Basic Isometric Program for Women: Here is a series of 15 basic exercises especially adapted for women (although they are equally beneficial for men). Most of them can be be done in bed as you wake up in the morning or as you retire at night. There are just three simple rules to observe as you run through the exercises: #1 Put a hundred percent effort into each exercise. #2 Breathe normally as you do the exercise. #3 Continue each exercise for six seconds (count to yourself, one thousand one… one thousand two…etc.).
Head and Neck: What is the very first thing people notice about you? Your face! An important part of your face is the way you carry it. All courses in dramatics and modelling emphasize the carriage of the head. Firm, healthy neck muscles not only enable you to carry your head high, but discourage double chins, scrawny necks, and telltale wrinkles. Their good tone spreads to the muscles of the face, giving the glow of health and vigor.
>1 Lie on your back with your head on a pillow. (This is a wonderful way to begin the day!) Try to push your head back through the pillow. Breathe normally, hold for six seconds.
>2 Roll over. With your forehead on the pillow, push your head down as hard as you can.
>3 Lie on right side with pillow and both hands under right face cheek. Push your head down as hard as you can.
>4 Lie on left side with pillow and both hands under left face cheek. Push your head down as hard as you can.
Chest: The muscles of the chest form the foundation for a shapely bosom. Strengthening and firming these muscles will provide uplift and maintain or help achieve a stunning figure. I’d recommend this exercise for everyone, teenager to matron, regardless of measurement.
>5 Lie on your tummy, arms extended straight out to the sides, palms down. Now, keeping your arms straight, try to bring your hands down through this unyielding resistance so that they would meet in front of you.
Arms: The attractiveness of graceful hands and lithe and shapely arms can blend in perfectly with the supple strength required for your day-to-day activities. Whether lifting a pack of cards or a baby, playing tennis at the country club or cleaning the house, pliant strength will make your task easier.
>6 Have you a large, firm bolster? It should be big enough so that you can just barely reach around it. If not, use several pillows. Lying on your back, hold it in a bear-hug, palms in, and squeeze, trying to bring your hands into your chest.
>7 Lying on your back, hands by your side, palms down, press down on the mattress with fingers spread apart, extended, and slightly bent, like tiger claws. This one simple exercise helps to develop supple strength in fingers and wrists, as well as firming the underside of the upper arm.
Waist: Every women wants a trim, smooth waist, and well she should, because it is important to health and well-being, and not just for appearance. It is the natural girdle formed by the abdominal muscles which hold all the internal organs in their neat and proper place.
>8 Lie on your back, knees up. Hold a book behind your head. Now bending your back, not arching it, try to sit up, pulling against gravity. At whatever is the highest point you can reach, hold for six seconds.
Sides and Hips: Your sides are part of your waist, of course, and combined with the muscles of your abdomen to keep you trim and shapely with all organs in place. It so happens that in firming up the diagonal muscles of the sides with the following exercise, the muscles of the buttocks are also tightened… two for the price of one!
>9 Sorry, but you’ll have to get out of bed for this one. You can postpone it until, of course. Stand with your left side to a wall, feet about 12 to 18 inches out from the wall. Place your right hand over your head with the palm against the wall. Now push, feeling the muscles in your side and hips tighten. …Reverse and repeat.
Thighs: Developing strength in your legs will make it easier for them to carry your body, which in turn makes you lighter on your feet. Firming the sides of the upper thighs postpones that flabbiness that too often comes with advancing years. >
10 Take the bolster you used in the third exercise and, lying on your back, place it between your feet. Keeping your legs straight, attempt to bring your feet together.
>11 The last one was a squeezing-in exercise; this is a stretching-out exercise. Now, cross your ankles and, using your own feet for resistance, try to pull them apart.
>12 Now for the muscles on the top and bottom of the thigh. Place your left foot on top of the right one, at the ankle. Try to lift the right one straight up, while holding down with the left. Then reverse and repeat.
Calves: It’s the muscles of your calves which flex the foot, and lift you on your toes, just like a ballerina. It’s the muscles of the calves, too, that make the shapely leg and the trim ankle.
>13 To tone the muscles on both the inner and outer sides of the lower leg, you can do these exercises simultaneously with the squeezing-in and spreading-out exercises given for the thighs. With your feet on the outside of the bolster, try, while squeezing-in with the thighs, to rotate the feet into a pigeon-toed position. In the spreading-out exercise, do just the opposite… try to rotate the feet out.
>14 For upward spring, as well as to alleviate the foreshortened effect that comes from wearing high-heeled shoes, extend the legs out straight in front of you, and place the ball of your left foot on the toes of your right. Now pull up with your right foot as hard as you can, while pushing down with your left. You are toning muscles of both legs at the same time!
>15 Place the ball of your right foot on the toes of your left, and repeat as above, always remembering to hold for six seconds. ENJOY, LADIES!
