What is the Best Way to Tone Thighs?

When working out to improve the body, many people focus on one particular body part that gives them difficulty. For quite a few people, the thighs are on body part they struggle with. To tone thighs most effectively, one should combine good exercise with good diet. A well-focused diet is the primary way to see any improvement in body structure, and without it one's activity in the gym or exercising at home will have less effect. Once a good diet is in place, one can work out with and without equipment in order to tone thighs.

The human body appears the way it does largely due to what sort of food it consumes. When somebody wants to achieve a more toned body, her diet should be largely comprised of high protein foods which help to maintain and build muscle. Anyone looking to tone her body should stay away from eating fatty foods, and keep her carbohydrate consumption within the daily recommendation based on their age, gender, and body size.

The first element of exercise to help tone thighs is cardiovascular work. Cardiovascular exercise is any form of workout where the body moves enough to raise the heart rate over an extended period of time. When the heart rate is elevated for at least a 15 minute period, the body begins to use its fat storage for energy, and therefore burns primarily fat for the exercise. Walking, running, bicycling, stair steppers, elliptical machines, and swimming are all good examples of cardiovascular exercise.

To tone thighs in the gym, where exercise equipment is available, a good place to start is with an exercise called squats. In order to do squats, a barbell with weight plates to set on each end of the bar is needed, and a power rack. The exercise is performed by setting the bar low enough on the rack so that the person can lift it with her shoulders, with the bar resting behind the neck, after squatting below it and lifting it off of the rack. The weightlifter then proceeds to squat down, keeping the weight on her shoulders, but stopping when her thighs form a right angle with the upper body. Sets of ten with a low enough weight so that the body can make it through several sets is a good place to start.

There are exercises one can do in the gym or at home to tone thighs without equipment. Lunges are a good exercise for the thighs; the person simply takes one step forward and lunges her pelvis forward and toward the ground, using the thigh on her forward foot to support her weight. The invisible chair, where a person squats down in a seated position as if she were sitting in a chair and supports her weight with her thighs, is another exercise which can help tone thighs.