Posts

Showing posts from August, 2013

Cardio Coach Volume 4 - Thoughts

Image
Cardio Coach Volume 4 is an MP3 Download workout that you can use on virtually any piece of cardio equipment. I use this workout with my treadmill. Volume 4 clocks in at 52:38 if you do the whole workout including the stretch. Take out the stretch and your workout is just over 46 minutes. This workout includes a warm up, a cool down, 3 steady state, and 3 challenges.  The steady states are used for recovery after each challenge. Challenge 1 consist of 2 minute sprint, 2 minute hill climb and another 2 minute sprint.  In between the sprint hill intervals, Sean (your cardio coach) gives you a 30 second rest.  Challenge 1 last for 8 minutes and 15 seconds. Challenge 2 has you cranking up your incline or resistance for two hill climbs.  There is a 30 second rest between hill climbs. This challenge is 7 minutes and 56 seconds. Sean gives you the option of skipping Challenge 3. If you do it, you will be doing hill intervals and varying the time and rest period of ...

Discount Workouts Beginner Strength Vol 2 - Thoughts

Image
Discount Workouts - B eginner Strength Training Vol 2 contains two 30 minute strength training workouts. Workout 1 is led by Jennie and is a total body workout.  Workout 2 is led by Jodi and is an upper body workout. As in the other Beginner Strength workouts, there are no background exercisers. Jennie and Jodi take you through a series of exercises, varying the rep count, as they work the major muscle groups. Both the workouts uses the same or very similar music selection. I like these two workouts much better than I did the Vol 1 workouts. Equipment used - dumbbell, barbell, step, and a mat. Workout 1 - 3 & 3/4 stars Workout 2 - 3 & 3/4 stars

Discount Workouts Beginner Strength Training Vol 1 - Thoughts

Image
Beginner Strength Training Vol 1 is a Gymbox Discount Workouts. This DVD contains two 30 minute Strength workouts. Both workouts are led by an instructor name Chrissie and while they  call the workout beginner, I don't necessarily think they are beginner so much as they are shorter in length than their "Advance" workouts. Both workouts are similar in that there are not any background exercisers.  It is just Chrissie. I am assuming this is how she spells her name as their are no credits.  I thought both workouts were decent workouts. I like that they gave you a complete total body workout - hitting all the major muscle groups - in just 30 minutes.  I did find Chrissie a bit annoying in the second weight workout because she would say we were "done" but she would tack on several more reps.  When she kept doing this, I was like "just don't say anything". In all the exercises, Chrissie plays with the rep count, 2-2, single, pulses, 4-4, 3-1 -...

10 Minute Solution Ultimate Boot Camp - Thoughts

Image
10 Minute Solution Ultimate Boot Camp features Jessica Smith as the lead. The five 10 Minute workouts are: Fat Fighting Skills & Drills Ultimate Total Body Training Ultimate Upper Body Training Ultimate Lower Body Training Six Pack Ab Attack Fat Fighting Skills & Drills is an interval workout.that features high knees, skates, cone runs, ski hops, squat thrust (burpees) plank jacks, side shuffle touchdowns, trench crawls, jumping jacks. Jessica has you constantly moving in this workout.  Your recovery is jogging between drills.  Also there is lots of plank work in this workout. Ultimate Total Body Training uses a set of dumbbells and you also need a mat.  This workout contains several sets of compound exercises that work the lower and upper body at the same time.  For instance, squat into clean and press, static lunges with a one arm row.  Also Jessica put in a lot of power moves such as slam bag squat jumps, power squats, planks lunges ...

10 Minute Solution Hot Body Bott Camp - Review

Image
10 Minute Solution Hot Body Boot Camp , well as this is "Boot Camp" of course you expect to have burpees and mountain climbers, and you do, but there is not a whole lot of them.  These moves appear in the first workout and mountain climbers appear in Rock Bottom Sculpt. The five 10 Minute workouts are: Hot Body Cardio Calorie Blasting Drills Ab Assault Rock Bottom Sculpt Better Body Stretch Hot Body Cardio is a very intense 10 minutes. Even in the transition, Amy the instructor, has you jogging as oppose to marching.  This is the workout that contains the burpees or squat thrust and the mountain climbers.  This section also include tire runs, cross jacks, squat jumps, and one legged jumps.  Amy packs in a lot in 10 minutes.  You really do not get a break. Calorie Blasting Drills . This workout uses a set of dumbbells and each drill contains, cardio, coordination work and strength training.  I enjoyed this workout up until the last drill which w...

10 Minute Solution Sculpt, Tone & Reshape - Review

Image
Sculpt, Tone, & Reshape with the Figure 8 .  Long name. This workout comes with two figure 8 tubing.  One is yellow in color and the other is red. I guess they are suppose to be different resistances. I really couldn't tell.  The Figure 8 Tubing is used in all the workouts. So the five workouts in this 10 Minute Solutions DVD are: Sexy, Sculpted Lower Body Upper Body Tone & Chisel Fat Blasting Sculpt Jiggle Free Buns & Thighs Flat and Firm Abs Fast So there are two lower body workouts. The first one Sexy, Sculpted, Lower Body works the lower body in the standing position and Jiggle Free Buns & Thighs mostly works the lower body in the floor positions. Upper Body Tone & Chisel contains both standing and floor work. You do quite a bit of single arm work.  All five upper body muscle groups are worked.  The biceps and triceps are worked simultaneously. Flat & FIRM Abs Fast is another workout that contains both floor and standin...

10 Minute Solution Tone Trouble Zones - Thoughts

Image
10 Minute Solution Tone Trouble Zones features Amy Bento as the instructor. It is a band workout and the the band does come with the DVD or at least mine did. The five 10 Minute workouts are: Arm & Shoulder Sculpt Butt & Thigh Blaster Total Body Tone Zone Sleek & Sexy Abs 10 Minute Stretch Arms and Shoulder Sculpt worked the entire upper body, although I felt it was light on the chest work.  The workout started with rear chest flys working the back.  Amy continue working the back with the bent over row. There is some double arm work as well as single arm work.  Biceps is the next muscle group work; bicep curl and isolated curl in what Amy calls the spider position. Some single arm shoulder work is next followed by a triceps kickback.The last exercise is a triceps push up.  Butt & Thigh Blaster features the following exercises - skater squats, outer thigh & rear glute lift, pendulum kicks, donkey kicks, seated outer thigh pulls, ly...

10 Minute Solution Rapid Results Fat Burner - Thoughts

Image
Rapid Results Fat Burner features Cat Chiarelli as the instructor.  Cat leads you through 5 cardio based routines.  And not one routine featured mountain climbers or burpees. The five 10 minute workouts are: Power Sports Drills Extreme Intervals Low Impact Fat Blaster Rapid Results Kickboxing Cardio Max In Power Sports Drill s , the following sports are featured - soccer, volleyball, basketball and hockey. Also there are a series of jumping jacks and gate swings in the workout as well.  "This is about having fun"  Cat must have said that phrase about 10 times. Extreme Intervals feature high and low moves. This workout kind of threw me at first because I was expecting the high part to be double time and it is not.  The intensity came from just adding a bounce. So it was like single time and then for low, 1/2 time.  I still like this section though.  Some of the intervals are high knees, split lunge jumps, skaters, and snowboard jumps. Lo...

August Monthly Rotation 2013

Image
Happy August 2013 to you all. This month I start training for a 10K I have coming up in October. So along with a regular treadmill run,  I am doing Cardio Karate, Cardio Coach, and 10 Minute Solution workouts.