It is certainly important to know how to do your exercises properly. I do recommend that you work with a personal trainer until you are comfortable with your routine. Once you are confident that you have the proper positioning down for each exercise you are doing, it’s quite easy for you to adjust your routine on your own. I have tips for toning that you would be wise to follow when doing any exercise. ✓ Concentrate (focus) on specific muscle(s) you are working ✓ If feeling fatigued, mix stretches in with exercises ✓ Inter-mingling exercises is also a good way to avoid fatigue example: do 1 set of bicep work on both arms, then switch to a leg exercise, then back to bicep work. ✓ If knees or elbows are popping, reposition yourself ✓ If it hurts, don’t do it ✓ Remember your breathing ✓ ENJOY! As women, we know our bodies quite well. We know when we’re retaining fluids, we know when we’re PMSing (even though we don’t like to admit it), we know when we’ve put on five pounds. Trust those same instincts to lead you in your workout routine. After a few shorts weeks of faithful exercising, you will soon begin to FEEL the improvement in your muscle tone. This will not be visable immediately but know that underneath your skin, your muscles are taking shape. Around and about the 6-12 week period, depending on the frequency of your workout, you will no longer feel changes in your body. This is your body saying, “I’m bored, I’m getting stronger, challenge me”. This is when you need to weigh your options. If you are new at this, I strongly recommend that you consult with your personal trainer as to which options suit you best in the way of increasing your exercising routine. Simply increase your repetitions. Usually, when you have reached 3 sets of 24 repetitions for any exercise, it is then time to introduce some weight into your program. If you are not already using weights, this would be the time to start. Often when we add or increase the amount of weight we are working with, we decrease our repetitions until we are comfortable with the changes. For example, if you are doing 3 sets, 16 repetitions of a bicep curl, using a 2 lb weight, when you increase the weight to 5 lbs, but do 3 sets of 8-12 repetitions. Find a different exercise that works the same muscle. For example, the bicep curl works the bicep, the cross-curl works the bicep. However, each exercise has it’s own unique way of working the surrounding muscles differently. Creating just the amount of change that your workout may need. There are benefits in knowing a couple of different exercises per muscle group. For me, I do the more intense exercises when I have the energy. The days when I’m tired because it’s the end of the week or my little one has had a few sleepless nights, I’ll do my exercises that allow me to be on the floor for the most part. Toning is toning girls. Enjoy getting fit, enjoy your stretching, enjoy getting oxygen into your body and increasing your circulation. Enjoy your increased energy level, enjoy setting YOU in a place of importance in your life. Wendy