Primetime Bodies - The Hollywood Fitness Program

From the recent bestseller Primetime Bodies: The Six-Week Hollywood Fitness Program, authors Cynthia Tivers and Kathy Kaehler share the secrets behind a workout that has shaped and toned Kathy’s celebrity clients. These same exercises will work for you and help you feel really good about yourself.

Don't forget to watch for Kathy who appears regularly on the TODAY show as their fitness expert.

ABA’s “BIG IN HOLLYWOOD” has carefully selected excerpts from the book that apply to you and that you can relate to. Catch up on the latest trends with us, or dig through our archives for more on the Hollywood fitness scoop.

Getting the Parts
It takes muscle to make it in Hollywood. That muscle may be packed on Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger or it could be sculpted on Jamie Lee Curtis or Julianne Phillips. These celebrities come directly off Kathy Kaehler’s personal training roster, but we can’t forget to mention Camryn Manheim and Rosie O’Donnell as women with Hollywood muscle too.

No matter who’s wearing them, well toned bodies are shaping their parts both on-screen and off. We’re going to put your muscles through a program inspired by our celebrities that focuses on strengthening areas which reduce stress on your joints. Women who carry more weight on their bodies put more stress on their joints and that could lead to injury. But if you strengthen the muscles around the joints, you can protect yourself from injury. 

We’re going to show you how to  work out skeletal muscles from your head to your toes. But before we work them out we’d like to help you “get” your parts by giving you some muscle “back-story.”

There are about 700 muscles in the human body. Women can improve their muscle strength through weight training. Strength training involves performing a body motion while you add resistance to that motion. Muscles get stronger or weaker in response to demands placed on them. Muscles lose strength when they’re not used and gain strength according to the load placed on them. As the muscle gets stronger, it has to be challenged harder in order to keep developing.

Why should women develop their muscles? First, a basic fact: muscle burns more calories than fat. Even when we’re asleep, our skeletal muscles (the ones we’ll be training) are responsible for more than 25 percent of our calorie use.

In addition, bones grow denser from stress placed on them. So weight-bearing exercises, like many of the exercises we’ll be doing, will help stem osteoporosis.

People who don’t train their muscles through exercise lose about one-half pound of muscle every year, starting in their late 20s.That gradual loss of muscle tissue means adults who don’t train will reduce their metabolic rate* by one-half percent every year. This gradual decrease in metabolism is closely related to the gradual increase in body fat that we all face as the years go by.

So not only does body muscle make you look good now, it also allows you to eat more and gain less weight as you go through life.

Now let’s take a look at four of the major muscles we should be working to help alleviate stress on vulnerable joints like the shoulders, hips and knees, starting at the top:

Deltoids for Stronger Shoulders:
These are your shoulder muscles. They’re used mainly to raise your arm. As we go along, we’ll use them every time we work out. We’ll be working on the anterior deltoids (at the front of your shoulder), the posterior (the back of your shoulder), and the middle deltoid (at the top). The deltoids form the shoulder cap.

Abdominals for Stronger Hips:
The rectus abdominis is a long powerful muscle that runs from your chest to your pubic bone. It pulls your torso toward your hips and your hips toward your torso. We’ll work the “abs” with sit-ups, crunches, and leg raises.

Quadriceps for Stronger Knees:
The front of the thigh. It’s a group of four muscles that run down the front of the thigh to attach at the kneecap. These muscles all work to extend the leg and to flex the thigh. We’ll work the “quads” when we do lunges, plies, and leg extensions.

Hamstrings for Stronger Knees:
Three muscles in the back of the thigh, which flex the knee, rotate the leg, and extend the hips.  We’ll work the hamstrings both in a standing position and when we’re on the floor working our gluts with leg raises.

Now that you know the parts and you know the script, it’s time to take the next step toward our performance. But before we do, let’s look at our director – the person who will be calling the shots – you.

Shakespeare wrote “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” (As You Like It). Going into the 21^st century those words ring true as ever. You may read about and admire the players you see on television and in movies, but remember – you’ve got your own program to appear in every day. You can look every bit as good playing your part as they do playing theirs. 

As the director of your show, it’s up to you to decide where you want to focus your workouts. Working out puts all body parts in the spotlight.

*Metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories for energy. The basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy it takes to support the metabolic work of the body’s cells. This includes the beating of the heart, respiration, and the maintenance of the body temperature. The body must first use its energy to support these basic functions before calories can be used for any other activities including exercise.

Excerpted from Primetime Bodies by Cynthia Tivers and Kathy Kaehler (Contemporary Books).