Need some serious #fitspo to get you off the couch and into that bikini? Look no further than the enviable physiques of Sydney sisters, Felicia and Diana of Base Body Babes. With over 200k followers on Instagram, they are definitely two of the most `liked’ bodies and with good reason.
The old saying `you get out what you put in’ definitely applies to these girls, they train hard and aren’t afraid to lift weights either, in fact they endorse weight training as part of their ‘Strength System’. And as for those toned tummies you’re eyeing off, yep they’re a bi-product of lifting weights too.
Discover how to Build Your Ultimate Base Body and maintain it for life when the Base Body Babes reveal their top health and fitness tips at the Vitality Fitness and Yoga Zone on Saturday 11 October from 12.15.
Until then, we quizzed the Babes on their favourite workouts, fitness philosophy, and why weight training is key to their regime.
See you in the Zone!
How did you come up with the name Base Body Babes?
Our system is all about building a foundation and we always talk about building a base for strength and optimal health and fitness. The word ‘base’ was popping up in so many of our sentences when we were training our girls, so from there we came up with ‘Base Body’.
We wanted a business name that described us and our business in a simple, catchy name and we wanted something fun to call ourselves and the girls that train with us, so we added ‘Babes’.
For those days where you’re just not feeling it, it must be awesome having an equally driven sister to get you up and at ‘em – how do you motivate eachother to train? What are some of the things you do to get your brain and body ready before a workout?
Like most people we definitely have moments when we struggle to motivate ourselves to get to the gym. But thankfully we have the support of each other and our very own Strength Coach, Sebastian Oreb ( Felicia’s husband) to motivate us to workout. We always love it once we start training and instantly our energy levels increase and our mood improves, so we are always thankful to each other for giving us that extra push we need to stay on track.
Before we hit the gym, we make sure we have eaten a healthy and nutritious meal, we also ensure we are always hydrated with water and we put our ear phones in with some great music and we are set for a great workout.
You both have amazing bodies but you can tell these are bodies you’ve worked hard to achieve. How often do you train? And what are your favourite workouts?
Thank you for the lovely compliment! We have both been training for over 10 years now, however we have really been training consistently for about 5 years. We workout with weights between 4-6 days per week and our training method combines strength and circuit days.
We like to evenly split our week with 50% strength training and 50% circuit training. We love strength training because we know that is where the majority of our results come from, but we must admit our fave workouts are the ones where we get to play around a little. These tend to be on circuit days when we can train alongside each other and have fun!
Your passion at BBB is to educate women to be happy, healthy, fit, strong and confident as possible – can you explain how each of these principles fit into your philosophy and why?
As personal trainers, it is our role to help women achieve their desired results. But to us it is more than just working out, we like to give our babes all the support and guidance they need to better their lives in every way. We spend most of our days training and chatting to women and we form really great relationships with all of the girls that we train, so we like to cover everything from eating well, training well and thinking positively so they can feel happy, healthy, fit, strong and confident everyday of their lives.
Your focus at BBB is on educating/training women, what are the main differences in workouts/fitness plans for women as opposed to men? Why?
We love training and inspiring women, we aren’t saying we can’t train men, we just choose not to, we have our other business partner (Felicia’s husband) Sebastian Oreb to train all of the men. Together with Sebastian we have created a system we call the Strength System which we believe is the ultimate way to achieve all of your health and fitness goals.
Our system can be used by both men and women and we all train similarly, however each person is individual and we cater our training programs to suit the individual. Male and female bodies are very different so there are particular ways we program for men and women to ensure we are always keeping them looking and feeling their best. Correct programming is key!
Your training is based upon the Strength System and you’re big fans of weight training. There have been so many programs before BBB that don’t encourage weights for women due to `bulking’ – what’s your response to this?
We know many women are afraid of lifting weights because they don’t want to get big and bulky and trust us, neither do we, but that doesn’t mean we don’t lift weights. We do, that is what our system is based on, we lift most days and we lift heavy and we aren’t big, bulky or masculine.
Together with Sebastian Oreb aka Australian Strength Coach, the number 1 strength coach in Australia, we have developed what we believe is the best way to shape a woman’s body and keep her healthy, fit and feminine.
What kind of weight training do you recommend for a woman? What do you recommended for women to complete in terms of reps, sets and weight range and what is your recommended minimum amount of days per week you should workout
We train in the gym 4-6 times a week, however, we believe for best results, you should train with weights a minimum of 3 days per week.
During our week, we do a combination of strength and circuit style training with weights. On our strength days we lift heavy weights, to put it simply, we keep the rep range low (under 8 reps), we have long enough rest periods for a better recovery so we can maintain the intensity for the whole session and we try and lift a heavier weight than we did in the previous session, this is the art of progression, which we believe is key to improving your body shape.
On our circuit days we usually perform 10-20reps, with 4-6 exercises back to back with no rest within the circuit, switching from upper body to lower body, with a 2-3 minutes rest at the end of each round. This forces our heart to pump blood around our entire body, which really gets the heart rate up, putting us into “cardio zone”.
People often ask us what we do for cardio, this is it, we don’t do traditional cardio exercises like jogging, we believe combining strength and circuit days this way is the ultimate synergy for a beautiful lean and toned body.
Now, let’s talk about your stomachs girls, wow, they’re perfect. What are your top tips for getting a bikini-ready tummy? Is it all about sit ups?
Thank you! Ok so for us it is definitely NOT sit-ups! We do not and have never done sit ups or any real traditional core exercises. We follow our system of lifting weights. We do a lot of full body movements like squats, deadlifts and upper body push and pull exercises and we eat a balanced diet of healthy and nutritious foods and that is it! This is how we get our flat tummies and maintain them everyday.
And finally, you are both incredibly stylish sisters, how does fitness fashion motivate you to train? what are your favourite workout brands?
Gone are the days of only being able to wear active wear in the gym. These days, you see women walking the streets, shopping, going on lunch dates and sometimes even working in their gym gear. Well that is definitely the case for us, we live in our gym clothes day in, day out and we love it. We are lucky enough to be able to work in such comfort everyday, but that doesn’t mean that we want to feel underdressed and boring.
We make an effort to style our workout gear and really spice up our wardrobes and sneaker collection to ensure we are always feeling stylish, comfortable and on trend in our active wear. This not only motivates us to train but allows us to feel trendy along the way. We stay on trend with the latest active wear through our fave one stop shop Stylerunner. This online boutique stocks the latest brands such as Adidas by Stella McCartney, Nike, Vie Active, Body Science, 2XU and many more which are our ultimate favourites.
Stylexicon + Modelexicon 