What are other ways to tone your thighs?

Question

Specifically for my legs, I do leg curls and leg presses, inner thigh adductions, elliptical/bike/treadmill/track, squats AND lunges. I also do jump rope but that's more like an overall cardio thing.

Idk what else to do for them. They're still big. >_> And not all muscle either...

What are other ways to tone your thighs?

Yeahhbro · Accepted Answer

haaaaaaaa I see why you are not doing well. 10 min of cardio is almost nothig I am dead serious. For the first 10 min what you are sweating is just water...You see the way cardio uses energy is likes this: First the body will use carbs as it is its short term source of energy, when the body has exhausted its short term supplies, it will then use its long term sources which is fat. So for the first 10 min what you are sweating is just water and carbs, not fat. You start to sweat fat after 10 min or so.

Also it depends how much effort you are putting into it, because if you haven't break a sweat, then you are not doing anything, as simple as that. Just moving the stationary bike, won't make you loose weight or tonify your legs. The 10 min f** burning time fram that I mentioned, was if you going for a jog, with a relative good pace. If you are doing 10 min with a slow pace, the time frame increases to around 23 mins.

So you see in order for you to burn fat properly you need to go jogging 4 times a week (don't do it everyday, or else you will overtrain and you might hurt yourself and will you hit a pleatu) and jog for 30 mins, but put a lot of effort into it, try to jog fast. Also choose a path to go jogging and memorize it, every week try to beat the furthest point in that 30 min frame, so you will progress.

How do I know this? Well I am pationate about fitness and soccer, so I do read about this a lot. Most importantly, its because I used to wait 176lbs and I needed to lost 25 pounds to play soccer. I did that and guess what? I weight 148 now.

WeaponZero · Accepted Answer

Being toned comes from a combination of low body fat and a high amount of lean muscle. The muscle building comes from resistance training. That, you can target. The fat burning comes from cardio, and you cannot spot fat-burn. Everyone has trouble spots where fat disappears from last. In your case it's your thighs. It's very possible you won't lose that last bit of fat on your thighs until you've lost so much fat from your body that you end up looking like one of those competition fitness competitors. It's something about your body that you may just have to accept.

Also, when you lose the fat it's possible you may still have "big" (and they're really probably not all that big =P) thighs that are solid muscle. The only way to shrink them down in this case would be to completely abandon any form of lower body resistance training and do high intensity cardio routines every day. You will lose muscle mass.

Eiffelgirl21 · Accepted Answer

Well, I since I have been in Costa Rica, I have been hiking up mountains a LOT. And,

my legs are beautiful now..thighs and all. And, it hasn't been that long. So, I think exercise with something like a hill/leverage(similar to mountains LMAO) should work..I mean, it would be working all of your legs..Well, it worked for me anyhow. Haha..

And, Tia, I am sure your crazy! I am sure they aren't big! ha ha

love youuuuuuuuu <3

candlewax · Accepted Answer

Remember, cardio burns fat. There is NO such thing as spot training, which is what you're asking. You need to burn fat and when you do, your body decides what fat goes first. Resistance training only does so much. You have to get rid of the layer of fat that's covering those muscles. So get your cardio up.

Try to get in 30-40 min of cardio every day.

MyNameIsJonas · Answer

Are you doing this all in one day? Maybe your leg's are bulky because you are working them heavy weight low rep's? You can have BULKY muscle. Muscle is not always lean, it can look like bulk, tone or anywhere inbetween. I'm going to give you something you can do in the gym that should slim down your thigh's.

Do this twice a week.

Squats- ass to the ground using the smith machine in your gym. Use a weight that is rather light id say 2- 35 lbs disc on each side. 3x20 -

Then lunges in place with a 20 lbs dumbbell in each hand. do 12 lunges per leg each set- 3x12- keep a good pace.

Lastly you need a cardio type excersise to tone down. elliptical for 3 min or run stair's. If you run stair's skip every other step. Better range of motion.

Whistling_Dixie · Answer

You know that spot reduction is a myth, right? If you do leg workouts you will tone your leg muscles but, if you retain fat under your skin, the tone muscles will be covered in fat. Depending on your genetics, your body will have a preference on where to store fat. Take me for example. I do sit up and such to strengthen my core because I need a strong core to ride bicycles. That's my hobby. Genetically, my body prefer to store fat around my belly. So, my abdomen will be the last place to loose fat and the first place to gain fat. If I want a six pack, I will have to be extremely lean.

theydidntnameme · Answer

well think of it like this, upper legs are huge. the quadricep is like one largest group of muscles in the body. you can either increase the muscle in your thighs (so they show more) or lose fat in your thighs (so they show more), but you can't target specifically your thighs to lose fat. you can specifically target them to gain muscle, so your best bet would to get more muscle on your thighs.

in order to get lean muscle on your thighs (which is what you want) you need to do exercises that stress your quads, using light weightand high repetitions. if you do heavy weight and low repititions you'll gain bulk (which makes em look like hulk legs).

how many sets / reps of leg presses do you do? and squats? and lunges? most of the other exercises you do aren't very hard on the quads. jump rope especially, I know that from experience.. its mostly your cavle muscles that are engaged. and how many days a week do you do these?

WoIIie · Answer

You look Korean so you likely just have big tender thighs. ;)

If your diet is in order and you are consistently working out the legs, then you've done all you can do. Be happy with them. Those fitness models with the define muscles in their legs have been dieting to perfection for at least a couple weeks so their muscles could show that definition for the photoshoot. It's not realistically sustainable for the typical person. (There are plenty of fitness gurus who do manage, they are not typical)

Another way to thin out your legs (not really tone) is to lose muscle mass. That's a horrible idea and hopefully you never entertain it.

martyfellow · Answer

You're a girl, darlin. Your thighs are always going to have some fat, so don't stress out about it. You're doing everything you can already!

Howver, that said, less weight work (builds bulky muscles in those pretty thghs) and taking up long distance running will somewhat reduce the fat in your thighs, guaranteed., as well as make them shapely, because you'll build long ropy muscles and not tight bunched ones from weight work.

You're already in the 99th percentile of a nice body, though, so don't look for that much improvement.

Sometimes I think you three are trying to start a riot.

cavmanier · Answer

Its been said many times in this thread, you can't target fat loss. You can lose overall body fat and your body decides where the fat comes from. For women, they tend to either store more fat in their thighs/butt or in their stomach but it must be stored somewhere. Fatter thighs are much more attractive than a fat stomach so be happy that's where you store your fat. If you want to lose more body fat through diet or exercise that's cool too.

madmisskelly · Answer

It sounds like you are doing all the right things.

See, I naturally have big thighs- no matter how much weight I lose, they stay thick. So, I don't lift any additional weights with them anymore because I don't want them to get bigger.

Instead, I focus on running.

You may want to try focusing on running and yoga/stretching for your thighs.

ncsquirll99 · Answer

Well what worked for me (I had the most amazing legs... they were man legs though) was cycling. It really depends on what legs you want. I recommend getting into biking a lot and if you can unicycling (because of the gearing and the awesome ab and back workout it can give you) PLUS you get to learn a cool new "sport"

PeterCobra · Answer

you lose bodyfat at the same percentage all over your body. so maybe stop just targeting your legs and try more of a diet along with full body cardio. you can however build fat in specific areas as in hips for women and belly for men...but you loose it more evenly. I hope that makes sense.

but the way you describe it...it sounds pretty hot to me. that's the way I like a girls legs. but to each their own. good luck.

dalila · Answer

To tone them is what you are already doing maybe you need more weight and do it more often, I don't know if you drink Whey Protein after work out, it really helps to turn fat into muscle, it does take a while tough... But if you want very slim thighs I would say run everyday as much as you can...if you can work out with a trainer it makes a huge difference than doing on your own, it sure helped me a lot :)

FierceMegan · Answer

You need muscle. Maybe you need to eat more protein because it sounds like you are working very hard. You can take protein shakes, or eat more foods with high protein count.

Whistling_Dixie · Answer

Wow Tia, I must say, looking at the responses you got, I think everyone loves you. I don't know how you did it but it works.

chris009xx · Answer

um a stair-master  or those shape up things I never read up on them but the might work  how long have you been working out like that for?

Anonymous · Answer

Burpees are good too. (and table / jump burpees)

Cardio will burn the fat, but remember that working out a specific muscle group will not make it particularly stand out. This is the same for guys who are trying to show off six pack abs: you can't get a six pack just by working your ab/ core. You have to burn the fat.

currannaaach · Answer

They've regressed to what they were before?

In your last progress post (in that article you wrote), your legs were amazing! Try doing complexes for cardio in addition to the steady state stuff (jumprope, running) that you do. Or you could try really lengthening the running or jump rope you do. Sometimes throwing in a very different sort of work will bring about the desired results.

MRFAMAS · Answer

my advice ride a bike with high gears on(lots of pressure) and switch to a normal pace and keep doing that back and forth. you should feel sore for the first few times but it helps tone your legs from my experience.

ryanrhino · Answer

Look up books by Alwyn Cosgrove.

There are at least 2 books that he has co-authored, which explain the basics of the entire body workout and how to focus workouts on particular areas.

Well worth the investment! (but maybe find a used one - heh)

AmberChick · Answer

those are actually all pretty good... You can do yoga poses that helps me :) like 'chair' is one:

Yeahhbro · Answer

Do cardio 4 times a week and I am not talking about 10 minutes on the eleptical machine, I am talking about 30 minutes jogging outside or on a treadmill with a high elevation.

MWalsh89 · Answer

My friend told me about this site,      . See if there's anything on there that works for you.

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