Review of Beachbody Les Mills Pump: Hard Core Abs

Hard Core Abs

It seems like every Beachbody program comes with a short workout for the abs. I'm never a fan of them because I don't like ab workouts. I do them at least once because for some reason, I always think this will be the one that I like! I'm always wrong, but that's okay. I was actually looking forward to this one yesterday though. I didn't feel like doing anything bouncy and I didn't feel like committing myself to a walk. I was perfectly content to just lay on the floor and work my abs. So that's what I did! 

The Workout

This one was about 15 minutes. It consisted of three tracks and it was done completely on the floor. Most of it was done on my back. I was very happy with that! Normally, I hate floorwork for abs, but I seriously did not want to be vertical! We didn't need any equipment for this!

Track 1

We started out with our feet on the floor and our knees bent. We lifted one foot up at a time. We did it slowly. Then we did it faster. Then we did a bit of a bicycle move, but our feet came down to the floor instead of going straight out. Then we did some slow crunches with our feet on the floor. Then we crunched with the upper body and the lower body. It was super slow at first and then we sped it up. Then we had our knees bent and then straightened the legs out at 45 degrees. Then we crunched the upper body as we did the legs out in and in at 45 degrees. Then more of the bicycle move thing while alternating tapping our feet down.

Track 2 

We did the Up Downs that we've done in other workouts. I don't remember what they called it. We were on our knees for this though. So in push up position on our knees. We started on elbows and then went up onto the hand of our right arm and then the left. Then down to elbow on right and down to elbow on left. Then we flipped over, bent our knees and brought them up to 90 degree angle. We extended the right leg then the left. Then we bent the right and then the left. We alternated like that for a bit and then moved into an Iron Cross. I'm not sure where ig gets the name. You're on your back with your shoulders up off the floor, your arms out to the side and your feet straight up about 45 degrees off the floor. My knees were bent a little bit. This was hard! Then we brought the knees in for a stretch. We did the Up Down things, but started on the left side. This time, some of them did them on their toes instead of their knees. Then we rolled over and did the leg extensions starting with the left leg. More Iron Cross oh joy. We did the up downs again, but when we went down onto our elbows, we alternating picking one foot up off the floor for a second. They did these on their toes. I did them on my knees.

Track 3

This track was for the obliques. We brought our feet off the floor and the knees at a 90 degree angle. Then we took the knees over to the side about 45 degree angle and alternated extending our legs out. Then we did both legs at the same time. Then we went back to center and then back to 45 degrees then extended the legs and back to center. This was a big challenging for me, but I stuck with it. Then we did a side elbow plank. They did it on their knees. We did a side crunch while doing that. Then we switched sides and did it all again. Then we switched sides and did 12 more crunches in the elbow plank. This time, they did them on their toes. I still did them on my knee. Then we did the other side. Then we bot back on our backs and did a section of Hundreds. So we were in a bit of a Canoe position and we slammed our hands down on the floor. I've never actually hit my hands to the floor to do those when we did them in 21 Day Fix. It really does make it harder. With 21 Day Fix, our feet were straight up too instead of the 45 degree angle. This was definitely harder in this. I kinda liked it though! 

Overall Thoughts

While this was challenging, it was also one of my more favorite 15 minute ab workouts. I'm not in love with the side elbow plank crunch segment, but overall, the workout was rather doable for my 263 pound body. The people weren't annoying and the music was decent. There is one more of these to tackle and then I'm done with Pump for a little bit. I'm going to work on getting through all of the Hammer and Chisel workouts and see where things go from there. 

Polar M400 Screen Shots

I'm not sure why I bothered with the screen shots. Spending 15 minutes on my back doesn't get me a lot of activity minutes. 

Want to learn more? Watch the video!

You can't buy Pump from Beachbody anymore, but you can still buy it from ebay so if you want to learn more about it, just check out the video that still exists even though you can't buy it.