Book Excerpt - 8 Minutes in the Morning to Lean Hips and Thin Thighs

Now that you understand why lean muscle is so important to your success, you're ready to find out how to create it. You're going to take your first step forward on your journey to lean hips and thin thighs by learning about focused Cruise Moves.

These unique resistance-training exercises will help you to create the lean muscle needed to burn the fat in your lower body. Cruise Moves provide the magic 8 minute ingredient to help you thin down your thighs and create leaner hips. Cruise Moves are the most efficient, effective, and convenient way to create lean muscle. They involve no aerobics and no trips to the gym. They take just 8 minutes each morning. And they're simple and easy to learn.

Cruise Moves will help you to sculpt beautiful long and lean muscle in your thighs and elsewhere. That lean muscle tissue will rev up your metabolism, helping you to incinerate excess fat. It will also help you tone and firm your hips and thighs, along with the rest of your body. With the help of Cruise Moves, your thighs will appear longer, leaner, and sexier. You'll want to show them off everywhere you go!

Your Weekly Schedule

In chapter 5, on pages 58 to 177, you will find three Cruise Moves programs, ranging from very gentle to very challenging:

Level 1. The Cruise Moves for this level involve absolutely no equipment other than the chairs or pillows available in your home. They are very gentle and perfect for anyone starting a new exercise program for the first time, including former professional couch potatoes.

Level 2. These Cruise Moves are slightly more challenging than Level 1. They, too, involve no equipment.

Level 3. The Cruise Moves at this level the most are challenging and involve the use of ankle weights, which are available at any sporting goods store.

No matter your current fitness level, I suggest you start with Level 1. Follow Level 1 for 3 weeks before moving on to Level 2. Then do that program for 3 weeks before moving on to Level 3. Three weeks will give your body the time it needs to adapt to the Cruise Moves. Within 3 weeks, you will have built enough muscle to allow you to tackle the next level with ease.

(Note: Level 1 may feel too easy for some of you right away. If you don't feel challenged by the exercises, move up to Level 2 after just 1 week with Level 1.)

For every level of the program, you will follow the same schedule. (Consult "Your Cruise Moves Schedule" on page 22.) You'll target your hips and thighs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with focused Cruise Moves for your lower body. On Tuesdays your Cruise Moves will target your upper body. On Thursdays they'll target your torso and calves.

Sometimes people ask me if they can skip the Cruise Moves on Tuesdays and Thursdays. "My trouble zone is my lower half, not my upper half," they sometimes comment. I always tell them, as I am telling you right now, that you must create lean muscle all over your body -- not just in your legs -- in order to boost your metabolism high enough to see real results. Here's another important reason to tone your upper body: Many pear-shaped women have very skinny shoulders and arms, which make their hips seem even wider. Resistance-training exercises will help to fill out your shoulders, creating more balance between your shoulders and hips and helping to make your waist look smaller.

Here's another question that I often hear. Many people ask me whether they can speed their results by working their hips and thighs every day. The answer to that is a strong NO. You must give your muscles 48 hours to recover between sessions. That's when the true magic happens. During your time off from your hips and thighs routine, your muscles recover and grow stronger. If you work your hips and thighs every day -- and you never give them a chance to recover -- your muscles can never regenerate. Instead of speeding up your metabolism, you may instead slow it down. You'll end up feeling fatigued and you can even get injured.

The bottom line is that you achieve better results faster by targeting your trouble zone 3 days a week instead of 5 or more. Remember: When it comes to weight loss, less effort often produces more results! That's part of the Jorge Cruise® revolution.

A Word About Weekends

Each weekend you will get 2 days off from your Cruise Moves. On Saturdays, I recommend that you spend your 8 minutes in the morning doing a set of stretches that will help lengthen your hip and thigh muscles. Don't misunderstand me. My Cruise moves will help you to create long, lean muscles, not thick, bulky ones. However, these Saturday stretches will accelerate your results by helping to lengthen your leg muscles even more.

Whenever you stretch, you not only help increase your flexibility, but you also elongate your muscles. If you stretch often enough, your muscles will remain longer. And here's another good reason to stretch. It helps increase circulation to your muscles. This added circulation will help you to feel good, stretching away any tightness that may have developed during the week. It also may help reduce the appearance of cellulite. Stretching helps to improve the health of your connective tissue. Remember in chapter 1 when I told you about those tiny holes in connective tissue that allow small amounts of fat to bulge through, creating the bumpy appearance that we've come to call cellulite? Regular stretching helps your connective tissue stay healthy, closing up those gaps and preventing the fat from bulging through.

If you already have a set of stretches that you love to do, that's great. Go ahead and do them. If not, you'll find my favorite stretches in the bonus chapter on page 179.

Each Sunday, you have the day off. You have no stretches and no Cruise Moves in the morning. I suggest that you use Sundays to record your progress: Weigh yourself and measure your hip and thigh circumferences.

Try to use Sundays as a true respite from the week. Make it your time to relax and rejuvenate. Many of my clients tell me that they like to set aside some time each Sunday to plan and prepare for the week ahead. You might chop up some veggies to use during the week for lunch or plan your dinner menus and make sure you have healthy food on hand. Do whatever you need to do to make sure your week goes smoothly -- you'll increase your chances of sticking to your morning moves and your Cruise Down Plate, which you'll learn about in chapter 4.

The Format For Each Day

No matter what, the format for your day will be the same. You will wake up and do whatever you need to do to ready yourself for your morning moves. Some of my clients tell me that after a trip to the bathroom, they like to splash some water on their faces, drink a glass of water, and brush their teeth. After that, they are ready to move.

Each morning during the week you will find four Cruise Moves. You will do each move for 1 minute and then move on to the next move. Once you have finished all four moves, you will repeat each move one time for 1 minute each -- for a total of 8 minutes. It's that easy.

How can you complete a session so quickly? I've strategically paired your Cruise Moves so that you will always be working opposing muscle groups. For example, when you target your inner thigh, your outer thigh gets to rest. When you target your outer thigh, your inner thigh gets to rest. I call this Active Rest Moves®. That way, you never need to rest between moves. There's no wasted time on the 8 Minutes program. You simply transition from move to move for 8 minutes. It's a focused program, and it works!

How You'll Address Your Trouble Zone

Now here's where things get really exciting. If you've tried to slim down your hips and thighs in the past, you may have noticed that particular exercises seem to make your hips and thighs larger! That usually happens when you solely focus on just one area of the thigh.

Well, you'll be happy to hear that there is a mix of moves in this book. These moves are sorted into four thigh zones.

Here are the four zones you'll target 3 days a week.

Inner thighs. The muscles along your inner thighs are collectively known as your adductors, because the are responsible for "adducting" or pulling your legs in toward the centerline of your body. Toning these muscles will not only help keep your inner thighs from jiggling, but also will help to pull your inner thighs closer to your thigh bone, shrinking their appearance and preventing them from rubbing together when you walk.

Front of the thighs. The muscles along the front of your thighs are collectively called your quadriceps and hip flexors. They help you to extend and lift your leg forward.

Outer thighs and hips. The muscles that are on your outer thighs and hips are collectively called your abductors because they "abduct" or lift your leg away from the centerline of your body. (Think of the quintessential leg lift.) Along your hips, the most important abductor is the gluteus medius. Toning this muscle, along with your other abductors, will help smooth away saddlebags. These muscles also help to hold your kneecap in place, so training them will help to prevent knee pain.

Backs of the thighs and rear end. A number of different muscles make up the backside of your leg. Along the back of your thigh are a group of muscles called your hamstrings. In your buttocks, there's the gluteus maximus. Your hamstrings and gluteus maximus work together to help lift your leg back behind your torso. Your hamstrings also help you to bend your knee. Toning your hamstrings will help smooth out the back of your thigh and reduce the appearance of cellulite. It also will help to provide separation between your thigh and butt. Toning your gluteus will help lift your butt cheeks.

Excerpted from 8 Minutes in the Morning® to Lean Hips and Thin Thighs (Rodale Inc., Paperback, $12.95). Printed with the permission of the publisher. Available at www.rodalestore.com and wherever books are sold.

Copyright © 2004 Jorge Cruise, Inc

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