5 equipment free exercises to tone your upper body

 

If you don't have access to a gym, there are many ways you can get your daily workout in. Start off with our list of ** upper body exercises. 

 

Clap push up

 

Choose your appropriate option for the clap push-up depending on your fitness and strength ability. These can be done on either your toes, knees or eliminate the clap altogether and just keep it a simple push-up. 

Start in a plank position and use your arms to lower your chest towards to floor – a nice deep push-up will get great results. Push your chest back up as you would with a normal push-up but with more force, springing off the ground for a clap. Land with soft elbows to prevent injury and do your next rep.

 

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Chair dip

Face away from the chair.

Place your hands behind you on the edge of the seat, shoulder-width apart. With your hands securely in place, step a foot or two away, and straighten your legs and keep heels in contact with the floor. Straighten your arms so that your body is lifted. This is your starting position.

Bend your elbows and lower yourself until your elbows are 90 degrees, hold, and re-straighten back to the starting position. Repeat.

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Plank to palms 

Not only works your abs but targets your shoulders and triceps.

 

Get into a prone position on the floor, supporting your weight on your toes and your forearms. Your arms are bent and directly below the shoulder.

Leading with one arm, push upwards while keeping your core on tight and have your other arm follow the lead.

Reverse the action with the leading arm to take you back to the starting plank position.

Repeat 5 reps with one leading arm before swapping to the opposite arm to lead.

Keep your body straight at all times.

Repeat this exercise for 5 reps (each side) and 3 sets. 

 

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Arm cincher & butt lifter

Not only tones arms but tones your butt and tightens your core

Begin in a high plank position, drawing a straight line from your shoulders to your knees. Lift your left leg up as you lower your right knee to the ground. Next, perform a tricep push-up by kissing your elbows to your waistline.

Complete 10 reps as you keep your left leg up and lifted. Repeat on the other side.

Words: Katrina Hodgson and Karena Dawn

Photography: Ashley Streff.

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Triangle push-up

Begin the move by positioning hands on the mat directly under chest with fingers spread and thumbs and forefingers touching, making a triangle shape. Straighten legs in a plank position (harder) or knees on ground (easier). Make sure the back is flat and abs are engaged as you bend the elbows, lowering until your chin or chest touches the mat. At the bottom of the movement your elbows will naturally flare out to the side. Press back up to starting position while keeping a rigid torso through entire movement.

Check out these 14 exercises for toned arms. 

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The Internet Is Going Mad Over These Shower Jellies

Every once in a while the Internet completely loses it over a beauty product and we totally live for these moments. Remember the black bath bomb craze from earlier this summer? Or that time people were using household products to do their makeup? And of course, who could forget all the weird body contouring videos that we’ve all watched multiple times (admit it) because, whether or not you would actually attempt try butt contouring, watching someone else do it is mesmerizing.

Well, move over goth bath bombs, because there is a new viral beauty trend in town. People are posting videos of LUSH’s wobbly shower jellies and we are totally enthralled by them (both the videos and the jellies). These seaweed gel-based soaps have taken over people’s Instagram accounts and bathrooms. What’s LOL-worthy is that Lush actually has had the product for ten years, but it became an internet sensation only recently, when Nailed It posted a video of the jiggly soaps at the end of June.

RELATED: These Soap Stones Will Make Your Bathroom So Pretty

After less than two months, the clip has over 29 million views (you could attributed 1 million of those to us alone) and 360 thousand shares. The rest is (Internet) history as they say.

Aside from its wiggly qualities the soap has fruity extracts, essential oils and vitamin-rich juices, so it’s also good for your skin. Momma always said don’t play with your food, but she never said anything about not playing with your hygeine products. What else can we say—taking a shower just got a whole lot more fun.

 

This article originally appeared on InStyle.com/MIMI.

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Anne Hathaway: There Is ‘No Shame’ in Carrying Baby Weight

Photo: Getty Images

For new mothers, losing the weight they gained during pregnancy can feel like a race, especially when the media chronicles and celebrates the slim-down progress of celeb moms like Blake Lively and Kim Kardashian.

But Anne Hathaway, who gave birth to a baby boy in March, is over the ridiculous pressure to get back in a string bikini stat. On Tuesday, the Alice Through the Looking Glass star posted a photo on Instagram of a pair of jeans she had cut off at the knees. The caption: “There is no shame in gaining weight during pregnancy (or ever). There is no shame if it takes longer than you think it will to lose the weight (if you want to lose it at all). There is no shame in breaking down and making your own jean shorts because last summer’s are just too dang short for this summer’s thighs.”

RELATED: Kate Winslet on NOT Losing the Baby Weight: “I Want to Keep My Sanity”

This isn’t the first time Hathaway has spoken out about the crazy expectations for new moms. In an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show in May, she talked about her run-in with a trainer at the gym who made a comment about dropping “the baby weight” just weeks after the actress had given birth to her son, Jonathan. (Poised as ever, Hathaway informed him it was too soon to start worrying about the scale.)

While the trainer’s thoughtless remark caught Hathaway off guard, she told Ellen that motherhood has actually given her a sense of empowerment at the gym: “I walk in and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I work out with 5-pound weights, but I pushed a baby out of my body, I feel good right now!'”

Because that’s really what it’s all about—appreciating your body for the amazing things it can do, not how it looks at any one moment in time. Or as Hathaway put it so perfectly at the end of her Insta post, “Bodies change. Bodies grow. Bodies shrink. It’s all love (don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.)”

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VIDEO: 2016 Olympic Warrior Challenge

In the spirit of the 2016 Rio Olympics, WH&F Head Trainer is here to help you train like an Olympic athlete. 

This workout takes you through a weekly schedule of strength and conditioning exercises and cardio challenges. Gear up and train like an Olympic sprinter.

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Energy boosting smoothie recipe

 

Get a quick boost of energy with this coffee flavoured smoothie.

 

The goal: Energy boost

The glass: Caffeine can provide a quick energy boost while bananas impart ready glycogen for explosive physical energy. The espresso’s caffeine may also benefit exercise and brain performance by reducing perceived effort and extending workout time. The banana will also help to optimise workout intensity.

The rules: Skip the syrups and other constituents of commercial coffee drinks – they add sugar and kilojoules. If you need sweetness, add a teaspoon of honey.

The foods: Cooled espresso

MAKE IT:

• 1 cup of ice
• 1 cup of cooled coffee
• 1 cup your choice of milk
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 banana

Looking for more healthy recipes. Check out our extensive recipe section. 

 

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The U.S. Olympic Gymnasts Slay in Fifth Harmony’s New Video

Photo: Getty Images

As we anxiously await the gymnastics portion of the 2016 Rio Olympics, here’s a little something to get you totally amped for Team USA…and it comes in the form of a Fifth Harmony video.

RELATED: How to Have a Pamper Night Like a Hollywood Movie Star

Thats right, both of your favorite Fab 5s appear in the group’s “That’s My Girl” video and it’s nothing short of amazing. The empowering track is the perfect backdrop for a mashup of the U.S. gymnastic team’s most killer moments and it’s a genius move on everyone’s part. We are so here for all of this girl power.

RELATED: Cue the History Lesson in Voluminous Hair, Please

Check out the video below.

Flipping out over this @FifthHarmony and @USAGym music video!#Rio2016 preview: https://t.co/Zd2IXU4qKA
https://t.co/JMF9aDeYuO

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) August 3, 2016

 

This article originally appeared on InStyle.com/MIMI.

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You Won’t Believe How Many Steps Are in Kim Kardashian’s Eyebrow Routine

For most of us ordinary folk, getting our brows done usually means a quick weekly visit to the nearest threading salon and then it’s business as usual. OK, maybe some brow pencil to fill in the sparse spots and some gel to hold everything in place, but you get the picture. We invest time, but it’s a relatively fast routine, and totes worth it because brows are everything.

As you can imagine, though, when Kim Kardashian needs her eyebrows done, things get a little a lot more complicated.

In a new video for her app, Kim K reveals what it actually takes to have brows that perfect, and let’s just say that it’s not easy. First of all, she works with legendary brow artist and longtime pal Anastasia Soare of Anastasia Beverly Hills, which only comes to show that Kim K takes her brows very seriously. To put it into perspective, this is the woman who invented the Brow Powder Duo. Yeaaaaaah, kinda a big deal!

RELATED: Behold: Kylie Jenner’s Secret to Perfectly Shaped Brows

“Getting my brows done is not only a major part of my makeup routine, but it’s also like a little therapy session. Anastasia will come to my house pretty much whenever, put her light on her head and go to work,” Kardashian says.

Soare starts off by shaping the brows, which includes waxing any excess hair, as well as trimming the hairs with baby scissors. Then, she preps them by applying some eye cream and foundation around them to define their shape. This is a trick we’ve also seen her little sis Kylie test out—successfully, at that.

Soare says that highlighting under your brows will give you an instant lift.

She fills in sparse brows with a pencil and finally applies brow gel to set them in place. See, we told you it’s not easy, but Anastasia clearly knows what she’s doing!

And now, let’s all marvel at the results:

Yep, totally worth it.

 

This article originally appeared on InStyle.com/MIMI.

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Ashley Graham Shared the Perfect At-Home Workout on Her Instagram

Photo: courtesy of BH Cosmetics

Plus-size model and Sports Illustrated cover girl Ashley Graham keeps her curve game strong not only with empowering selfies, but also with a killer workout regimen. Lucky for us, she’s not afraid to show herself sweating it out in the gym with her friends-slash-workout-buddies and personal trainers.

On Monday, Graham—who recently penned a powerful essay in response to her body shamers—posted a video to her Instagram account showing the circuit training routine she did with certified personal trainer Christopher Kadima during a trip to Los Angeles.

While Graham performed the exercises in an LA-based gym, this cardio-strength combo workout can be executed in the comfort of your own home. All you need is a set of hand weights, a yoga mat, a balance ball, a resistance band, a towel, and a bit of space.

Here’s Graham’s full circuit for you to steal: jump roping, side and back foot taps with a resistance band, dumbbell rows, push-ups, slider back lunges, exercise ball plank, slider side lunges, sit-ups, squats, lateral band walks, and dumbbell flys. (We might borrow her energizing song of choice, Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Who Gon Stop Me,” too.)

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Shannen Doherty Says Her Cancer May Have Spread: “The Unknown Is the Scariest Part”

Photo: Getty Images

Shannen Doherty has revealed the heartbreaking news that her cancer may have spread.

“I had breast cancer that spread to the lymph nodes, and from one of my surgeries we discovered that some of the cancer cells might have actually gone out of the lymph nodes,” the actress said in an exclusive interview yesterday with Entertainment Tonight. “So for that reason, we are doing chemo, and then after chemo, I’ll do radiation.”

The former Beverly Hills, 90210 star, 45, told People last summer that she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2015. Since then, she’s had a single mastectomy and also undergone three of eight rounds of chemotherapy, which she described as being especially hard.

“You’re throwing up every single second,” she said. “After my first treatment I lost 10 pounds, instantly. You’re throwing up and the last thing you want to do is be in a car. You don’t want to be moved, you can’t eat.”

The actress’s husband of five years, photographer Kurt Iswarienko, has been by her side during her treatments. “My husband has to, you know, pick me up,” she said. “He puts me in the car, he buckles me in, and he drives me to my oncologist and they hook me up to an IV and I get hydrated.”

When Doherty shaved her head last week, she credited her support system, including Iswarienko, her close friends, and mom Rosa, for helping her get through “an impossibly tough day.”

“After my second treatment, my hair was really matted, like in dreadlocks. And I went to try and brush it out, and it just fell out,” Doherty told ET. “I just remember holding onto huge clumps of my hair in my hands, and just running to my mom crying, like, ‘My hair, my hair, my hair, my hair.'”

Doherty documented the difficult process in a series of photos on Instagram—first cutting her hair into a pixie, then a mohawk, and finally shaving it completely. And although Iswarienko was in Mexico for work, he was still able to offer support.

“He was texting nonstop in the middle of his photoshoot like, ‘Give me pictures, and are you OK? I wish I could be there,'” she said. “He was so stricken that he wasn’t there with me but I sent him pictures and videos and he was like, ‘Oh my God. You’re hot with no hair.’ So you know, everybody kind of made me feel better about it.”

“Any time someone is told they have breast cancer, it’s a very scary thing, emotionally and psychologically,” Sharon Rosenbaum Smith, MD, a breast cancer surgeon at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Medical Center in New York City, told Health. (Dr. Rosenbaum Smith has not treated Doherty.)

Based on Doherty’s chemotherapy comments, Dr. Rosenbaum Smith says it’s possible that the actress is experiencing particularly bad side effects. “Chemotherapy affects people in very different ways, and the side effects vary widely from person to person,” she explains. “It sounds like unfortunately Shannen could be having a very severe reaction.”

“We have a lot of great treatments out there for breast cancer and very good survival statistics,” says Dr. Rosenbaum Smith. And even though these treatments can make patients feel extremely run-down, they’re helping to fight the cancer cells and prevent them from coming back.

She adds: “The most important thing is to remember that hopefully this is a very short period in a very long life.”

In the ET interview, Doherty said that “the unknown” has been the scariest part of having the disease. “Is the chemo going to work? Is the radiation going to work?” she said. “You know, am I going to have to go through this again, or am I going to get secondary cancer? Everything else is manageable. Pain is manageable, you know living without a breast is manageable, it’s the worry of your future and how your future is going to affect the people you love.”

Doherty’s hope is that her story will help others who are fighting the same battle. “If I could help one person then it makes me go, ‘Oh OK,'” she said. “It’s easier to live with having cancer if I know I’m helping at least one person.”

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Pre-workout smoothie recipe

 

Not sure what to eat pre-workout? Gear up for a solid workout with this banana protein smoothie recipe.

 

The glass: Banana smoothie made with slow-releasing protein

The rules: Use casein in place of the more common whey as it digests slowly, delivering a consistent supply of amino acids during a workout according to dietitian Dr McMillan. Include carbohydrate to increase available energy and enable maximum intensity.

The foods: Banana supplies ready energy to facilitate maximum intensity while natural yoghurt and skim milk provide protein and carbs. Honey is essentially sugar, so give it a miss if you find the fruit flavour sweet enough.

What you'll need:

• 1 ripe banana
• 1 cup your choice of milk
• 1 cup plain natural yoghurt
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp of ground cinnamon

Looking for more smoothie recipes? Try this super green smoothie today.

 

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