Workout Review: 4,000 Steps to Shed Belly Fat with Improved Health
During the dreary winter months, it’s even more important to have plenty of options in our exercise arsenal. After all, you might not want to walk four miles outside in the stinging sleet. If you’ve got a treadmill in the house, you’ve got an easy backup plan—but you might also want to change it up with some walk-at-home workout videos like the “4000 Steps to Shed Belly Fat” walking workout by Jules from Improved Health.
This roughly 30-minute workout takes walkers through a variety of different steps, using both arms and legs for a full-body workout. If you find yourself getting tired of the steps in most walk-at-home videos, you’ll appreciate the quick changeover here. Each move is repeated for just 20 seconds before returning to 20 seconds of basic walking in place. The steps are generally easy to follow, and you’ll find that those 20 seconds often go by incredibly quickly—and if you get caught up in your steps, you might look up and realize that the instructor has already moved on.
The video style, meanwhile, is simple but effective—just the instructor in a simply-decorated room with some generic but upbeat workout music. There are two countdown clocks: one for the seconds remaining in the current step and one for the time remaining in the workout. And in the final seconds of each step, there’s a picture-in-picture window that appears to show you the next move.
Like its video style, this workout is simple but effective. You’ll move through a variety of steps, following along with the instructor and she moves from one to the next at a moderate pace. There’s nothing here that’s flashy or over-the-top—no pop hits to sing along with, no shouting instructor—and while I sometimes find these simpler videos to be a little…dull…this one doesn’t feel that way. The instructor seems generally upbeat—despite not giving any spoken instruction or encouragement—and the workout moves at a pace that keeps it from feeling long and monotonous.
At the end of the 30-plus-minute workout, my watch showed that I was just under two miles—so the 4000-step count seems pretty close to accurate. And the instructor finishes up with a few extra minutes of stretching—making it a complete workout that’s worth trying on those days when you just can’t force yourself to walk outside.
You can find this workout and others on the Improved Health YouTube channel. Or stream the full video below.
Pros:
– Simple style with few distractions
– Lots of variety and frequent changes to keep you from getting bored
– Two helpful countdown timers
– Picture-in-picture video shows next moves
– Instructor seems upbeat
– Uses full body
Cons:
– No encouraging, explaining talk
– Generic music
