Photo: Mychele Daniau, AFP / Getty Images

Apparently July is Cankle Awareness Month. Or, at least it is at Gold's Gym (it's also National Ice Cream Month, by the way). Hoping that everyone is more interested in the former rather than the latter, Gold's Gym has launched a very tongue-in-cheek campaign to encourage people to hit the gym for a 'cankle-busting workout.'

It's all pretty ridiculous, mostly because as Gold's Gym celebrity trainer Ramona Braganza acknowledged, "Cankles are just like anything else -- you can't spot reduce."

Since spot reduction is a myth, pray tell, what are you meant to do if your calves blend right into your ankles? Plenty of people were cursed with unshapely legs from their gene pool, so there isn't much that can be changed through exercise. But just like muffin tops, cankles are often due to extra weight. Lose the extra pounds, and you're going to lose fat everywhere, including your ankles.

And who, exactly, is clamoring for cankle-reduction? Braganza also admits she has never had a client specifically asked to get rid of cankles, but she swears it's a common concern.

Eating 100 less calories per day adds up to real weight loss over time. Same goes for adding a little fat-burn to your resistance training. Try one or more of these five fat-burning moves next time you lift:

• Less Rest Between Sets -- Gradually taking away seconds from your rest period can up your metabolism, but don't go lower than 30 seconds. One exception: Circuit training.
  
• Whole Body Training -- Instead of splitting your upper/lower body workouts across different days, combine them. It can spike your fat-burning growth hormone levels. Good, I do this already.
• Alternate Sets -- Do a lower-body exercise, then an upper-body one. One muscle group will be recovering while you're working the other.
• Lifting Speed -- Explosive plyometrics can burn more calories (e.g. box jumps). Maggie's got some plyos to try. You can even switch to lighter weights to add an explosive lift in the upward phase of movement.
• Add A Set -- Instead of 10 reps a set, lower your reps and add a set.

I'm often under-enthused about weight training, thanks to pain felt during repetitions 10-12 -- I'm definitely checking out Add a Set to reduce my overall number of successive reps.

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Are you looking to improve your body? Silly question, isn't it? I think almost all of us have an area or two (or three or four) that we'd like to improve. While you can't lose weight in certain spots, you can target and tone your problem areas. Here are eight tips:

• Want to lose that muffin top? Try sprints, interval training or other intense cardio exercises. Also, when doing crunches, aim for constant tension in your abs. Pilates is also great exercise for your core.
• Trying to lose weight all over? Be sure to mix up your exercise routine. Try doing something different twice a week. Adding fast bursts of fitness to your routine can help, too. And don't forget strength training!
  
• Looking for a better bottom? Plyometrics are great for your glutes. Hip extensions and step-ups are also good choices.
• Want to shed back fat? The seated row and wide-grip lat pull are effective for this area. But don't forget the cardio. Also, it's a good idea to work the opposing muscle group so work your pecs as well.

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You just booked a great deal for a five-day ski package to Vail, now it's time to focus on your physique. If you want to carve sharp turns and ski powder all day long with a lower chance of injury, you must train your body weeks in advance.

Outside Magazine offers a 12-week winter fitness strategy incorporating cardio, strength and core exercises to get you in ski shape. Here are a few tips:

• Cardio: You'll need cardiovascular endurance to ski late into the evening before slipping into a hot tub under the stars. Trail running builds important lower-body muscles, but it also delivers eccentric (lengthening) strengthening, as running downhill requires you to slow your body weight, just as you do when skiing bumps. Mountain biking sharpens your reactive timing and balance, and swimming works your arms, chest and back.
• Strength: Skiing demands explosive muscle activity and shock absorption. Plyometric jumps build fast-twitch muscle fibers for swift turns. Lunges, squats, chin-ups, push-ups and the military press should also be in the mix.
• Core: Don't forget the abs for stable twists, turns and good balance. Ball crunches, knee-to-chest lifts from a captain's chair position or elbow-to-opposite-knee via bicycles are good ones. Woodchops (cable machine, dumbbell or elastic tubing) work the obliques.
  
  

Check out the full article for exercise explanations and recommended progressions, as well as this season's best performance-enhancing gear such as compression tights and heat-moldable footbeds.

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Plyos? What are plyos? You may not have heard of plyometric exercise before, but it's something you should add to your workout routine.

Plyometrics are quick, intense actions that trigger strong muscle contractions -- jumping, hopping, and bounding movements are considered plyometric. Many athletes use these exercises to boost their performance in a certain skill. For example, plyometric exercises can help basketball players jump higher. But the average Joe can benefit from plyometrics, too. In fact, Bethany recently told us how adding plyometrics can really pump up your walking workout.

Shape Magazine has a plyometric training routine you can add to your workout. Warm up your muscles with some cardio, then give plyos a try!

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Walking is great exercise all on its own. It's perfect for most any fitness level and doesn't require any special equipment. But if you add a few of the following techniques to your daily walk, you can significantly increase the number of calories burned and burn some of that dangerous and unsightly belly fat.

CNN recommends one of three methods for putting the punch into your walking workout:

• Plyometrics: These moves might make you feel a little silly at first, but you'll be the one laughing when that belly felt melts off. Add moves like bounding, jumping, and skipping to your walking workout.
• Hills: This is easy if you live in a hilly neighborhood. Substitute about 25% of your usual flat walking route with a hilly one. If you live in a flat area, you can program a hilly workout into a treadmill instead.
• Intervals: Intervals are surprisingly fun. Just keep up your normal moderate pace for ten minutes, then speed up for one minute. Return to your former pace for three minutes, then speed up again for a minute. Repeat this three or four times, then go back to your moderate pace.
  
  

Check out the full CNN article to find out how to make these walking techniques work for you and get ready to blast that belly fat!

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Workouts don't have to be an hour long. They don't even have to be a half-hour long. Heck, sometimes they can even be as short as five minutes long!! The trade off in this case is increased intensity.

Whereas an hour-long workout could be spent doing a moderately paced walk on a treadmill, a five minute workout has to be an all-out assault on your body to achieve similar results. The next time you only have five minutes to squeeze in a workout, I'm sorry to say that you are all out of excuses.

Here's the Drill:

Perform 25 to 30 squat jumps. If you're a beginner to exercise, this may be too many. In that case, only do about 10 to 15. And, before I let people off easy, if 25 to 30 is a piece of cake for you, bump the number up to around 35 or 40. Do the exercise properly by squatting all the way down until your thighs are parallel to the floor, and then explode upward to the point where your feet leave the ground. Land with your knees slightly bent (to absorb the impact) and continue right into your next rep.

Oh no, you're not done. You still have about three and a half minutes left to go at this point. Take a thirty second break in between sets, but don't you dare sit down. Instead, walk in place or do jumping-jacks. Do anything that keeps you active, but does not require nearly the amount of effort as the squat jumps. Then, when thirty seconds is up, start your next set of squat jumps. Continue with this same routine (including taking 30 second breaks in between sets) until five minutes is up.

Believe me, by the time you're done, you'll be begging to get back to your hour long workout!!

Plyometrics are very popular among trainers of college and professional athletes, though they are just now starting to catch on with everyday exercisers. Designed to add explosive power while burning fat, this system of simple, but highly effective exercises, may be exactly what you've been looking for.

One of the best parts of plyometrics is that you don't really need any equipment to perform them, save for the occasional use of a Swiss ball and medicine ball. But, if you don't have either of those right now, there are still plenty of other exercises you can do to get you started. Chief among them are:

• Lateral jumps
• Box jumps
• Bunny hops
• Push-ups
• Vertical jumps
• Clap push-ups
• Standing long jumps

To find out how to perform these and other plyometeric exercises, you can visit this website for a video demonstration.

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Ski preseason is here and it's time to hit training camp. Not only will you have a better chance of avoiding injury, you'll also lessen the overwhelming muscle soreness after your first day of skiing. But don't let these primer exercises keep you from slipping into that well-deserved hot tub after a day on the slopes!

Here are a few of Stone Clinic's ten tips to prime you for ski season:

• Single leg, one-third knee bends address strength. Stand on one leg with knee slightly bent and a chair on the opposite side for support, then go down and up on the single leg. Try for a smooth motion with no pause on the way up or down. The slightly bent knee should go to about 80 degrees of knee bend -- perform until fatigued, working up to 2 minutes per leg.
• Walk backwards uphill or upstairs in a semi-squat position. This one sounds really difficult, I'm going to try it on our local sledding hill which stands at about 45 degrees.
• Good for improving power, plyometrics are exercises that put a muscle in a stretched state, followed with an explosive move to contract/shorten the very same muscle. Stand on a curb or a step with your side to the sidewalk and jump down off the curb and quickly back up in sets of 10-30 seconds each.
• Stone Clinic recommends balance and proprioception exercises at the end of your workout, as good balance is especially necessary when you're fatigued on that last ski run and most prone to injury. Try standing on one slightly bent leg, hold arms tight against your sides and balance on the leg for 10-30 seconds, drop a little lower and hold for 10-30 more seconds. Repeat the sequence 3-4 times across different bent knee positions. Standing on an uneven surface (couch pillow, or those squishy semi-circles at the gym) or performing with your eyes closed will increase the challenge.

My husband's high school ski team used to start dry land training six weeks before they'd ever ski on snow. We're hitting the slopes in late December ... I will definitely be folding these exercises into my workout. I can already feel the burn.

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