5 steps to a long and lean body

Emma Seibold is the founder of Barre Body yoga and barre studios, certified yoga teacher and health coach and mother of one gorgeous bubba.

Did someone say long and lean? Yes please! Sound impossible? It may seem so, but it's really not. We are all different shapes and sizes, but there are certain things you can do to increase the length of your muscles and streamline your body. To celebrate the launch of Body+Soul's Long & Lean 6 week challenge we've asked Barre Body's Emma Siebold to share her top toning tips.

1. Start with your diet

My philosophy has always been that a healthy diet will get you to the right weight and exercise will help to tone and shape your body. 

Really simple ways to clean up your diet include reducing white stuff (white sugar, white flour, pasta, rice, cakes, pastries, etc), reducing saturated fat (but keep the good fat in moderation – it helps to fill you up and is much better for you than diet and low fat foods), avoiding packaged and processed foods and preparing your own meals (so much more delicious and healthy).

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2. Combine stretching with toning work

This is where the magic happens. Barre Body combines strengthening work to tone your muscles and long yoga stretches to lengthen your muscles. The stretching component is really important to create length and avoid bulk in the muscles.

3. Work both the large and small muscles

This goes hand in hand with combining stretching and toning work. Interval training is where higher intensity periods are interspersed with slower, more gentle rest periods. This results in increased cardiovascular fitness and fat loss due to the metabolic boosting effects of interval training.

4. Try a barre class (of course!)

Barre classes are gaining popularity with celebs like Madonna, Natalie Portman and Drew Barrymore all hitting the barre for a hot bod. Barre Body combines yoga, pilates and ballet barre conditioning and is loads of fun).

Better yet, you can do all of these things at once (or at least steps 2-4), by kick-starting your long and lean program with our 6 week video series. Incorporates exercises designed to increase your flexibility, lengthen your legs, firm your glutes, tone your arms, strengthen your core. Each video is designed to build on the sequence working towards a full body workout. Best of all; it's fun and it works!

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