Day 29

DVD - Core Cardio and Balance

This workout is a whole different kind of hard. There are no insane top-level heart rate cardio sections and no intervals. The moves start slow, though not quite as slow as Cardio Recovery. As in Pure Cardio you do each move for 30 or 60 seconds, depending on the move. The initial segment is comprised of a move that is like jumping rope without the rope, followed by mummy kicks, high knees, Heismanns, Hit the Floor and a couple of other moves similar to ones done in the other workouts. Only not as fast. More aerobic than anerobic.

In my opinion, some of the moves are harder to do when you are doing them slowly. Something about the control needed when the moves are slower and more deliberate seems to make my muscles hurt more while I'm doing the workout, if not as much later.

After the initial segment, there is a stretching section just like the intense cardio workouts. The first few moves after the stretch section are plyometic moves. Not exactly cardio, but your heart rate shoots up because of the use of your legs to launch yourself from the floor. My heart was thumping and I was dripping after a minute of jumping as high as I could from a slight bent-knee position, keeping thighs together in the air and landing again on a slight bended knee - controlled jumps, not fast at all.

There are also a number of combination moves where you do 8 reps each of two moves, repeating this for the alloted time (8 hook punches followed by 8 hop squats), or 8 reps of one move followed by a quick change move (8 jabs, do a 180 degree jump turn, 8 more jabs, repeat).

Even though I wasn't pushing myself to move as hard and fast as possible, there were moves I couldn't do for the full time allotted - same goes for the crew in the video. Overall I did pretty well. The moves that got me came toward the end.

The first set were hip flexor moves. If you are like me, you may not know what a hip flexor is. For weeks, I thought Shaun had been calling one of the regular stretch moves "Hip Flex and Stretch"> He was saying "Hip Flexor Stretch". I didn't realize there was a special name for the place circled on the picture to the right. I thought it was just generally referred to as "hip".

Anyway, the hip flexor section of this workout is a series of 3 moves, each done for thirty seconds. The kicker is you are not ever supposed to stop. It isn't cardio, so you don't have to worry about your heart or ability to catch your breath. But HOLY FUCK does it hurt to do them. First, you stand on one leg and bring the other repeatedly up so your knee goes above your waist. Not exactly fast, but not slow. After 30 seconds you stop with your knee in the air, and pulse upward from that position for 30 seconds. My hip flexor was screaming part way through the first move. By the second, I had to stop for a few seconds. The final move starts with your knee still raised, and requires you to extend your leg out with your foot flexed. The people in the video could raise their lower legs to a straight line with their thighs - I got mine somewhere in between perpendicular and straight. For the time I could do it. I didn't get all the way through without stopping, and for the last 10 seconds I couldn't lift my legs much past 90 degrees.

What really, really hurt was moving my hip flexor out of this engaged position and putting my foot back down on the floor. Holy FUCK again.

The final set of moves was just as hard, but on my shoulders instead of my hip flexor. These moves are done from a plied squat position, with your arms extended out so they make a straight line with your shoulders. First you pulse the arms. Then you bring them in front of you and move them back. Then they go up over your head and back to a straight line with your shoulders, like you are flapping your wings. Then you circle backward. Then you circle forward. At some point in there, I was yelling through the burning pain in my shoulders to keep myself going (a tactic often employed by Shaun and the crew). Michelle Obama arms, here I come.