Effective Workouts for Women - SATURDAY: Long Walking and Calf exercises

Walk your way to good health:

Some of the many benefits of a regular walking workout include:

• Cardiovascular health: Fitness walking strengthens your heart, improves your circulation, and lowers your blood pressure. Studies have found that postmenopausal women who walked briskly 2.5 hours every week reduced their chance of heart disease by 30 percent.

• Bone health: As a weight-bearing exercise, walking can stop some of the bone loss of osteoporosis and may slow down arthritis.

• Weight loss. A regular walking workout burns calories. If you walk 4 miles four times a week, you can walk off about a half-pound of fat realistically every month. Weight loss combined with a healthy diet can also decrease your risk of type 2 diabetes.

• Mental health: Studies show that fitness walking reduces stress and improves your overall sense of emotional well-being. A regular walking workout can help you enjoy deeper, more restful sleep, which may decrease your risk for anxiety and depression.

How to Start Your Walking Workout?

The speed and distance of your walking workout are not as important as the time you spend walking at a brisk pace. If you have any health issues talk to your doctor first and find out what is a safe pace for you. Start gradually and walk only as far and as long as is comfortable for you.

Follow these fitness walking guidelines:

• Work up to at least 30 minutes of brisk walking a day.
• Warm up by walking at your normal pace for about 5 minutes and then pick up the pace for about 15 minutes.
• While you walk, swing your arms and maintain good posture.
• Take long strides, but don't strain yourself.
• Slow down at the end of your walk and do some gentle stretching.

Every week you should try to add about 5 more minutes to the brisk part of your walking workout until you can get it to over 30 minutes.

Calf Exercises:

Where are the Calfs?

The calf muscles run from the heel up to the back of the knee on the back of the lower leg. They are involved with every running or walking motion and play a big part in speed and power that one can get when using the legs. For example, a lot of a sprinters speed comes from the final explosive push that the calf muscles provide.

Do 8 to 12 repetitions of each exercise. Move slowly and with control. If you are new to exercise, just start with one set. As you become stronger, you can work up to three sets of 8 to 12 repetitions each set. For best results, do these exercises three times per week, with a day of rest in between. Doing resistance exercises two days in a row on the same muscle group will lead to muscle fatigue and injury.

1. Basic standing calf lift:

Stand up straight with the feet together. Lightly hold onto a counter or chair for support. It is best to hold onto something so you can really focus on working the muscle through a full range of motion. When you do not hold on, there is a tendency to lose your balance and do smaller movements. Slowly raise up onto your toes as high as you can. Then slowly lower down. Come down with control and avoid crashing down on the heels. A common mistake made with this exercise is to rock back on the heels after coming down. This makes you lock your knees which can cause injury, and it does not add to the exercise Come down slowly and allow the knees to remain slightly bent. You can also do this seated if standing is difficult. Do 12 repetitions.

2. Advanced standing calf lift:

Stand up straight on a stairway and lightly hold onto the railing. If you do not have a stairway, you can stand on a piece of wood or a large book and hold onto a counter for support. Stand so that your heels hang off the end of the step. Bend your knees slightly. Slowly drop the heels down as far as you can keeping your knees bent and the back straight. Do not push your hips back. You need to be very careful in this exercise to not lock or hyper-extend the knees. Slowly come back up as high as you can. Do 12 repetitions.

3. The Calf Raise:

Getting Into Position. Sit tall and erect on the edge of a chair, your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Place both your hands, palms facing down, on tops of your thighs. Raise your heels up on tiptoes, as high as you possibly can. Oppose this upward movement by pushing down the tops of your thighs with your hands. Hold for a while at top of the movement. Slowly lower to the starting position while still keep pushing down tops of thighs with your hands. Do 12 repetitions.

4. Add variety to your workout:

Try working your calf muscle from various angles. If you are doing three sets, do the first set with the toes pointing straight forward. Do the second set with the feet turned out slightly. On the third set, turn the toes in. This will give your calves a nice sculpted look.
For more of a challenge, try doing any of these calf raises with just one leg. Hold one leg up and do all repetitions on just one foot. Then switch sides. You can also add ankle weights to the top two exercises for more resistance. Always start slowly and gradually progress to more repetitions and resistance. Use a 2-second count to lift the weight and a 4-second count to lower the weight.
These exercises should not cause knee or hip pain. If you do have pain, check with a physical therapist or trainer to make sure your form is correct. Do not rock your body or lock the knees with any of these exercises. Just lift and lower the heels.
You will want to perform these exercises three to four times a week, working your way up to 3 sets of 15 to 20 reps.

5. Squats:

The regular squat works the calf muscles quite well, especially if you are doing it with some extra weight.
One of the other motions the calf muscle is involved with is keep the body balanced. When you are squatting with extra weight on your shoulders you will find that your calf muscles are quite sore the next day. You can intensify this with the jumping squat as you need the calfs to spring you into the air.

6. Skipping / Rope jumping:

It seems that whenever I get my clients to do a lot of skipping for weight loss they also build some pretty good calf muscles.
If you skip for more than about 20 minutes chances are your calf muscles will get pretty sore. The exercise forces you to stay on your toes and whenever you use your toes you use your calfs.
This is especially true for those who are good/fit enough to do double jumps for an extended amount of time. They really burn the lower legs!

7. Sprinting:

Sticking with the theme of using the toes; sprinting is one of the best ways to push your lower legs in an explosive way.
I sprinted semi-seriously for a few years and during that time I had better looking and more toned legs then I ever have had before or since. The art of sprinting is so intense it really forces your body to adapt. If you want to lose weight fast or tone any part of your body then you should get into sprinting.