What regular exercisers regularly ask me is if the Firm Wave is any use to them as they are not novice exercisers, nor beginners, nor overweight, in fact most of them are an awful lot fitter than I am! They are interested as to whether the Firm Wave can give them a workout that is intense enough for their fitness goals; some are in training for distance running, and some are just regular exercisers who enjoy keeping fit and seek new challenges.

My answer to them is the same as it is to the novices; the Wave is suitable for anyone at any exercise level and the intensity of the workout that you get from the Wave will depend on the effort that you put in. In other words, a Wave workout can be as varied and intensive as you want it to be; because it is so versatile there are lots of ways to change your workouts to keep them fresh and to keep your body guessing as to what is coming next.

I seem to spend my life tried to persuade people to change their exercise programme, just as they seem to have got used to it. We are all creatures of habit and like things we are used to, and exercise workouts are no different but, if we keep doing the same things after our bodies have adapted to them, we will get no further in our fitness goals as our bodies will only expend as much energy as they need to carry out the task we have set for them. That means we will not get any fitter or slimmer or more toned unless we do something different and challenge our bodies in a different way.

The fitness gains and weight loss at the beginning of any new fitness regime are always the most dramatic, as fat is burnt as fuel and muscles get stronger to do what we ask of them. However, like the Borg, our bodies quickly adapt to the stresses placed upon them and the fitness gains become slower and then finally stop and will even reverse if the workout not changed.

In my opinion, the best feature of the Firm Wave is the number of ways it can assist in any fitness programme and the number of exercises that can be done with it, as it can be used either side up. One side is stable for use in aerobic exercises such as the many forms of Step, or stationary exercises using an elastic exercise band or dumbbells. The unstable side of the Wave presents a whole new challenge to balance and proprioception, making aerobic exercise more challenging and thus burning increased amounts of calories and engaging all core and postural muscles that we don’t usually use.