Do you carry most of your extra weight in your hips and thighs, while maintaining a relatively slim waist and small breasts? If this describes you, it is likely that you are pear shaped. People with pear shaped bodies have a waist to hip ratio at less than 0.8. The majority of women fall into the pear-shaped category.
If you're not sure what body type you are go here to determe your body type and find your waist to hip ratio.
If you have a pear shaped body, you'll need to focus on building up the muscles in the upper body. This will balance out your proportions and make your body type less noticeable. This means doing some form of strength training, like using exercise bands, free weights, or some other muscle-building workout.
Recommended Routine:
Aim for at least 3 muscle-building upper body strength training workouts a week in addition to the cardiovascular exercise that focuses on the lower body.
With this formula, you'll balance out your pear shaped body and be ready for the beach in just 8 short weeks!
Women with pear shaped bodies also need cardiovascular exercise activities that focus on the lower body as they are prone to carry weight in their hips and thighs. This is important to burn overall fat, as well as tone the problem zone areas below the waist. While there is no activity that can effectively spot reduce the lower body, you can burn fat and tone the lower body through cardiovascular exercises that focus on those muscles.
Great cardiovascular exercises for a pear shaped body include cycling, stair-climbing, walking, running, as well as jumping rope.
Recommended Routine:
Your goal for burning fat through cardiovascular exercise is 60 minutes a day on most days of the week. Start with 30 minutes a day if you're a beginner.
You can split up the time too if needed. For example:
- 20 minutes of walking in the morning
- 20 minutes of jumping rope in the afternoon
- 20 minute after dinner walk in order to get an hour's work of cardio.
Vary the intensity and type of exercise for even better results. If you walk, be sure to incorporate some hills. This will naturally vary the intensity of your workout because hills are harder to climb. Climbing hills is also a great butt tightening exercise!