What are bingo wings and where did the name come from?
Most of us have come across the phrase 'bingo wings' and we are aware it is the term used to describe the 'flabby' part of the back of someone's arm. It is basically where high levels of body fat has gathered. However, what most people aren't aware of including myself until I did a google search is where it got it's name from. It refers to someone who is obese and waves their arm up in their air when playing bingo.
Anyway back to the serious stuff....
By training a specific area does not result in reducing body fat in that area!
You maybe someone who has fallen victim to some exercise video where they get you doing thousands of reps of some kind of arm exercise with a 1kg dumbbells. The only thing you get from the routine is not being able to move your arms for a week.
The same can be said for sit ups. You can do these until the cows come home but they are not going to reduce the body fat around your stomach. They are more likely just going to cause you back pain.
Unfortunately we can't pick and chose where we store our body fat and we can't chose where we lose it from first.
But we can reduce our overall body fat and we can increase our overall muscle mass.
To achieve this we need to stop wasting our time with silly workout videos and incorporate the following into our lifestyle:
Calorie Deficit
To reduce body fat you need to eat less calories then your body requires to maintain your current body weight. Your body will begin to break down your fat for fuel and this will reduce your overall body fat.
NEAT
Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is basically any movement you do through out the day that doesn't include exercise. If you increase your daily activity (e.g. steps) this will help assist with your calorie deficit. Study's have found that when people considerably reduce their calorie intake their NEAT levels drop and this consequently results in them burning less calories. Smart watches can be a great tool for when you are in a calorie deficit because by tracking your steps you can make sure that you are not reducing your steps as well as your calories.
Resistance Training
Incorporate resistance training into your workouts with your primary focus being on compound lifts (exercises that require use of multiple muscle groups). This will not only help increase muscle mass but again will help assist with your calorie deficit. Make sure you incorporate progressive overload into your programme because this is the process required to increase your muscle mass. Progressive overload is achieved by doing a little bit more each session then you did the time before. For example that could be adding some more weight to the exercise, doing an extra set, or even something as small as doing one more rep then you did the week before on that particular exercise.
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