Women tend to gain fat much easier than men. A large suspect for this is hormonal: estrogen has a greater tendency to cause fat gain. Testosterone, on the other hand is a hormone which helps minimize fat gain. But even then, for many years women were able to enunciate a lean physique.
So what happened, all of a sudden, in the past few decades? Well, women started working. They started pursuing careers and no longer had time for themselves anymore. Lack of time meant lack of exercise. Busy workplaces meant more fast food as opposed to home cooked meals.
On top of that, many women still tend to household duties such as chores and raising children. It's just too much at one time. Most women are more stressed and frustrated then men. They're eating more than ever to ease this stress instead of exercising.
Don't even get me started on cortisol, the stress hormone, which makes your body store fat as a "defense mechanism."All this leads up to one thing: fat gain.
Tightening your Core with Bodyweight Movements
Your core region includes your abdominals, hips, and lower back. These areas of the body are extremely important for all individuals, but are even more important for women. Unfortunately, most practice programs do not effectively target these body parts.
The key to effective core training is not to separate your core, but instead to engage your core. For example, when you are performing pushups, you are using your core for what it is supposed to be used for: stabilizing the rest of your body. However, when you're doing situps or crunches, all you are doing is working your abs, but not absorbing your core to stabilize the rest of your body.
Hence, when you choose your bodyweight movements, you want to focus on full body movements as opposed to isolation movements. Exercises such as planks, side planks,pushups, squat jumps, and quad squats do more to burn fat and advance your core than any isolation practice will.
