I recently gave my advice on the best barre moves to master - and the ones most often cheated in! Wellineux published a home workout guide and combined it with an XTend Barre giveaway. You can find the article on the Wellineux Blog.

Here are the moves and the reasons to do them. Don't belly flop.

Challenging and most importantly effective, these three moves are effective in developing body awareness, good core strength, muscular endurance, timing and postural alignment.

No belly flopping during the diamond push up! No dropping the hips while doing the bridge! Rather than cheat, you could try to make the moves smaller, or reduce the number of reps. Focus on perfect form if you are aiming for results.

The Diamond Push Up.Works: Triceps, shoulders, chest
Here’s how:

From a kneeling position, make a triangle shape between your index fingers and thumbs. Place your hands, in this position, below the chest in a push up position. Engage the core muscles as you would in a plank hold.
Try to maintain your head, neck and spine in alignment rather than dropping your head or straining your chin forward. Lower your chest towards your hands without letting the back arch and the belly slap the mat. This is belly flopping – don’t!
Press hard into the palm of the hands as you raise back to your starting position, fully extending the arms. Repeat. As many as you can.

The Bridge with Heel CarveWorks: Hamstrings, glutes
Here’s how:

Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the mat. Ensure your feet are hip distance apart. Extend your arms, palms down by your sides.
Tighten and engage your glutes then lift your hips up, feeling your abdominals also bracing gently to stabilise and support your spine.
Keeping your hips lifted, extend your left heel along the mat as far as you can, then imagine carving the floor open with your heel as you drag it back. The foot is flexed to really target the hamstrings. Repeat with the right leg.
Repeat until you need to rest, then gently roll down from the top of the spine until you’re back at the starting position.

The Lying Leg LiftWorks: Quadriceps, Abdominals
Here’s how:

Lie on your back with knees bent and feet hip distance apart. Extend your arms, palms down, by your side.
Extend your left leg to straight, flexing the foot as hard as you can. This is to engage the VMO (vastus medialis oblique) muscle – the quadricep muscle responsible for stabilising your kneecap. Turn the leg out to the side so that you have a slight external rotation.
Make sure you are engaging the abdominals to avoid your back arching as you raise and lower the leg. You should feel this right through the front and sides of the tummy!
Maintaining your foot in flexion and leg perfectly straight, raise the leg straight up – hold for a second – then lower your leg until it hovers just over the mat. Do this 10 – 20 times.
Repeat this on the right side.

I wrote this initially for ninemsn Honey but sadly, it was tacked on to an article about using fake tan and illuminator to fake toned arms. Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 would not buy it.

Nothing fake about strong arms. This is how to get the "Real Deal". You'll need 1 - 1.5kg dumbbells and some determination. I recommend Kanye West, Beyonce or Rihanna for a bit of "determination" via Soundcloud!

Try these simple yet effective arm-toning exercises from personal trainer Cat Woods. She recommends doing them three times a week either at home or the gym:

Tricep push-ups

#1 Assume a plank position on your knees, and imagine drawing the belly drawing back in toward the lower spine.

#2 Position hands slightly wider than shoulders and ensure that the arms stay hugged towards the rib cage as you lower and raise.

#3 When lowering, make sure elbows travel back towards the toes and that the upper arms brush against body.

#4 On the raise, push hard into the palms and try to maintain a long, strong back.

"Lower down as far as you possibly can and push all the way back up until your arms are straight," says Wood. "With practice, you’ll be able to lower deeper and keep your belly braced for longer sets."

Start off by doing a set of six, resting, then repeating two more times.

Tricep kick-back pulse

#1 Hold a 1kg dumbbell in each hand.

#2 Standing with feet hip distance apart, bend the knees and sit the hips back into a squat. Lean forward from the waist at 45 degrees, keeping the spine long and being careful not to round the back. Focus on pushing into the heels to also work the bum and thighs.

#3 Reach the arms back straight, slightly higher than the torso and giving the shoulder blades a little squeeze.

#4 Make tiny pulses upwards with straight arms, counting to 20. Then, with arms still extended, pulse the weights towards each other for another count of 20.

#5 Release arms and come up to standing. Do this another two times.

"The beauty of these is that they require small weights, very little movements and yet the results are stronger arms, great muscle tone and you have also targeted upper back and core," says Woods.