Denise Austin Fat Burning Cardio Walking Workout Beginner

Why I chose this workout...

I'm still in my week without Leslie, but I wanted to do another walking workout. I seem to do better with them. I liked Denise Austin as an instructor in the workout that I did on Monday, so I thought I would give this short workout a try. I was actually hoping for a longer workout, but I couldn't find a longer walking workout with Denise Austin on YouTube. This workout was posted by BeFit, so I feel confident that it's up legally and I have no moral dilemma about sharing it with all of you. You can find it by clicking here. 

The Workout

There wasn't much of a warm up and the pace did not really change throughout the workout. She started off by marching in place. The smile you see above was plastered on her face the entire workout, but her voice is so low and husky that her crazy enthusiasm doesn't get annoying.

She doesn't give much instruction in this workout and she doesn't give you much notice before you start something. She did introduce the next step by saying something like...Okay now we're going to do knee lifts. She then did then. her knee lifts are different than any knee lift I've done before. Her foot looked like it was stretched out so her knee made a 135 degree angle instead of a 90 degree angle. It was weird, but it worked. She introduced the side steps, and then for a double side step, she called it a sidewalk. Once we were doing the sidewalks, she said something like.....Now let's add the arms. Everyone in the video knew how to add the arms, but I didn't. I felt a pace behind for pretty much the entire workout since most of it was like that.

I get that people will typically do workouts repeatedly so if you give too much instruction, people will get bored overtime since they've already been there, done that, got the t-shirt to prove it. I can't knock her for her lack of instruction based on that, but as a first time user of this workout, I really did feel behind for the entire thing. I was able to keep up with her without a problem and nothing became too strenuous. This was a bit like a typical aerobics workout though in the sense that there was some choreography to deal with. There was a move where you walked forward while raising your arms up over your head, then you did an arm roll on each side. Then there was a side walk move with the arm. That was followed by the side steps with the arm. Then you walked backwards while raising your arms up over your head. That was followed by the arm rolls for each arm. Then more side walking with arms and side steps with arms.

I do better with workouts that are a single step until someone tells me to do something different. I don't put moves together well. I'm sure it's better for my body to do the stringing together of moves thing, but if my head doesn't enjoy what my body is doing, my head won't tell my body to turn the DVD player on in the morning. I'm okay with a slower pace weight loss, as long as I'm enjoying what I'm doing.

There was essentially no cool down. The workout ended with a couple of deep inhales while raising your arms up over your head while still walking. She said that we had completed the workout.....fade to black. I liked it enough that I would do it again to see if I felt any better now that I know the moves, but I probably won't do it anytime soon just because it's such a short workout and I'm trying to only have one short workout day a week.

BodyMedia Screen Shots

Here are my BodyMedia screen shots for the workout. It wasn't very intense, but it was better than sitting on the couch doing nothing. I really do like seeing the arc of the workout. You can see how this one just dropped right off at the end. I did say there was essentially no cool down and I wasn't joking.