I exercise to keep my midriff at bay. It’s my target area. We’ve all got at least one area we’d like to work on. Mine is the gut.
But I don’t just do sit-ups and crunches. I do a complete body workout using the Reviber Fusion. I do arm work, squats, lunges, press-ups and sit-ups.
I learned that doing this type of full body workout is the best style of training for fat loss and toning. It’s taken me a long time to understand this. In fact the only way I’ve been able to understand this is by doing it. I was stuck in the idea that you do one humungous workout, cripple yourself for a fortnight and wonder why there’s no change. I admit it, I’m not that smart.
But I’ve learned! I’ve learned that exercising the whole body increases blood flow and improves circulation and improves the bodies ability mobilise fat from the entire body.
Exercising the whole body instead of just doing sit-ups to reduce my stomach also means I’m exercising more. It takes about 30-40 minutes to do a full body workout of three sets of everything on my Reviber Fusion. Just the sit-up section on its own lasts about 10 minutes. 10 minutes of sit-ups and oblique crunches is about as much as I can possibly do on that one area. So working the rest of the body is all extra exercise.
Working the whole body means I can target different muscle groups more frequently too. Even if I could do 30 minutes of sit-ups, I’d need a full week to recover before going again.
With an all over body workout, however, I only do 3 sets per body part. So I can work all the areas more frequently. And if I can get to the next session and feel strong enough to do it, I won’t make an excuse to skip a session and I’ll slowly make the kind of progress I want. Clever eh? Took me a long time to understand that.
And as I keep at it, I’m seeing and feeling improvements in my legs, arms, chest and shoulders. There’s an improvement in the midriff too, but because everything else is getting better, I feel the stomach is the bit that lets me down still, but it is improving. There is still a long way to go!
The key is not to quit! There’s a little voice in my head who tells me not to bother. I ignore him now and get a workout done. I use this knowledge of regular working out to keep that voice quiet. As far as I can see this is the smartest way for me to get some longterm results.
So no more humungous sets of sit-ups and crippling myself for a week and then not doing anything for another month. It’s all about regular workouts. The new normal for me is three whole body workouts a week. The Reviber 6 week Challenge taught me how to get into this mindset.
I can now work out consistently at week 5 and week 6 on the 6 Week Challenge. I make a few changes to keep it fresh, but I generally follow the arm work, squats, deadlift rows, lunges, lunge pulls, push-ups, planks and sit-ups to exercise my whole body.
Wow, that’s actually quite a lot of exercise, well done me!