Mini Workouts for Belly Fat Reduction

Belly fat reduction is the natural consequence of living day to day in a calorie deficit as we’ve discussed several times already. The two paths to this are exercise and dieting. Exercise is the ideal choice to create a calorie deficit because you won’t run the risk of hurting your metabolism, which is your strongest advocate on the path to getting rid of belly fat. Dieting can be very effective, but if you’re not the type who likes to eat basic and natural foods all the time, it’s smarter to work with your natural inclinations and just suffer through a little but of physical training.

A barrier to belly fat reduction is the time and energy it takes to make it to the gym and push through a grueling training session. And fortunately for those who are busy or occasionally lazy, there is another more efficient training method that is just as effective for getting rid of belly fat. Mini workouts can last anywhere from 2 minutes to 10 minutes, and done once or twice a day can rival other training methods for effectiveness. And I know it may sound crazy, but it is quite possible to reduce belly fat with as little as 2 to 10 minutes of training a day if done properly.

As we’ve discussed elsewhere, the key to growth and gains in strength or endurance training is applying the principle of progressive overload, or methodically pushing your body past previous limits. One of the key components of this is the notion of intensity, which pushes our body to that limit in the shortest amount of time possible. This is how mini workouts can reap great rewards. When most people head to the gym they pay little attention to rest times and overall workout length. They just go in and do the work. But there is a very big difference in strength and endurance between a person who does a full body lift in one hour versus a person who can do that same lift in half the time.

This principle can be carried further to the point of short, intense, and compact workouts. These sessions in my opinion are most effective when done with bodyweight exercises, as most of us can do higher repetitions with bodyweight that with free weights. If you cannot do 15 pushups, sit-ups, or bodyweight squats, then you may need to supplement exercises with a bit of weight training. And here is the objective. To reduce belly fat, we want to exert as much energy as possible in the shortest amount of time. And this means using big compound movements in a fast paced circuit with no rest in between. Each exercise should be done to failure, that is until you cannot perform another rep, and then move immediately on to the next exercise.

To give you an example from my own mini workouts. I can generally do between 50 and 80 pushups, 50 and 80 bodyweight squats, and 20 to 40 v-sits. I do these as quickly as possible while maintain proper form and getting close to full range of motion (though speed reduces this a bit and maybe you don’t fully extend the arms and legs on the push up and squat motion). Start with as many pushups as you can do, then immediately move on to as many bodyweight squats, and then on to v-sits or crunches. This can be done in less than two minutes. This can be done for two sets after a 2 to 3 minute rest for a total workout time of less than 8 minutes, or can be done once in the morning and once in the evening. This simple compact mini workout is guaranteed to reduce belly fat if done daily or 5 to 6 days per week. Belly fat reduction has just become easy!