The Oddy Body Syndrome

Ladies, what is your body's best feature? Is it your legs? Chest or your Abs? Maybe it's your butt. Whatever it is, some of you must do a lot of work to make sure it's "toned up" and looks good. Right? Well, the reason why I'm curious to know is because as a new trainer in the fitness industry I have noticed that a majority of women that either workout alone or with a friend, or hire a trainer to get them in shape only want to exercise the rectus abdominis (abs), glutes (butt) or legs. Sometimes they may want to tone up the arms but mainly the areas I just mentioned. But, what people fail to realize is if you don't work on the whole body you will have an disproportionate body, bad posture, and to put it in simple terms you will have an "oddy body." We can talk about each muscle group, but this blog will be entirely too long, so lets pick abs to discuss today since that seems to be numero uno on the females list to tighten up.

Recently, I heard a younger woman say, "I just want to lose my stomach." "I don't want to do any arms, legs, butt or back exercises, just abs." Of course as a personal trainer it's my job to create a full body workout anyway and put an emphasis on rectus abdominis and external oblique training. But there's those that still absolutely refuse to do the exercises that does not directly workout the ab area. JUST PLAIN STUBBORN! OK... maybe its because they don't have big legs, or jiggly arms so they don't feel the need to improve them. Maybe they think they'll get bulky from weights. You'll get bulky ONLY if you lift heavy weights. Your eating habit also play a big part in body size as well, but we're not going into that right now.

Let's briefly go back to the first blog I wrote about obesity. Just because your not fat does not automatically mean you are healthy. When you're not exercising your muscles on a normal basis, you're losing them. Not only that, you are also losing bone density and minerals which will cause osteoporosis which is common in the female population. One reason is due to lack of resistance training. Another reason is it could be hereditary. ALSO, there has been studies showing people that do not perform any cardio or resistance training with the lower body have a greater risk of a cardiovascular disease. Doesn't sound to good does it?! Didn't think so.

Let go back to abs momentarily. OK so you want only want workout your abs and nothing else.... POP QUIZ! What happens when you have a strong rectus abdominis wall but since you did not want to do any back exercises, your lower back is weak? ANSWER: You will have bad posture and will cause you to have back pain. Your muscles work together in more ways than you think.

There's many exercises that you can do workout multiple body parts at once. I will post some videos soon demonstrating some of them. BUT, there's one in particular that will not only work the legs (Quadriceps and Hamstrings) but it also work muscles in the glutes, lower back and you guessed it, the abs! This exercise is called the Back Squat aka " The King of Exercises." The Back Squat is one of the most basic exercises known to man. I will say it does take a little practice to get the proper technique down. Proper exercise technique is definitely important to prevent the risk of injury. Something that many people don't know is that Squats actually work the rectus abdominis more than an ab exercise does such as the crunches or sit-ups. Don't believe me? Go do some barbell squats and see how tight your abs get. Now just because it works out all of those muscle groups I just mentioned, don't think you can go do some squats for 10 reps and you're good for the week. It doesn't work like that! You still have to target each muscle individually to build up more strength. The whole point of this blog is to get you to understand that just because your goal is to tone up your legs, butt, or abs does not mean you can neglect the rest of your body or you will be "Oddy Body".

Many men have this problem too only wanting to build up the chest and biceps but their back is so weak due to lack of training the back muscles, they are walking around with the shoulders push forward and a hump in the their back. Even worse is men with large upper bodies, but they have bird legs. NOT COOL! So workout your whole body. It'll thank you later.