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  Welcome
to an exciting dimension to fitness training programs and an effective
and inexpensive way to bring a personal trainer into the privacy of
your own home.
Jane Fonda’s Workout with Weights (Also titled Toning and Shaping)
is designed to sculpt your body, improve strength, flexibility and
balance. This workout is the class to take your body to the ultimate
next level.
More than two years of research and consultation with leading sports
scientists have gone into the development of the Jane Fonda's Workout
with Weights. In order to ensure safety as well as effectiveness,
a 16 week pilot study was done using 125 participants who were monitored
by the Center for Sports & Dance Medicine at St. Francis Hospital
in San Francisco.
When combined with a program of regular aerobic exercise and a proper
diet, the Workout with Weights will enable you to streamline your
appearance, develop muscle tone and definition, and reduce the risk
of certain types of injury. The increased strength and muscle control
you achieve can help you feel a greater sense of confidence and independence.
The Workout with Weights is divided into two classes: CLASS I primarily
works muscles which cause movement at only one joint; CLASS 11 is
more intense because it involves more multiple joint movements. For
the first 6 weeks, you will only do CLASS I. This allows you to strengthen
the individual muscles and to develop the proper techniques which
will enable you to safely begin alternating CLASSES I & II.
Please watch each class from start to finish before you begin. Then
practice doing the exercises with no weights to ensure proper form.
You should be able to comfortably move through the entire suggested
range of motion. If you cannot complete the range of motion, or if
doing the movement causes pain in the joint(s) involved, check with
your physician before attempting that particular exercise. |
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 Optimum
Physical Fitness
Optimum physical fitness is actually a combination of strength, cardiovascular
and flexibility fitness. There form the fitness triangle.
Therefore, in order to be optimally fit, you need to complement the
improvement in strength fitness, which will result from consistently
using the Workout with Weights, with both cardiovascular and flexibility
exercises.
Strength Fitness
Since all of your movements result from muscle contractions, maintaining
adequate muscle strength enables you to accomplish your many daily
tasks with greater ease. Weak muscles can actually set the stage for
many types of injury For instance, weak abdominal muscles may lead
to significant low back problems. Weak leg muscles can increase your
risk for ankle sprains, as well as knee and hip problems. In addition
to reducing your risk of injury, strength training improves athletic
performance, and may enhance your appearance. Properly performed,
strength exercises develop sculptured contours in your shoulders,
chest, back, arms, hips, and legs, especially when combined with aerobic
exercise and a good diet.
There are some notable differences between women and men with regard
to both muscle definition and the expected response to strength training.
An ideal percent body fat for a woman is approximately 18-24% of her
total weight, for a man, about 12-15%. Because of this higher percentage
of stored fat, most women tend to have less clearly defined muscles
than men. Further, the growth in size of a muscle (hypertrophy) is
highly related to the amount of the hormone testosterone present in
the system. Most men have a much higher level of testosterone than
women. Thus, most women will not develop the massive physique of the
male body builder, even with a very intense training program. However,
some women do have a naturally higher level of testosterone and will
develop significant hypertrophy in response to an intensive training
program. Artificially changing your natural level of testosterone
is risky business. We heartily discourage it.
In fact, muscle definition-the lean look of muscles out-lined against
the skin - is dependent not only on well-developed muscles, but also
on not having excess fat stored between the skin and muscle tissue.
The tendency to store fat will be predominately influenced by your
dietary regime, aerobic exercise habits and gender.
"Strength" implies both endurance strength-the ability to
continue repeated muscle contractions without tiring, and power strength
the ability to generate a great deal of force in a short period of
time. Endurance strength is a critical component of optimum fitness.
It allows you to maintain proper posture while sitting and standing,
to lift, push and pull without quick fatigue, to have an energy reserve
that allows you to participate in recreational activities more safely,
and to keep a proper balance of strength between muscles which cause
opposing actions, such as bending your arm at the elbow (flexion),
and straightening it (extension).
All strength training programs should begin by emphasizing muscle
endurance. This is done by using lighter weights and performing a
greater number of repetitions of a given exercise, like we do in CLASS
I. Such training will not only cause changes in muscle tissue itself,
but may also strengthen connective tissues such as tendons and ligaments.
When the repetitions (reps) can be easily accomplished, it's time
to increase  resistance,
but not so much that 12 reps can't be completed. Actually low resistance,
high repetition training generally does not lead to a significant
increase in muscle size, but will lead to a big improvement in the
endurance component of strength.
For those seeking a power training program, with its prospect for
increased muscle size (again, generally more in males than females)
the endurance program can be modified after 6 weeks by increasing
the resistance and decreasing the reps for each exercise as we do
in CLASS II.
With either endurance or power programs you can expect to increase
the amount of muscle in your body. The increase is greater, however,
when you use higher resistance and lower repetitions. Because muscle
tissue is dense, a little bit of muscle weighs a lot more than an
equal amount of fat. If strength training is part of a weight control
program, you mustn't be disturbed if you see your weight increasing.
If you gain 4 pounds of muscle and lose 3 pounds of fat, your scale
will only report the 1 pound increase in weight. However, losing 3
pounds of fat can have a considerable effect on improving your shape.
So pay more attention to the way your clothes fit than to how much
you weigh. The important concern is to achieve ideal percent body
fat.
We suggest you check with the gym, exercise science department of
a local university, a sports medicine clinic, or a local hospital
to find out where you can have your percent body fat determined.
Muscle tissue also burns many more calories than fat (adipose) tissue,
even when the muscle is relaxed. For every pound of muscle you add,
you're causing a slight increase in your metabolic rate-the number
of calories you burn each day. Even though you may have added only
a few extra pounds of muscle, the additional calories expended add
up significantly when accumulated over weeks, months and years.
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 Cardiovascular
Fitness
Cardiovascular, or aerobic, training involves exercises such as walking,
cycling, jogging, swimming or aerobic exercise classes which depend
on an adequate delivery of oxygen to the exercising muscles. On the
other hand, when lifting weights, your muscles do not rely on the
delivery of oxygen through the cardiovascular system. In other words,
strength training is mostly anaerobic ("without oxygen")
exercise. As a result the adaptations which result from aerobic training
are quite different from the weight training adaptations mentioned
earlier.
In order to achieve the many documented benefits of aerobic exercise
(e.g., improved efficiency of the heart, increased ability to deliver
and use oxygen in muscle tissue, decreased per-cent body fat, improved
energy level, reduced risk for heart disease, reduced stress level),
you need to establish a consistent habit of exercising for at least
20 minutes, 3-4 days per week using rhythmic, continuous, large muscle
movements such as walking, jogging, cycling, swimming or aerobic exercise
classes. There is also scientific evidence that weight bearing exercises
like walking and jogging reduce the risk for osteoporosis, a deterioration
of bone structure common in post-menopausal women. (Osteoporosis increases
the risk of bone fracture and can lead to poor posture.) The Jane
Fonda Workout Video Fitness Library provides several excellent exercise
options for all levels of aerobic fitness.
Aerobic exercise is also the most effective way to burn body fat.
Fat is burned primarily in muscle tissue. When the need for energy
in a muscle is increased gradually, fat is released into the bloodstream
from fat cells all over the body and is delivered to the exercising
muscles to be burned along with carbohydrate. If the need for energy
is increased too rapidly, the muscle will rely on carbohydrate, rather
than burning both fat and carbohydrate.Activities which use the large
muscle groups of the legs and hips in a rhythmic and continuous fashion-walking,
jogging, etc.-are the ones which burn the greatest amount of fat.
If you do truly aerobic exercise for about an hour, approximately
50% of the energy produced comes from fat. The remainder comes mostly
from carbohydrate.
But it is possible to exercise too hard. If you are unable to comfortably
carry on a conversation while doing aerobic exercise (the "breath
test"), you are most likely working too hard. Slow down, catch
your breath, and continue with the exercise at a slower pace, You
should not be exhausted at the end of an aerobic workout.
If you can accurately measure your heart rate during aerobic exercise,
you can use a target heart rate as a complement to the breath test.
First, subtract your age from 220 to determine your predicted maximum
heart rate. Then multiply the result by 65% and 80% (.65 and .8) to
determine a training zone in beats per minute (bpm). Finally, divide
the bpm values by 6 to determine a beats per 10 seconds training zone.
For example, if you are 40 years old..>
For this example the 10-second range is 20-24 beats/10 sec. Your heart
rate should stay within this range for the duration of your aerobic
workout, but remember that this is only an estimated range.
Use your breathing rate and sense of comfort during exercise as the
key indicators, and your heart rate as a complement. Be sure to check
with your physician before beginning your cardiovascular exercise
program. |
Flexibility fitness
Flexibility fitness means that you should maintain an optimum range
of motion in the joints. Stretching exercises are the best way to
increase range of motion.
Stretch to the point of gentle tension, and hold the stretch for at
least 15 seconds without bobbing and bouncing. You should never feel
pain in the stretching tissues. If you do, release the stretch to
the point where the pain goes away Don't hold your breath during a
stretch!
The Workout with Weights provides you with an excellent stretching
program. Notice that between sets and at the end of the classes we
stretch the muscle(s) which have just been exercised.
For example, after working the upper back muscles (Middle Trapezius
and Rhomboids) with Upright Rowing, we gently stretch those same muscles.
Furthermore, strength training actually improves flexibility!Whenever
possible, stretch following a period of low intensity aerobic movement,
such as walking, because the movement increases the temperature of
the muscle and connective tissues to be stretched. Therefore, stretching
after these exercises will actually increase the effectiveness of
the stretching exercises.
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