So I've been doing the Smith lunges like you suggested a while back (thanks again for the tip!) and I'm wondering if you varied your lunge routine to speed up the toning process. Right now, I put 20lbs on the bar and do 60 lunges per leg (broken down into 3 20-rep sets). I'm wondering if I should mix it up and maybe do 15 reps with 25lbs or more reps with the 20lbs. What did you do? My eventual goal is to trim down the size of my (ahem) rear end so that's where I'd like to see the most results.
woo hoo! Those are my fave ;) I did them twice a week combined w/ other leg exercises including:
leg extention
leg curl
leg press
hack squats (subbed these for the smith lunges once a week for the last few weeks)
calf raise
I always did low weight high reps. 20 on each leg 4 sets, but now I do 15 reps 3 sets...I'm trimming down on my old routine ;)
I did eventually increase my weight as I went along, just by a couple pounds. Just adjusting to what my muscles could handle. The weight should just be heavy enough so it is hard to get throught the last three reps. I used low weight - high reps for definition in my legs (and arse:)) Didn't want bulk.
oh yes, squats on the smith machine are great! Are you doing supersets? (two exercises back to back in one set, then rest) Usually they say to do supersets w/ different muscle groups. Like I do leg curls and leg extentions supersets together. From my understanding, you don't want to overwork the same muscle group by doing squats and lunges supersets together.
Hack squats are done on this machine that is on a incline and it has weight on the shoulders (as would the smith machine) but you are standing on an incline tilted back at like 30 degrees sort of laying on the machine...it's great!