The Physique 57 Solution (4 page)

Often we spend so much time focusing on how our front looks that we forget about the other side altogether. But strong and supple back muscles are an essential part of our trademark physique, and we spend time on these muscles, even if most workouts don’t. This series complements the upper back work already done in our Warm-Up by focusing on the middle and lower back. We start off with Back Dancing, a sexy way of strengthening the lower back that also hits the glutes one more time, and follow that with Back Extensors—a quick sequence of moves that engage your lower back, middle back, and core, and help create flexibility in the spine. This series leads to better posture, making you look taller and more graceful.

Ahhhh… at last! In these last few minutes of the workout, we move through a series of stretches to relax and elongate your tired muscles, and bring your heart rate back to normal. Since you’ve already been stretching throughout, there’s no need for anything more elaborate. A few last moves and you’re ready to go, stronger, healthier, and energized from knowing that you were brave enough to challenge yourself—and you won!

At Physique 57, we believe that your own body is and always should be your very best workout tool. After all, exercise should prepare you to move with strength and assuredness through daily life, and we don’t go about our days with weights strapped to our wrists or a Nautilus machine draped over our shoulders. Therefore, the majority of our workout moves require nothing more than your own muscles and determination. If you do the moves correctly while maintaining the proper form, and push yourself to increase your precision and stamina, you’re going to see big changes as a result.

That said, there are several props we employ during our workouts to help you get the most out of the moves and ensure that you achieve Interval Overload. Several of these props, such as a chair and cushion, are used to help you find and maintain
the proper position throughout the movements. This is especially important when you’re first starting the workout and your muscles are not yet strong enough to hold you in place without support. Others, such as free weights and playground balls, are used to create additional resistance and help you recruit more muscle than you could if you were doing the same movements on your own. Here’s the skinny on the props that you will be using and how they facilitate and enhance your workouts:

A chair or sturdy piece of furniture
. When we teach classes at our studios, we use a ballet barre for support—this, of course, being the traditional tool used by dancers to help them build strength and balance. For your at-home routine, we suggest that you hold on to the back of a chair or a sturdy, waist-high piece of furniture. Used during the Thigh and Seat series, the chair serves the exact same purpose as the barre, and will help you find and maintain the proper position for each movement. It will also give you some additional support in the beginning while you’re learning the moves and strengthening the muscles that will help you maintain each move’s isometric hold.

A two- to three-inch-thick cushion
. In the Curl section of our Ab series, the cushion serves the exact same purpose as the chair, helping you maintain the proper form and position—and in particular keep a neutral spine, which is essential for effective, injury-free ab work.
Neutral spine
refers to the natural curve of your lower back. By placing a cushion on the floor directly behind you, you prevent excessive arching in this area and force the lower abdominals to engage and hold the spine in place. Plus, it provides some extra padding for your middle back, or thoracic spine, as you curl up and down off the floor. If you don’t have access to a cushion of this size, you can use a folded towel (or towels) instead.

A playground ball
. We use the playground ball throughout our workouts to increase the intensity of certain moves in a playful way, and also to help isolate and target critical yet hard-to-work muscles such as the adductors, or inner thighs. Your adductors don’t get a lot of everyday use, so placing and squeezing the ball between your thighs concentrates the movement on those
muscles in a way that is difficult to do with only your body’s own weight as resistance. We also use the ball as a source of support and stability for some of our floor work.

Free weights
. While your body is the sole machinery for most of our workout moves, we do use free weights during our Warm-Up to further challenge the arm, upper back, and shoulder muscles. Although we also target these muscles through Push-Ups, Triceps Dips, and other moves that use the body’s own weight as resistance, our standing upper body moves require additional resistance to bring the muscles to the point of overload. Our Warm-Up uses two different sets of handheld weights: a lighter set of three to five pounds, and a heavier set of five to eight pounds, depending on your fitness level. As a rule, we like using heavier weights because they produce bigger changes with fewer reps; we can sculpt the arm muscles quickly and efficiently, and then move on.

The premise of our two-week plan is simple: Do our workouts five times a week and follow our suggested meal plans and you will achieve the body you’ve always wanted. The two 57-minute workouts presented in part 3 are designed to work together and target your muscles in different ways, so you should alternate between them for a total of at least five workouts a week. If you’re already in pretty good shape and want to do more, go for it! Just be sure that you always switch off between the workouts to get the maximum benefit and variety of moves. But no matter how fit you are, we recommend at least one “free” day per week to give your muscles a chance to recover and recharge.

Although it may be tempting to dive right in, we strongly encourage you to take some time before starting the program to familiarize yourself with the steps for each of the moves in part 2. Your workouts will be far more effective if you don’t have to pause to flip back through the book for more detailed instructions; ideally you want to be comfortable enough with each move that you can see the name, a photo, and the number of reps, and be ready to go. In part 2, we’ll provide more
specific guidance on practicing the moves and preparing for your workouts, but in the meantime keep in mind that practice reps DO count—you’re still moving your body, working your muscles, and training them to help you get the most out of your efforts.

We also recommend spacing out your free days each week rather than taking them back-to-back. When you’re first starting the program, try to resist the urge to take a day off right at the very beginning, even if you’re sore (and you probably will be!). Soreness is a GOOD thing. It means your muscles are starting to change, and contrary to what some people believe, working out with sore muscles isn’t harmful—in fact, keeping those muscles loose and limber will help the soreness disappear more quickly. So at the outset, try to do the workouts at least three days in a row before taking a break—you want to build momentum and keep it going!

When it comes to the meal plan, advance preparation is your ally here as well. Part 4 explains our philosophy of healthy eating and provides quick-and-easy steps for a Kitchen Makeover, two weeks’ worth of shopping lists, and Girl-on-the-Go suggestions for eating out that you can use to fit your lifestyle—all of which you should use to prepare yourself and your pantry for the weeks ahead. We then provide meal plans and recipes for each of the fourteen days, including breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks. We recommend that you start the plan on a Monday, which gives you the weekend to shop and prepare some dishes in advance, particularly the various dressings and sauces that can be used in a number of ways. Taking the time to eliminate some of the prep work will make it far easier to stick with the meal plan once Monday arrives and your busy life resumes. As you continue on the program, you can use your free days off from working out to pick up additional groceries and plan for upcoming meals.

We’d also like to suggest that for these two weeks, you put your late-night social life on hold and prioritize getting a good night’s sleep. We know that it’s hard to resist a cocktail or two, but your body is going to be working harder than it has in a while, and getting enough rest will ensure that you can attack your workouts with optimum energy and vigor. The healthier you are over the course of the program—and this includes sleeping well in addition to following our guidelines for healthy
eating—the more support you will be giving your body and the more dramatic the end results will be.