Summer is coming and everyone is beginning to intensify their workouts. Even those who spend the year doing nothing, find time to “try” to get into shape, or at least improve their form. Not to mention the benefits to health and well being, which are the most important results of physical activity, in summer, everyone wants to be trim, fit and taut.
This article provides just a few tips, which if followed, will help you define your muscles and lower your percent of body fat, to provide better tone.

Training:
Aerobic exercise should be emphasized in this phase, because to achieve better muscle definition, you need to burn body fat. To do that you have to increase the number of calories burned in training and or decrease your caloric intake. Well oriented aerobic training brings impressive results quickly.
Another way is to conduct sequences of exercises, the famous super series - 
drop sets, intervals and circuits of 3 or more exercises. The idea is to increase the intensity of the exercises conducted in sequence, increasing your heart rate during training and consequently your caloric intake. The result is great muscle tone.

Another important tip is to decrease the intervals between series, instead of 1 minute (a normal interval among practitioners) decrease this to 45 seconds in the series, then 30 seconds. There are various methods, your trainer will know what is ideal for your conditioning and needs.

Emphasize exercises that involve large muscle groups, which work with various muscles at the same time. After all, what is more tiring and burns more calories, squats or calf lifts? Knowing how to choose the exercises is one of the most important things.

Nutrition:

The old adage still holds true, you are what you eat! There’s no use in working out intensely if your goal is definition or weight loss and you don’t care for your diet. If you want to improve your shape, you have to care for what you eat.

Try to eat about 5 -6 times a day - breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner and an evening snack. The intervals between meals should not be greater than 3 hours to be able to see results. Eating in lower volume and greater frequency accelerates the metabolism, makes better use of nutrients and eliminates excess fat. No time to eat? Keep small snacks, fruits and raisins close by and eat them without losing time. Another important tip is to try to care for your nutrition on weekends as well. If you are being careful all week, it’s worth being careful on the weekend as well. Of course it’s hard, but there’s only 6 weeks until summer. We’re talking about changing your body in months, not in a year. A total effort is needed.

Considerably decrease your salt intake, because salt increases the retention of liquids in extracellular compartments and makes muscle definition more difficult.
Use high value biological proteins in normal quantities, avoiding those that are accompanied by a lot of fat such as beef. Consume fish, white meat and protein supplements.
Eat a moderate quantity of fruits and vegetables to maintain a supply of fiber, vitamins and minerals.

Remember, year round care for nutrition and physical activity is still the best way to achieve a beautiful body without that “accordion” effect. Respect your limits and obey the instructions of your trainer who knows your physical condition and your limits. Good training!