People from all over the world have gravitated to this fast-paced five-minute belly-blasting workout that is blowing up on TikTok. User Janny14906 has almost 14 million followers and more than 40 million likes on a series of videos that show her leading several classes that feature a signature pelvic thrusting move set to a techno music background. Many of her videos are short clips showing the same move on repeat with captions that read “lose five pounds in five days.”
While the standing ab crunch may seem easy to mimic, it takes concentration, dedication and core strength to keep the dance going for a long period of time. However, many users are sharing their incredible results in a short amount of time. For user Carlinerose12, 27 consecutive days of the exercise led to a 17-pound weight loss that also went viral.
Just five minutes a day sounds like a dream, but is this technique really the secret to a flatter stomach? “Whether you’re activating your muscles in a plank or a standing position and dancing, you’re engaging the core,” explains Tara Bradley Connell, RYT-200 yoga instructor. “When the core is strengthened it improves your posture, tightens the waist, reduces back pain, and revs up the metabolism. It also doesn’t hurt that dancing around your living room is more fun than a plank so you’ll most likely do it longer and have more fun in the process.”
Xtend Barre’s Andrea Rogers agrees that targeting your core is a good way to trim belly fat, but she also cautions that one should be mindful of risks associated with any workout. “I can’t see any specific ab muscle contraction happening and would not be able to promote this as a great way to lose weight,” she explains. “Of course by doing any standing abdominal contractions combined with inner thigh contractions—dancing or not—you will feel and see some results, but if this is not performed properly this can easily go into the lower back region.”
