Saundra

Disc 9 Cardio Plyo Intervals is approximately 54 minutes in length and features Keli Roberts as the lead. In addition to Keli, there are two other cast members. I love the construction of this workout. There are about 7 pods and Keli teaches all the pods back to back. She gives you a chance to catch your breath - telling you " that is one time through and if you are keeping it short you can stop here or you continue on to do the full program ". She then goes back to the beginning and runs through all the pods a second time before moving to work the core. During the pod sections, there is not a lot of getting down to the floor in this workout which is a nice departure from some of the other Cardio Karate workouts. Keli did not do a lot of cuing or better put there were times she got really quiet. It didn't bother me. Just something I noticed. Definitely one of my favorites. 4 1/4 stars

Disc 8 Extreme Martial Conditioning 2 features Gregg Cook as the lead. Besides Gregg, there is one other cast member. Extreme Martial Conditioning 2 is set up exactly the same way as Extreme Martial Conditioning (EMC) 1. Therefore, I found this workout just as awkward to do as the first EMC workout. The warm up starts with plank work and then goes into a series of balance moves. Once you get into the Pods, you get a heavy dose of pull ups. In fact, each pods starts off with pulls ups, then goes into horse stance, then some type of total body move using dumbbells, then some other type of core and/or total body move using the sand weights. You repeat each pod twice before moving on. Also, there are a lot of moves where you are getting down on the floor - either via a burpee or a single leg roll back - lots of up and down. Gregg did a good job leading the workout. He did stop once to point out some form with Robert (the cast member). However, as I stated when reviewing EMC1, unless ...

Disc 7 Cardio Kata is approximately 57:22 in length and features Gay Gasper as the lead. There are three additional cast member in this workout besides Gay, for a total of 4. I think 4 is too many. There is this big support beam on the floor that one of the cast members kept having to work around depending on the move he was performing. The format for Cardio Kata is slightly different. There are 4 pods and within each pod there is an Intensity round. So it is kind of like a Hi Lo workout or if you do Cathe workouts, similar to when when she does a "blast"after one of her combos. For that reason, this workout definitely could have benefited from a few pre-mixes. One premix would be just the Pods sans the intensity round. Second premix would be just the Intensity Rounds without the Pod combos. Third premix would be all the pods combined plus warm up and cool down. I know. I know. Wishful thinking. I am surprise JB Berns (the creator) didn't think of this. I love the...

Interval Core is disc 6 in the Cardio Karate System. This workout features Greg Sims. and is just under 58 minutes in length. Along with Greg, there are two other cast members. Besides the part where Greg leaves off a whole pod when taking it from the top (this happens towards the end of the workout), I thought he did a overall good job in leading the workout. However, with that said, I didn't particularly like this workout. The combos or pods just didn't come together for me. This workout seemed to lack some of the unique moves found in the other workouts. The workout is easy and simple to follow. Greg pretty much calls out the move and you go into. There is a lot of repetition for each move. There is "taking it from the top". Planks and push ups do show up. The cool down is roughly the last 10 minutes of the workout and Greg tells you and the cast behind him "just to follow him". After doing Cardio Intense with Amy who forgot a section of the wor...

Cardio Intense is a long workout. It clocks in at 1 hour and 17 minutes. The last 15 or so minutes are ab work and the stretch cool down. This workout features Amy Bento Ross as the lead. There are two background exercisers, Jill and Uchenna. I will say that most of the time I really enjoy Amy but in these workouts, she has been annoying the heck out of me. She stops in the middle of an exercise to give "tips" that seem very haphazard. She is constantly talking, I think yelling, at Jill and Uchenna. At one point in the workout, I was like "Amy, please leave Uchenna and Jill alone. They know the workout. You are the one that needs to focus on the workout". In the first Pod, while going through the combos on the right side, she left out a whole set of moves. That completely through me off because I was expecting to go into that. She did remember when she went to the other side. During the core section, Amy was trying to demonstrate a move using Uchenna, that...

For February 2012 I will be alternating Insanity workouts with Cardio Karate . I have had the Insanity workouts since 2010 and just never got around to doing them. I would preview them and then decide I would rather do something else. I have only had the Cardio Karate workouts a little over a couple of weeks. Originally I was planning these for March, but changed my mind. I really want to see what these workouts are all about. Saturday is going to be Active Recovery day - mostly in the form of some extra stretching. I feel my body needs it. Since every workout, with the exception of Dynamic Flexibility, is going to be a new workout for me, I will be doing weekly blog post for the workouts I do that week. I don't have any evening workouts plan for February as I am looking to maximize my rest between workouts. February 2012 Wed Feb 1 - Insanity : Fit Test & Cardio Abs - 47 min Thu Feb 2 - Cardio Karate : Cardio Circuits - 63 min Fri Feb 3 - Insanity : Plyometric Car...

I received my Cardio Karate workout system. Right now, I don't plan to do the workouts until March. I did preview the workouts - something that I always do to make sure I actually received the right DVD and that the DVD plays without any problems. The 14 workouts that come with the system are : Welcome to the Dojo : Introduction to system only - 6:42 The Perfect Martial Arts Workout - 50:32 Disc 1 Cardio Circuits (Amy Bento Ross) - 63:00 Disc 2 Extreme Martial Conditioning 1 (Gregg Cook) - 60:24 Disc 3 Extreme Cardio Interval (Gay Gasper) - 57:40 Disc 4 Flexible Strength Conditioning (Keli Roberts) - 50:58 Disc 5 Cardio Intense (Amy Bento Ross) - 77:00 Disc 6 Interval Core (Greg Sims) - 57:43 Disc 7 Cardio Kata (Gay Gasper) - 57:22, Disc 8 Extreme Martial Conditioning 2 (Gregg Cook) - 64 minutes Disc 9 Cardio Plyo Intervals (Keli Roberts) - 53:45 Disc 10 Cardio Metabolic Interval s (Gay Gasper) - 64:00, Disc 11 Cardio Complexes (Amy Bento Ross) 56:15, Disc 12 Marti...