Exercises For Women To Tone and Define a Beautiful Physique

There are things to consider when wanting to tone and create a beautiful body, like choosing an exercise that’s appropriate for your experience level or how to look proportional.

We all come in different shapes and sizes, so choosing the best workout for your goal is essential. Along with a well planned diet, once you have found the plan that suits you, you will be sculpting a stunning shape in no time!

Some exercises complex so there’s a good chance that you haven’t considered all of them. Exercises that include lifts with active insufficiency or passive tension is something that is easily learnt and beneficial. The thought of using weights can have you worried, but don’t be, as weights give you a slender definition.

Body weight exercises are equally beneficial as using weights, it all depends on your set body goal. Below are some of the best muscle building exercises for women!

Hip Thrusts:

How to:

Hip thrusts are an excellent lift for building up your glutes.
It is also an extremely complex lift. You need to brace your core, keep your ribs down towards your pelvis and keep your back from excessively arching.
A solid hip extension is initiated by the glutes and hamstrings.
If you don’t do it right, you will be working out your back instead of your glutes.
If you do a simple lift like the glute bridge, then having your back against the floor will allow you to keep in a neutral position more easily, allowing your glutes to do the heavy lifting.
A simpler lift can be better for building muscle if it allows you to hit the muscles you are trying to grow

Goblet Squat:

How to:

You don’t need a lot of equipment to build muscle. It is better to pick an exercise that is just enough to stimulate your muscles to grow.
Some of these simpler exercises teach you how to move better.
The goblet squat, means you can’t hold as much weight as you could load up onto your back with a traditional barbell back squat, but it has many advantages over the back squat.
The goblet squat can be performed at home or the gym as all you need is a kettlebell or dumbbell.
Because the weight is in front of your body, it automatically helps to engage your core, this keeps you safe when doing any heavy squat movement.
The weight acts as a counterbalance, allowing you to properly squat deep. This increases the range of motion that you’re building strength in.
It’s a much safer lift for beginners than the back squat because it helps with engaging form for the squat movement and the weight is only as heavy as you can hold.
This also saves time in the gym because it works out your upper body at the same time as your lower body.

Compound Versus Isolation Lifts:

To build muscle you want to optimise the:

Mechanical tension
Metabolic stress

You can do this best by using heavier weights through the main movements.

Those movements would include:

The dumbbell deadlift (hip hinge)
Goblet squat (squat)
Dumbbell row (pull)
Dumbbell bench press (push)
Any anti rotational exercise
Farmer carry (loaded carry)

A good workout will have a mix of both compound and isolation lifts for your entire body. Both helps to build more evenly developed muscle mass and more strength.

Adding in isolation exercises too your compound exercises can help you reach your goals faster. Begin your workout with heavy compound lifts and then finish with lighter accessory or isolation lifts.

You may find that doing 8–10 reps of the goblet squat for a few sets will help grow your glutes well.

Finish with additional lighter isolation work, such as a higher rep glute bridge or some clam shells with resistance:

A band
A light weight held in place on your leg
Pushing against your hand

This will increase even more glute growth.

Vary Your Exercise Stance:

Altering your grip will hit different fibres of your muscle and muscle groups. There are 3 types:

Pronated/overhand
Neutral
Supinated/underhand

Work out your back with a row, you can hit different parts by changing your grip but only after you’ve done one grip for a few weeks.

Switch up your hand position. When it comes to a push up, bringing your hands closer together into a diamond position will put more stress on your triceps. If you go wider, your pecs will target more stress, resulting in muscle build.

Change your stance with your feet. When it comes to the deadlift, a hip hinge movement, you can grab the weight between your legs and stand wider like the dumbbell sumo deadlift exercise.

This will keep you upright and can be a simpler exercise to start with. Being more upright will work your quads more too.

As you get stronger and want to progress, stand narrower and grab the weights on the outsides of your legs. This will make your upper body more horizontal as you pick up the weight.

This would work your lower back and your hamstrings more. If the barbell or dumbbell is too low for you or you have limited mobility, you could do raised deadlifts and move the weight off the floor to keep the progression in smaller steps.

Same hip hinge movement, but different muscle groups and muscle fibres being worked.