Summer is right around the corner! The perfect time to improve your figure and get rid of unwanted fat. The EGYM Body Toning training program is the perfect training option to get your body beach-ready! In order to successfully reduce body fat and get yourself into shape, you need more than just the right diet, you need the right training program. Body Toning has two main goals:

1. Reduce body fat: to get into shape, the first thing you need to do is reduce body fat. Training has to burn as many calories as possible to melt that fat away. So we need a training program with lots of movement that keeps your heart rate high. By increasing muscle mass and improving endurance you will also raise your individual metabolism (basal metabolic rate). This long-term increase in (fat) metabolism leads to permanent fat reduction.
2. Firm up and define muscles: in order to improve your body shape, we have to firm up and define your muscles with the help of strength endurance training. The key elements of this are working with less weight and more repetitions. This hardens the muscles without any significant increase in size. Women have no need to worry about ‘huge’ arms or thighs!

The biggest challenge is combining muscle building and fat reduction in a single training program. While fat reduction is a catabolic (breakdown) process, muscle building is an anabolic (body building) process. Classic training programs usually try to achieve these two goals using separate strength and endurance training sessions.

But we at EGYM take a modern training approach that combines endurance and strength training in a single method: circuit training.

This approach allows for simultaneous strength and endurance training, which is why this type of training is particularly suited to the unique requirements of the Body Toning program (Alcaraz et al. 2011; Camargo et al. 2007; Kaikkonen et al. 2000; Gettman et al. 1982).

We use periodisation, that is a variety of training phases, to kill two birds with one stone in our circuit training approach: depending on the training phase, we stimulate both strength endurance and muscle building to get your body into optimal shape. In total, the EGYM Body Toning training program consists of the following four phases:
 

The Four Phases of the Body Toning Training Program

Phase 1: Body Toning (negative)

Getting set up

In the first step, we use the negative training method, that is a high number of repetitions at low intensity. Just like the regular training method, this improves both endurance and the supply of energy to your muscles. At the same time, increasing the weight during the eccentric phase improves robustness in the relevant muscles and prepares your musculature for the subsequent phases of the program.

Phase 2: Fat Burn (isokinetic)

Burn more energy

Isokinetic training increases your heart rate even more than in the first phase, as the muscles under strain are utilised to optimal capacity with each repetition and at every position of the joints. Average load intensity shapes the muscles and increases the number of calories you burn.

Phase 3: Muscle Building (adaptive)

Build muscles

In the third phase, we focus on muscle growth, with adaptive training. The progress made in the previous phases has created the optimal conditions for increasing the intensity of your training sessions. The short but highly intensive units utilise the muscles fully, bringing them to peak performance and maximizing strength.

Phase 4: Fat Burn (isokinetic)

Body shaping – give it your all.

In the final phase, we return to isokinetic training. Because your muscle mass has increased, you are using more energy, and the increased strength gained during the adaptive phase allows us to work with heavier weights. We therefore once again burn significantly more calories, our muscles become more defined and our body is in top form.

The EGYM Body Toning training program is ideal for people who wish to burn unwanted fat while also toning their muscles and getting into shape. But: this program does more than improve your looks, it also improves your performance! So whatever happens, you will look and feel good right through summer!