Blog Posts by The Editors of WOMEN'S HEALTH

You've probably read about celebs extolling the virtues of Pilates (lean legs, a supertaut tummy!), or maybe even heard the hype from mat-class-obsessed friends. If you're still skeptical, keep reading: "Pilates puts your muscles-especially the smaller, stabilizing ones-under constant tension over a large range of motion to create that enviable long, lean look," says Lauren Piskin, owner of Physicalmind Studio in New York City.

What's more, one study found that women who swapped their usual routines for two 60-minute Pilates sessions a week saw significant increases in abdominal endurance, hamstring flexibility, and upper-body muscular endurance.

One Secret to Being Fit for Life? Muscle Memory

The thing is, these Pilates perks often come with a hefty price tag: A few sessions a week (typically using a bed-size contraption called a Reformer) can set you back hundreds of dollars. So Piskin created this at-home total-body workout, which gives your abs some extra love

Unlike wine, cheese, and Clive Owen, workout strategies don't get better with age. That's because each year, fitness researchers release thousands of studies that challenge conventional thinking-or at least shed light on ways to tweak it. We've ID'd five stale fitness approaches and sifted through the latest research to come up with surprising updates that will land you a scorching body ASAP.

1. Position your hands shoulder-width apart
You often see this in instructions for upper-body moves like bench presses and lat pulldowns. Why? Because it gives you a stable starting point. But that doesn't mean you need to stay there set after set. "Spreading your hands a few inches farther out stresses more of the inner portion of your biceps; bringing your hands in a few inches builds more of the outer part," says New York City personal trainer Steve Lischin, M.S. Switch up your position after every set for balanced strength and overall tone.

Get Sleek, Sexy Arms with This

BEFORE: 180 lbs
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AFTER: 130 lbs

As a teen growing up in Silver Spring, Maryland, Kristen Collins Eccleston regularly dined on greasy fast food with her friends. After college she met her now husband, Bryan, and got into the habit of splitting extra-large pizzas with him and ordering buffalo wings for Sunday-night football. Their junk-food feasts caused Kristen to tip the scale at 180 pounds. When Bryan proposed in 2009, it was a wake-up call for the 25-year-old special-ed teacher, who vowed to shed weight from her 5'6" frame before getting hitched.

5 Ways to Keep Yourself From Gaining Love Chub

THE CHANGE While shopping for size-16 wedding gowns in February 2010, Kristen's mom sensed her daughter's misery. She sent Kristen an encouraging note, pledging her support and offering to buy her a new smaller-size outfit for the rehearsal dinner. "My mom wanted to see me happy, so she motivated me to do something about my weight," says

For years, you've curled, crunched, and twisted, but for some reason your pooch hasn't shrunk. Want to know why? To reveal that sexy, sculpted middle, you have to target more than the small section of abs that crunches hit, say Alwyn Cosgrove and Lou Schuler in their book The New Rules of Lifting for Abs. You need to work your entire core by encouraging it to do the job it's meant to do: stabilize your spine.

For a whittled middle, Cosgrove and Schuler told us, you need to commit these four rules to memory.

1. Your spine is already flexed-don't make it worse
If your day is spent hunched over a computer or a steering wheel, your spine is in a constantly flexed position, leading to poor posture and a weak core. So why would you worsen the problem with spine-flexing exercises like crunches? You need to do moves that help prevent or correct misaligned posture.

8 Innovative Moves to Polish Your Posture and Slim Your Stomach

2. The terms "core" and "abs" are not

Losing weight isn't about eating less, it's about eating more-more nutrition-dense food, to crowd out the empty calories and keep you full all day. That's important, because restricting food will kill your metabolism. It sends a signal to your body that says, "I'm starving here!" And your body responds by slowing your metabolic rate in order to hold onto existing energy stores. What's worse, if the food shortage (meaning, your crash diet) continues, you'll begin burning muscle tissue, which just gives your enemy, visceral fat, a greater advantage. Your metabolism drops even more, and fat goes on to claim even more territory. Here are some no-brainer ways to motivate your metabolism to burn more fat.

1. GO TO BED EARLIER A study in Finland looked at sets of identical twins and discovered that of each set of siblings, the twin who slept less and was under more stress had more visceral fat.

10 Myths About Getting Your Vitamin Zzzzs

2. EAT MORE PROTEIN Your body needs

She gave you your first haircut and your ostrich toes. Wanna know what else you got from your mom? Asking her these questions could clue you in to your possible future--and help you give unhealthy inherited risks the boot.

ASK HER: "Are you as tall now as you were at 21?"
If your mom has lost an inch or two since her sorority days, it could be a sign of osteoporosis or the less-severe osteopenia, says Isador H. Lieberman, M.D., a professor of surgery and an orthopedic and spinal surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Weston, Florida. And if she has osteoporosis, there's a 50 percent chance you'll develop it too. On the flip side, if your mom still has the frame of a 35-year-old, you're not as likely to be hobbling around with a hunchback or hip fractures later in life.

RELATED: How to Flatter the Shape You Inherited

Escape the parent trap To keep your skeleton well-steeled, get at least 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day from low-fat dairy and take a multi

BEFORE 191 lbs
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AFTER 150 lbs

Heather Mursch, now a 401(k) administrator in Lakewood, Ohio, put on 20 pounds in college and gained more weight when she moved in with a friend after graduation. "We'd eat dinner before going to a bar, and then stop for pizza or gyros on our way home," says Heather, 34. Workouts became less frequent, until she quit exercising altogether. And when Heather got married in 2000, she wore a size-16 gown.

Are your friends a fat influence? The world health organization thinks maybe, yeah

THE CHANGE
Four years later, Heather's marriage was over, and her clothes were tighter than ever as she turned to food to cope. "One night, to deal with the stress, I went for a run," she says. It was her first workout in four years, and she only made it one block, but it was enough. "I felt so much better," she says.

THE LIFESTYLE
Heather began running every night, as far as she could push herself. In

Walking into the gym and expecting a great workout is like walking into the supermarket and expecting a gourmet meal. The basic ingredients are there, but like they say in the infomercials, results may vary. With working out, as with cooking, a little bit of smarts, dedication, creativity and knowledge will make all the difference between perfect pasta and a gelatinous ball of mush.

For this list of no-no exercises, we consulted Stuart McGill, PhD, professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario; Nicholas DiNubile, MD, author of FrameWork: Your 7-Step Program for Healthy Muscles, Bones, and Joints; and trainer Vern Gambetta, author of Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning.

1. Seated Leg Extension
What it's supposed to do: Train the quadriceps. What it actually does: It strengthens a motion your legs aren't actually designed to do, and can put undue strain on the ligaments and tendons surrounding the