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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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