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October 2024 Workout Rotation For October, I have short (25-minute or less) workouts plan.  The workouts will be coming from The FIRM Express and 30-Minute-to-Fitness premix and RAW timesaver workouts.  

  June 2021 Rotation I was looking for short and sweet workouts. And The FIRM's 20 minute workout fit the bill.  Workouts this month include FIRM Express series, treadmill walk/runs, and Michelle Dozois strength workouts.  I also through in (not shown) some Jeanette Jenkins Sexy Abs workout session. All in all, June was a good workout month.  The only thing I switch out from my original schedule was I swapped  out Treadmill 2 mile for Jessica Smith's Cardio Hits workouts.

The following is a review I wrote somewhere else of the whole FE system. I was asked recently by a couple of people about my thoughts on the system as a whole so I am posting my ramblings here. I have posted thoughts on the individual workouts/cycles in January 2011 portion of the blog . "Okay. I just recently finished all the workouts in the FIRM Express System . I think many of the workouts are going to start showing up individually or in pairs in the retail market soon. I can give you information on an individual workout if you like but for now most of my comments will be on the system as a whole. The system consist of : Kickstart Your Metabolism - Includes 10 minutes Pump It Up and 10 minutes Shortcut to Flat Abs. Jennifer Ray Cycle 1 Ignite - Cardio+Sculpt , Cardio, Sculpt - 3 workouts each 20 minutes., Emily Welsh Cycle 2 Accelerate - Cardio+Sculpt, Cardio, Sculpt - 3 workouts each 20 minutes, Rebekah Sturkie Cycle 3 TurboCharge - Cardio+Sculpt, Cardio, Sculpt - 3 wor...

FIRM Express Cycle 4 Overdrive features FIRM Master Instructor Kelsie Daniels. In OverDrive "Now your body is primed for burning overall body fat, blasting belly fat and sculpting beautifully defined muscles." This is a quote from the fitness guide. Overdrive Cardio Sculpt follows the same format as the other Cardio Sculpt workouts. What I like about Overdrive's version is that it does not start with a fancy warm up. The warm up contains no-nonsense typical athletic moves. I appreciated that because I could just listen to Kelsie's cuing instead of watching the TV. With the other ladies, I had to watch the television to figure out what they were doing in their Cardio Sculpt warm ups. The Burst in this workout: Burst 1 - Single Leg Step Leap Burst 2 - Tuck Jumps Burst 3 - Dip Courtesy Jumps Burst 4 - Side lunge and courtesy . Some other moves featured in this workout are: Burpees with push ups, static squat holds with bicep curls, and courtesy dips with rows and tric...

Cycle 3 of the FIRM Express system is TurboCharge . The three workouts in this phase is led by Master Instructor Alison Davis McClain. This cycle is suppose to "lean out your physique with the best in cardio coupled with muscle toning exercises". TurboCharge Cardio Sculpt by far is my favorite (so far) of the Cardio Sculpt workouts. This one had great flow between the cardio, the sculpting moves, and the burst. And yes I am thinking the "hinge move at the waist" is the FIRM's new signature move because it appears again in all three workouts. I will have to see next week if Kelsie includes this move. The Burst are: Burst 1: Power Step Touch Burst 2: High knee side to side Burst 3: Single leg lunge run Burst 4: Tire Run TurboCharge Cardio I am lukewarm on. I am usually a fan of Alison's cardio choreography and I while I think some moves are innovative, much of it I found repetitive. Also she uses a weight to get increase the intensity in some combin...

The FIRM Express System Cycle 2 Accelerate features Master Instructor Rebekah Sturkie. It also contains three 20 minute workouts and it is build as the cycle where you " Carve and FIRM muscles while blasting calories !" It uses moderate to high impact with weights in the range of 8 to 12 lbs. The first workout I did in this cycle was Accelerate Cardio Sculpt . I like the warm up and opening sequence in this workout. One thing I have notice is that there seems to be a lot of hinging at the waste across the board in the workouts I have done so far. This seems to be a pattern with the various FIRM systems. That a certain move will appear in all the workouts throughout at particular series. I don't know if it will turn out to be this way for The FIRM Express System because I haven't done the other cycles yet. The burst in this Cardio Sculpt are : Burst 1 - V Hops Burst 2 - One Leg Vertical Jump Burst 3 - Plie power jumps with scoop arms Burst 4 - Speed squat shuffle ...

Taken straight from the literature in The FIRM Express Fitness Guide is the following on what The FIRM Express System is all about: "Here's how it works: Instead of starting with cardio, then sculpting each muscle group separately like most traditional workouts do. The FIRM Express compresses cardio and sculpting moves into twelve, rapid-results workouts. The routines are grouped into four progressive cycles that include the hottest studio moves, plus The FIRM Express Mini Bursts , the fast-blast interval technique that gets targeted results burning up to 9X more fat than traditional cardio workouts. All segments feature no-nonsense moves designed to work all your muscles at once-and your abs continually." Definition of The FIRM Express Mini Burst - "Mini Bursts alternate 8 seconds of fast paced exercise with 12 seconds of slower paced "recovery" movement." So this week, I did the workouts from cycle 1 Ignite of The FIRM Express System. The FIRM Expre...

Kick Start Your Metabolism is a bonus workout that comes with The FIRM Express system. The FIRM Express system is the most recent (release December 2010) FIRM weight loss system. The system comes with twelve 20 minute workouts and also includes this workout, a 4 day Kick Start Plan, and the FIRM Express Fitness Guide. Kick Start Your Metabolism includes two workouts. The first is Pump It Up and the second is Shortcut to Flat Abs . Both are 10 minute workouts and both feature one of the FIRM's newest instructors, Jennifer Ray. Pump It Up is a Cardio Sculpt workout with emphasis on cardio. It featured 4 mini burst done practically back to back. Jennifer uses one set of weights to increase the intensity. The burst include squat jumps, alternating plyo lunges, plank jumps side to side, and ski hops with alternating rows. There is a count down clock that counts down the 8 second mini burst but there is not a clock that counts down the 12 second rest and I would have like to ...