There are certainly a lot of articles out there on the web about how to get a beach body and to that end I may well be wasting your time writing yet another one. However having looked around at a few such pieces (come May they start to come out of the woodwork), I’ve noticed that many of them are really rather vague. How can someone achieve a beach body without clearly defining what that is? How do you know when you have a beach body? And what else should you focus on other than just your abs. There are actually quite a lot of factors that make up the beach body we can all imagine in our minds, so let’s look at the features uniquely and how to obtain them.
Abs: First of all, we know that someone with a beach body is going to have abs and that’s perhaps the most important aspect of all. Someone who has great abs will be able to walk down the beach and turn almost every head they walk past and that’s what we all want to be able to achieve.
To get good abs is happily not a difficult task, and all it takes to have a great six pack is a low body fat percentage. If you have low body fat, then that means you have less fat between your skin and your abdominals and they will thus become visible. Doing sit ups will tone that muscle and harden it to improve definition, but really it’s the fat loss you should focus on. To this end your beach body workout should begin with your doing a lot of cardiovascular exercise to burn away the fat stores, while at the same time eating a lot less (and in particular fewer carbohydrates).
Legs and Bum: For women in particular, having a great beach body means having a great behind and pair of pegs. This is a requirement as you’ll be exposing them a lot more than you normally would, and because this is what people are going to be looking at once your abs are facing the other way. Again this is something you can improve with CV, but you should also aim to tone up the thighs and glutes which you can do using resistance machines that target the legs. Of particular interest should be the hip abductor and hip adductor, but you should also add butt clenches to your to-do list.
Other Muscles: There are many other muscles you’ll want to focus on, and particularly for men who should develop that upside-down-triangle shape. Do note though that the beach body is not the same as the bodybuilding physique – you should look lean and not like a rhinoceros, so focus your efforts on resistance machines and bodyweight exercises and hit every muscle group with a bodyweight session.
Tan: You see a beach body isn’t just about rippling pectorals, it’s also about looking great in other ways and one of the most important ways to accomplish this is by giving yourself that bronze and sun kissed look. The healthiest and quickest way to accomplish this is with a self-tanning moisturizer which causes your skin to produce more pigment naturally.
Hair: For women the bad news is that ta bikini wax is almost certainly a necessity. For very hairy men meanwhile, waxing your back might also be advisable. And as for the hair on your head, this can be a good time to add some blonde highlights for that surfer look.
Daniel Harford is a fitness and body building advisor. He writes expert column on how to build a perfect physique on www.skinnydippersdiet.com
