What is cellulite, anyway?
It’s nothing but regular, old fat. In areas of your body where you have a high proportion of fat to muscle (like women’s thighs, hips, and buttocks), a lot of the fat is trapped between the muscle and the skin and begins to look lumpy. The fibrous or connective tissue that holds your muscles, fat, and skin together is what you are seeing when you see the lumpy, pocked look of cellulite. Some women have more fibrous or connective tissue than others, making the ‘cottage cheese’ look of cellulite more pronounced. Cellulite can worsen with age, too, because you tend to lose muscle as you get older, causing your body to have a higher proportion of fat to muscle.
So what’s the cure for cellulite?
Well, it’s not a pill, or a cream, or a rubber garment that you squeeze on over your body. It’s a simple, easy exercise program.
A group of 23 women that were enrolled in a two-month exercise program saw significant decreases in cellulite at the end of the study. The women ranged in age from 23 to 66 and were all in varying levels of fitness. They were all fairly sedentary at the outset of the program, however, and they all had cellulite on their hips, thighs, or buttocks that they expressed an interest in decreasing or getting rid of altogether.
The women in the study exercised for thirty minutes, three times a week, for the two months required. At the end of the program, all of the women in the study had lost cellulite and expressed satisfaction with the exercise program. In fact, 73% of the women experienced ‘a lot less cellulite’ on their hips, thighs, and buttocks. The age and fitness levels of the women experiencing ‘a lot less cellulite’ again varied greatly.
The study was conducted three more times, each time following the same program and length of study, and each time there was a significant loss of cellulite in each of the women in the study.
Here’s the program that they followed:
1. 15 minutes of aerobic exercise should be done: i.e, walking on the treadmill, riding a bicycle or using a stepper. Always do a 2-minute warm-up before and a 2-minute cool-down after the aerobic exercise. This reduces the risk of injury to your muscles while exercising.
2. Do 15 minutes of strength exercises or weight training at a weight that fatigues the muscle within 10-15 repetitions. Start out with light weights, then as the program goes on, raise the weight to a higher level.
Do 10-15 repetitions of each exercise for the targeted muscle. If, for example, your thighs are the part of your body that is lumpy with cellulite, you should use an exercise specifically designed for thighs, such as leg lifts, side-lying leg lifts or the number one exercise for great legs, SQUATS. Or use an exerciser specifically designed for thighs such as a thighmaster/stepper.
If you want to rid your buttocks of cellulite, do lunges, or squats. Adding one to five pound weights to your ankles, holding light weights at your side, or working out on a weight machine is suggested, though you can start the program by doing the exercises without added weights. The people in the study, however, all had much better results when they used hand or ankle weights or exercised on weight machines, as opposed to doing the exercises without the added weights.
3. Stretch out the muscle for 20 seconds after each set of 10 repetitions of the exercise. This is a very important part of the exercise program. Stretching out the muscle after the exercises helps to increase the length and flexibility of the muscle, and this will help to increase your strength. The more strength that you have, the easier the exercises become, and the more muscle you build. The more muscle you build, the less cellulite you will have.
workout:
Go from one exercise to the next as quickly as you can, once you have completed all 5 exercises repeat. Do as many circuits as you can in 15 minutes. (when performing exercises keep perfect technique).
Warm Up: 2minutes on CV of choice. Then move onto exercise 1
Exercise 1: STEPPER or Bike is best: 3km level 8
Exercise 2: Squats 15 reps
Exercises 3: Lunges 15 reps
Exercise 4: Butt lifts 15 reps
Exercise 5: Step-ups with weights 15 reps each leg
And that’s it. It’s not a miracle cure for cellulite, but it is a cure nonetheless. It requires a little work and dedication, but the results will be worth it. The women who participated in the studies all expressed satisfaction with the amount of cellulite that they lost during the two months of the program. Fitness experts believe that you will also be pleased with the smoother thighs, hips and buttocks that you will have if you follow this program. And if you continue this program three times a week, your cellulite may not ever come back.
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