Swimsuit Competition
 Lower Your Body Fat to
Show Off Your Curves
After a young woman has invested months of grueling exercise to obtain the body of her dreams, she won't want layers of body fat to hide her efforts. "One big factor in how a woman's body looks," says Fifrick, "is what her body-fat percent is-with a lower body-fat percent being better. It's not until you get your body fat less than twenty percent that you can actually see the shape of the muscles.
If a woman is approximately twenty percent or higher in body fat, she has no definition. In other words, you can't see the shape of her muscles."
Aerobic Exercise to Lower Body Fat
Safely
That's where aerobics enters the picture. "Aerobic activity is very important in a physical fitness program because it teaches the body to increase its metabolism, thereby burning excess calories more efficiently," Sharon Turrentine explains.
All of which helps to reveal what all those hours of training have created. "As you burn excess body fat and improve the muscle tone between the waist and knees-the part of our bodies that we hate-your hips get narrower and firmer and you just look better."
"If you need to drop weight, aerobics is wonderful," agrees former Miss America, Cheryl Prewitt Salem, star of several aerobic workout videos. "Do whatever kind you like-step aerobics, plain aerobics, low-impact, high-impact-whatever works for you and that you enjoy."
Aerobic exercise can also include stationary biking, cycling, jogging, long-distance running, fast walking, treadmill, stair-stepping, and swimming laps.
Too Low Body Fat Can Hurt
However, don't take weight loss too far, because, like any other figure problem, excessive thinness can hurt, rather than improve, a contestant's chances. An extremely thin girl needs a training program to build muscle (curves). Fortunately, starting off on the skinny side can be a blessing in disguise, simply because every ounce of muscle she gains through training immediately shows. "Jennifer Prodgers, Miss Georgia-USA 1992, is the best example of that," says Mike Fifrick. "She was extremely low in body fat and under-muscled to begin with. Not that she was 'skinny,' but she was definitely slender. She strength-trained consistently and with intensity and improved a body that some thought was too thin. With a good strength-training program, she changed from being close to skinny to being someone who is very shapely. She has an outstanding swimsuit body and she was top six at Miss USA and second in the final swimsuits."
Excessive thinness needn't hold any young woman back from competing successfully, asserts Fifrick. "A thin girl needs to strength-train with intensity because that's a way of adding some muscle to her body to make her look less skinny."
Swimsuit Competition Overview
Improve Specific Figure Flaws
Swimsuit Diet
Improve your Body
The Best Swimsuit for your Figure
The Best Swimsuit Color
Swimsuit Competition - all tips
All content is from the book "101 Secrets to Winning Beauty Pageants" by Ann-Marie Bivans.
Any use of this content without written permission from the author is plagiarism and will result in legal action.
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