Beachbody's newest workout routine was released October 14th 2009 and it's called RevAbs. Revabs was created by Brett Hoebel.
So who is a Brett Hoebel?
Brett Hoebel is a 15-year veteran in the health & wellness industry, Brett has worked with different celebrities including Victoria's Secret supermodels Doutzen Kroes and Karolina Kurkova, supermodel and television host Veronica Webb and actresses Emmy Rossum and America Ferrera. Brett was also the co-host of Fit Family, a reality-fitness show on Discovery Channel and has appeared on The View, Good Morning America and Fox News. He has been featured in various publications including Vogue, The New York Times, InStyle, Elle, Allure, Shape and Self magazine. For the second time, New York Magazine awarded Brett and some of his exercise programs 'Best of New York'.
Brett is also an award-winning group fitness instructor and nationally recognized personal trainer. He holds certifications in Personal Training, Nutrition & Lifestyle Coaching, Metabolic Typing(TM) Nutrition, C.H.E.K. Holistic Exercise Kinesiology, Hatha Yoga and Prenatal/Postpartum Conditioning. Brett also has an extensive background in biomedical research as a premed in college and in martial arts including Afro-Brazilian capoeira and Muay Thai kickboxing.
I will be honest, my first impressions of this program has not been high. I decided to give it a chance before completely writing if off. I have to say I'm glad I did. Brett is actually a great guy and you can see that he really cares about success and results. The RevAbs workout I did was called "Fire Up Your Abs". Brett has six different ab areas he focuses on:
1) Upper Flexion
2) Lower Flexion
3) Side Flexion
4) Double Flexion
5) Twist
6) Extension.
Each area is hit during each workout. For the entire RevAbs workout routine Brett focuses on three major areas: Abs, Intervals and strength training.
Fire Up Your Abs begins with a light warm up and static stretch. This workout does not have much cardio in it as it is mainly a 40 minute abdominal workout. This is a repeat workout, done in 3 rounds. Starting out with a plank hold from your elbows and your going to hold this for one full minute. Next is cobra, to strengthen your back. Brett makes the comment that strong abs requires a strong back and that almost every ab workout skips this step. I have to agree, because every ab workout I have done never includes anything for my back. Next we move on to what he calls dumbbell jackknife, basically lifting one leg as you sit up, but add a dumbbell doing eight on each leg. Now we go to another plank position only this one is side plank and we do each side for 30 seconds. Next he takes us to an interval move called striders and we do this at max for 30 seconds, you may know striders as plyo lunges. That's it! Except we repeat it two more times. By the end my abs were screaming for a break which I thoroughly enjoyed. To complete this workout it will only take 40 minutes and I burned approximately 500 calories. It went by quick and I had a good sweat and calorie burn. My abs are sore and thats a good sore so all in all I enjoyed RevAbs and Brett.
Does RevAbs Work?
I'm writing this one day after my first Revabs workout. I'm sitting in my recliner relaxing with my kids before school. Everything in my abdominal area is sore. After the workout yesterday I could feel I worked my abs pretty good, but until this morning I hadn't felt the pain. What's more is my obliques, upper and lower abs are all sore, Brett got them all covered yesterday. I will be adding this workout to my P90X Insanity Hybrid workout. Brett is not kidding when he says "this is a 90 day total ab solution".
What's New
There are a couple different aspects Brett brings to Revabs that I wanted to point out. One of which is the "Rev Zone". The Rev Zone is when one of the cast members is put into a split screen that is tinted in red. While in the Rev Zone you are to go all out during which ever move we are doing. As a viewer you have the option of doing the Rev Zone or going at your own pace. This is a pretty neat idea and I think it works well with this program.
Like most of the other Beachbody workout routines RevAbs has a cast member doing each move modified. This is another good feature to have for those individuls who can not do the moves required due to lack of strength or flexibilty.
Another concept Brett included in RevAbs is the Rev Anthem. In my opinion, this at first was kind of cheesy, but there is a point to it. The pledge goes like this "Rev it high, Rev it low, I'm strong, committed, and ready to go". Ok, so what's the point, after you do an interval move such as striders where you heart rate goes up, Brett asks you to say the Rev Anthem and depending on you heart rate you will see how much of the anthem you can say before needing another breathe. If you can say the anthem without a breathe, maybe you need to push harder.
In conclusion I feel this is a world class abdominal workout. If you are looking to focus on sculpting you abs this program can get you results. I plan to purchase the entire program shortly and see where it takes me.
