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How to get a beach body: 3 exercises to incinerate calories

This month I’ll be taking you through a series of weekly workouts that will tone and tighten your arms, legs, back, and belly. Today, I'll feature exercises that will burn max calories.

Welcome to the Beach Body Challenge fitness finale. In weeks one through three, we aimed to trim your waist, lean your legs and build your back muscles with a strong cocktail of resistance and cardio exercises. The last leg of your total-body toning tour consists of a cardio crusher, designed to torch calories and charge up your metabolism.

Here's how it works: Schedule three days to complete this vigorous cardio circuit. Keep rest stops between exercises to a minimum, and allow 60 to 90 seconds of rest between sets. Doing so will help keep your heart rate elevated, fatigue the muscles and fry fat.  On your days off, mix in muscle-making moves from any of my chisel your abs, lean your legs and blast your back segments. Prepare to make those pores cry with sweat.

Warm up: 50 Jumping Jacks

Back Kicks. Kick your own butt with an exercise that stretches the quads and amps up the butt and hamstrings.

➢     Stand tall with the feet shoulder-width apart.
➢     Bring your right foot back until your heel hits your butt.
➢     Alternate and let the left foot graze your glutes. Continue this jogging in place movement for 60 counts.

Reverse Lunge Kick. The reverse lunge kick concentrates on buffing up your legs, strengthening your core and increasing your stability and balance.

➢     Take a deep breath, pull the shoulders back and keep the core muscles tight.
➢     Take a step back with the right foot. The right knee is aligned below the right hip, and the left foot is below the left knee. Form is key to successfully completing this exercise.
➢     Stay balanced as you kick the right foot out in front of the body. Avoid hunching the shoulders forward as you kick. Continue this movement for 12-15 repetitions on each side.

Burpee Plank Hold. What's the big stink about this sedentary stance? Planks deserve our thanks because this super star exercise helps condition the core, hamstrings, glutes and chest muscles, in addition to enhancing our overall strength.

➢     Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.
➢     Hinge back at the hips and drop both hands to the ground.
➢     Explode the feet back, forming a straight line from the head to heels. Hold this plank position for 10 seconds.
➢     Shoot the feet back to step 2, and jump. This is one repetition. Repeat 12-15 times.

Congratulations! You're a bona fide beach babe.

Earn it.

To learn more about personal training options and Ashley's new virtual workout program, which can be done from the comfort of your home, visit ashleyblakefitness.com.

Read more Sports Doc for Sports Medicine and Fitness.