Saundra

Essentrics Body Sculpting Series is lead by Sahra Esmode-White.  There are three workouts on one DVD.  Sahra states that each workout is a total body workout but each workout has a particular emphasis. The workouts are: Ultimate Leg Sculptor Ab Flattening & Waist Shaping Arm Blast & Posture Boost Ultimate Leg Sculptor workout includes standing and mat work. After the warm up, Sahra takes you through a series of Essentric trademark exercises which included lunge reaches (simulated elastic pull downs) and figure 8s. A plies series follow. This puts you at the 9 minute mark of the workout. You then move to the floor for a series of table top leg exercises.  Donkey kicks, leg lifts, hamstring curls, leg pumps and side kicks are the exercises.  There is also lying side leg work. In this section, Sahra alternates working the outer and inner thigh and glute area using traditional Essentrics lengthening exercises.  The workout concludes with seated ...

  A Little Obsessed is a 5 Day program that is touted as an intro to the longer 80-Day Obsession program. Both programs were created by Autumn Calabrese. A Little Obsessed consist of five 30-minute workout. The workouts are : Day 1:  Total Body Core Day 2:  Booty Day 3:  AAA Day 4:  Cardio Core Day 5:  Legs These are on-demand workouts. The whole system comes online including program material (nutrition plan, tracker sheets, workout calendar and a spotify playlist). None of the workouts have music. Autumn tells you to download the spotify playlist. Also, none of the workouts had a timer, countdown clock or subtitles.  I am used to that with BeachBody workouts and I missed that. The warm ups are the same for each workout. The workouts have a beginner modifier. In Day 1:  Total Body Core, there are 10 exercises. You do all 10 exercises for 15 reps per exercises.  Then you repeat all 10 exercises for a second set.  The exe...

Grand Total Vol 1 Going Strong is a 45-minute metabolic sculpting workout.  The workout is divided up into 8 chapters. Some of the chapters are interval based The chapters are: Warm up Power Step Split Squats Fast Cardio Squats Upper Body Floor Work Stretch This workout uses a club step and dumbbells. The workout starts with about a two minute stretching -slightly dynamic warm up.   The power step segment is one of your intervals. Tracie mixes power step work with weight work. Some of the exercises are power jumps, plank burpees, dead lift row, split jump squats, and side squats. The split squat segment is mostly strength training. You are doing a series split squats along with push up step outs, french press, brake squats and plank work. In fast cardio you are using the top of the step.  In this segment, you are working on and around the step.  The squat segment requires the use of a prop (some type of step, box or chair). You are doing single leg...

March 2018 Monthly Rotation Another month has flown by. I have a 5K race this month. Workouts I have plan include: Kelly Coffey-Meyer Cardio Pump and Build and Burn. Autumn's A Little  Obsessed. Michelle Dozois,  a Tracie Long,  Essentrics, and  Body Combat Les Mills On Demand workouts. I am still working my way through the 3-Week Yoga Retreat workouts.  Did not get very far last month.

The last group of the FitSplit workouts are Mixed Impact Cardio and Pull Day. Mixed Impact Cardio is your drill based high- low workout.The warm up is around 5 minutes and it is mostly steady state cardio.  The mixed impact portion is around 20 minutes. Cathe combines athletic, kickboxing, plyometrics, and drills moves to make up the mixed impact cardio. Cathe offers lower impact modification tips for some exercises. Pull Day is your strength workout. The workout uses the drop-sets technique.  Cathe lowers the reps and she moves from set to set.  For most exercises you are doing three sets. You do get a a chance to catch your breath in this workout, more so than the other workouts. Cathe takes time for equipment clean up which gives you more of a rest.  This workout uses dumbbells, a barbell. stability ball and a mat. You are working back, biceps, and hamstring. There are 3 basic premixes, 5 time-saver premixes, and 4 scrambled premixes. I did Just Mixed Im...

Shred Cardio and Push Day are two workouts that come with Cathe's FitSplit series. Shred Cardio is a step blast workout. The workout starts out with a brisk warm up performed using a step.  Then come the blasts. There are 12 blasts and the blasts vary in intensity. Each blast is a mini drill performed using high intensity moves. You are working on the step, off the step, over the step and around the step. The reps vary but what I found is that for the super high intensity moves you are doing 6 reps per round and most blast had two rounds. There's lots of jumping but Cathe does show how to modify some moves.  Some of the moves you will see are power 3s, power 15, plyo jacks, squat thrust, wide jumps, and swimmers. Push Day is the strength workout.  In this workout you are working chest, triceps, shoulders, calves  and quadriceps. The exercises are performed as supersets and for most exercises you are doing three sets.  Cathe reduces the number of reps ...

Low Impact Cardio and Metabolic Conditioning were the next set of workouts I did as part of Cathe's FitSplit series. Low Impact Cardio contains a series of drill based athletic cardio moves. The rep count varies from exercise to exercise but for most exercises you are doing 2 sets - changing the lead side for the second set.  Last half of this workout uses a disc or rag. I typically don't care for Cathe's low impact workouts but this is by far my favorite of her low impact workouts (well not counting Low Impact Circuit - loved that workout as well). Metabolic Conditioning is an upper body lower body compound workout. There are some isolation exercises but for the most part Cathe combines exercises so you are working the lower and upper body at the same time. There is quite a bit of plank work and along with dumbbells you are using a gliding device.  This DVD has three basic premixes, four timesaver premixes, and 4 scrambled premixes. I did the Just Low Impac...