Kalym - SHE SQUATS - Womens leg and bum training that works

Copyright 2013 Ashley Kalym

All rights reserved. No portion of this book, whether in print or electronic format, may be duplicated or transmitted without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Acknowledgments

Photography by Chris Frosin - www.chrisfrosin.co.uk

Modelling by Helen Christie - hellsfitness.blogspot.co.uk

Cover design by Mike Seymour www.behance.net/sey

Hi, and welcome to SHE SQUATS . My aim in writing this book was to show you how to get the legs and bum that you have always wanted, using simple exercises and simple methods that WORK!

If you are reading this book then you are obviously looking for a way to build and develop your bum and legs to get the shape that is not just in fashion now, but has always been in fashion. In the times of the pre and post war film stars it was Marilyn Monroe who was the poster girl for the ideal womanly shape, with her narrow waist, wide hips, and toned bum and legs. Do you think if she had a small bum and a boyish figure she would have been remembered as much? I dont think so.

Now, thanks to women like Kim Kardashian, Jessica Biel, Kelly Brook, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Lawrence, and others, curves are starting to make a comeback. The women I have mentioned are famous for their bum and legs, and rightly so, for they look amazing and have worked hard in the gym for what they have got.

Now we come to the main problem; there are so many exercise routines, workouts, and programs that how on earth do you know what to follow? The answer is simple. You follow what has been proven to work time and time again. Squats, lunges, glute bridges, and many other simple, strength based exercises will develop the kind of figures that women want. There is really no other alternative. Running does work the legs and the bum, but you will not build and shape muscle by running. Cycling classes that are so popular these days will make your legs fitter, but the resistance is not high enough to make the body change shape.

To build and shape your legs and bum you need to know what exercises work, and which ones dont, which is the title of the next chapter.

In order to change the shape, size, and tone of your muscles you need to be doing some sort of resistance training, whether that is in the form of bodyweight exercises or with weights. The reason strength training and resistance training works is very simple, and I will highlight it so that you understand it: RESISTANCE TRAINING MAKES YOUR MUSCLES CHANGE SHAPE . This change can be a number of things, including getting stronger, getting bigger, getting firmer or harder, and becoming more toned. However, if you dont put your muscles under enough stress then they simply wont change. This is why people that go to the gym and do the same exercises for years do not change, because the stress on the muscles is not high enough to force them to change.

There are probably hundreds of leg and bum exercises that can be performed, but not all of these can help to build, shape, and tone your lower body. This is for the simple reason that not all exercises can give the same result. For example, doing high numbers of reps of any exercise will not make you any stronger, because the resistance is not high enough for your body to get stronger. The same goes for an exercise that builds lots of strength; it cannot increase your muscular endurance because that is not how the body responds to it.

Although in reality things are a little more complicated, the number of reps you do directly impacts the results that you will see. Next is a short list that explains this in a simple way.

- Performing high numbers of reps (over 15 reps) will improve your muscular endurance, which is the ability of your muscles to perform a movement over and over again without tiring.

- Performing a moderate number of reps (anything from 8 to 12 reps) will build muscle size, improve muscle shape, and improve muscle tone.

- Performing a low number of reps (anything from 3 to 5 reps), will help to build muscle strength, muscle size, and improve muscle shape, and improve muscle tone.

So, you now know that to build and shape your bum and legs you need to be performing movements that encourage rep ranges of anything from 3 to 12 reps. Doing exercises for more than 15 reps is not going to do any harm however; its just that rep ranges of more than 15 will not do much to build the muscle that you want to build, and will do very little to increase the firmness or the tone or shape of your muscle. This is why doing hundreds of squats is pointless. You can and will get much better results from doing fewer reps with more resistance.

This means that for some of the exercises you will need to start using weights, either in the form of barbells, dumbbells, or kettlebells. For some of you reading this, this will be a shock, and many of you might think that if you start lifting weights you will get too big. This is a very popular misunderstanding, and can stop many women getting the results that they want, so in the next section of the book I am going to devote a little time to combatting this misconception.

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, in order to keep progressing and improving the shape and tone of your legs and bum, you need to start doing resistance exercise and lifting weights. This can be quite daunting for many people, especially for those of you that believe that lifting weights can make you bigger. This section aims to dispel all of the myths that are wrongly associated with strength training for women.

MYTH 1 - LOTS OF REPS WILL SHAPE AND TONE MUSCLES

A common myth is that lots of repetitions of simple exercises will create a toned and shapely bum and legs. Whilst this is somewhat true, simply doing lots of repetitions will not alter the shape of your body very much. To alter the shape of your body and to create firm, toned, shapely muscles you need to increase the resistance that you are working with.

This does not mean that you need to lift stupidly heavy weights over your head; it just means that when your muscles are strong enough, you will have to start lifting more to see progress and results.

MTYH 2 - LIFTING WEIGHTS WILL MAKE ME BIG

This second myth is undoubtedly the most common amongst women who have not trained with weights before. The worry is that lifting weights or doing strength training or resistance training will increase the size of their muscles, and make them look like female bodybuilders. This is simply not true.

The female bodybuilders that have helped to perpetuate this image train with very heavy weights, for long periods of time, eat lots and lots of food, and most often have chemical help in the form of anabolic steroids and other drugs, like growth hormone, testosterone boosters, etc. They are also aiming to be as big and muscular as possible, which is probably not what you wish to achieve. There are a number of very simple reasons why women who engage in weight training will not get big, and I have listed these next with a brief explanation as to why this is the case.

One reason is that women do not produce lots of testosterone. This is a very important fact, and perhaps the main reason why women cannot build huge amounts of muscle naturally. Testosterone is the male sex hormone, and as such is responsible for muscle building, strength, and the male sexual characteristics, like a hard jaw line, hair on the body and the face, a deep voice, and the shape and size of the skeleton. This is why men look the way they do and why men are stronger physically than women. This is also why women who do bodybuilding sometimes inject testosterone, because it makes it much easier for them to build muscle size and bulk.