensions, dead lifts, push ups everything gets slowed down.

You will notice that your reps will decrease significantly than if you were doing the medium to fast pace before. That is great, it means you are pushing yourself. If you are lifting an amount where you can still do 10 or more reps then you need to increase your weight. It is ok for women to increase their weights. Really push yourself because it is the only way results are going to pile on.

A FEW TIPS

You can decrease your normal lifting weight by 10-20% just make sure to keep the pace slow!

DO NOT stop till you are unable to go farther!

Remember your body needs a rest so keep the workouts to every other day. Overloading the muscles can lead to injury and obviously if you are injured you are not going to be able to build the great toned and strong body you are going after. Plus the rest will really help to increase your metabolism and allow the results to come much faster.

Eat plenty of protein to assist in the muscle development. You can only build muscle if you have enough resources!

Try this workout for 30-40 days after which switch it up to avoid plateauing.