What is bodyflex?

This is a weight loss technique invented by the American housewife Greer Childers in the early 90s.

In her book “Gorgeous Figure in 15 Minutes a Day,” Childers says she couldn’t lose weight until she attended classes with a San Francisco sports physiologist who teaches “Rolls-Royce-level” breathing exercises. Expensive classes helped her lose those extra pounds. After that, Greer combined one breathing technique with constant tension of the abdominal muscles and static exercises copied from yoga asanas, and presented the technique to the general public.

Bodyflex classes last 15-25 minutes, do not require equipment and significant physical effort, which greatly bribe those who want to lose weight without shortness of breath, sweat and serious stress.

Bodyflex was popular in the late 90s – Greer’s technique was sold on videotapes and shown on television. Now he is almost forgotten in the USA, but quite famous in Russia.

Does bodyflex really help you lose weight?

In his book, Greer says that the main thing in losing weight is the access of oxygen.

Oxygen really helps energy production from glucose or fatty acids. But for this energy to be required at all, the muscles must shrink. Otherwise, why would the body waste its resources?

The more muscle groups you work, and the harder and longer you do it, the more calories you burn during the workout. Energy costs for 15 minutes of static postures are very small, which means they are not able to provide significant fat loss.

Childers also claims that the constant tension of the press, combined with breathing, helps to remove fat from the abdomen.

However, muscle tension able to destroy fat locally is a myth.

In terms of scientific research, we have been able to find the only one experiment on 25 people, conducted by Polish scientists. According to its results, two months of bodyflex training helped obese women lose an average of 3.64 kg, and an overweight group – 2.29 kg each. Participants with a body mass index (BMI) within the normal range did not lose weight at all.

Given the small size of the group, one study over 20 years of the existence of the technique and modest results, the effectiveness of bodyflex for weight loss has not been proven.

But it does help someone. Why does it work for them?

Bodyflex is based on breathing exercises. And, unlike the Childers technique, they are quite well researched. They useful for the cardiovascular system, able lower the level stress and improve the emotional state of a person.

Perhaps this is what causes the slight positive effect of bodyflex.

Chronic stress interferes with weight loss. In organism declining the amount of the hormone adiponectin, which is involved in the breakdown of fats. At the same time, the level of cortisol, a hormone that slows down this process and retains water in the body, increases.

Breathing exercises reduce stress, and with it, extra pounds go away. For example, in one research 12 weeks of daily breathing sessions of 20 minutes reduced participants’ BMI by 10%.

The same 10% lost weight in the bodyflex experiment. With the difference that obese women participated there, and here – young and healthy students of both sexes.

We can conclude that just breathing deeply is no less, if not more useful for losing weight, than straining and stretching something at the same time.

Will bodyflex help strengthen muscles?

Isometric exercises really able increase strength and muscle mass. Maybe a little worse than isotonic – those in which you move, but still.

The only disadvantage of such exercises is that you do not develop the functional strength that is useful in real life. If you train the body in static, become stronger just in a stationary position. In movement, however, which is how muscles work in ordinary life, your possibilities remain modest.

If you have a very low level of training, bodyflex will help strengthen your muscles, but you should not wait further …