Because I am serious about my fitness journey a masochistic freak, I recently ordered this:

dvd

I figured that I was getting bored with the cardio options in p90x so I would use this on cardio days. I’ve done some of her workouts before and liked them. They are totally sadistic. I like that in a workout. I tried Day 1 today.

When I was lying in on the floor in a pool of my own sweat crying out to any god who would listen and his blessed mother, I remembered thinking that I like sadistic in a workout. I told myself to knock off the crazy.

It starts with a dance cardio workout for 30 minutes. I turned it on and there was a bit of explanation and then I waited for it to start. After a few minutes I realized that this wasn’t an intro but was in fact the workout so I had to start it over. That’s the really weird thing about this workout. There is ZERO explanation. There wasn’t a warmup that let you identify the start of the workout. Suddenly she’s just dancing and you are supposed to mirror the movements. The problem is that as soon as you start to get it, she’s doing something else. Occasionally there are voiceovers but they don’t really pertain to the action. One told me that I could feel free to freestyle as long as I kept moving. Thanks, I think I was freestyling even though I was trying my darnedest to do what she was doing. I don’t think we had much in common. It is super high impact. Thirty minutes of jumping up and down and twisting in vaguely dance-like motions. By the 10 minute mark my abs were hurting. I made it all the way through and then it was time to move onto the strength moves.

This is where being a little familiar with Tracy Anderson’s workouts from magazines and youtube helped. Again there is no explanation. You just mirror and she is moving fast. You do an arm series without weights and then an arm series with weights. The hand directions are very important but I don’t know if I would have gotten that right off if I hadn’t done some of these moves in workouts that were better explained before. Then there is an ab section (standing followed by mat work). Then the legs. These killed me. I have a hard time staying on all fours for a long time. Actually I guess it is all threes since one leg is lifting. My supporting leg always hurts more than my working leg. This series goes on and on. There are a few instructions but she doesn’t tell you when you are changing moves. So you are looking at the ground and have to keep peeking up at the TV to see if the move has changed.

Is it effective? Right now I barely have the strength to type. When I tried to take a drink after cardio I spilled all over myself. My abs are killing me. I really want to lie down but I’m afraid I won’t be able to get back up.

I am supposed to do this workout 10 times and then there is a different strength routine every 10 days for 90 days.