Review of Beachbody Les Mills Pump: Les Mills Core

Les Mills: Core

Today was Sunday which meant food prep and strength training day! The day started out great! I got an early start to my editing. By 10:30 I felt like I had accomplished so much and then it sort of went downhill from there. I still had to do 10 more calls for my editing project, plus I hadn't started food prep, I had to buy a Mother's Day card (Yes, I bought a Mother's Day card on Mother's Day! I'm a bad bad girl), I hadn't done any blog posts, I hadn't worked out and I hadn't done any blogging. I'm not really sure what I did before 10:30 that made me feel so accomplished. LOL! It was 3:00 before I had a chance to workout and after doing the math, I realized it needed to be a fast workout. I also realized that I never got around to doing the second Les Mills Pump ab workout, the one that came free with the program, so I popped that sucker in and got it done! I only got 10 minutes of strength training today. I feel like such a slacker! Oh well! I'm over it! 

The Workout

This thing was about 11 minutes long. Yeah. Like I said, I'm a slacker! Oh well. There were three tracks on this one. It was led by the same instructor the whole time. There was a modifier, but they didn't really talk about what she was doing, and we couldn't see her the whole time. There were no weights with this one which was nice! Although, I kinda like weights sometimes with abs to distract me from the fact that we're working our abs. I hate abs!

Track 1

We started out doing crunches with our feet on the floor. This track was about 3-1/2 minutes long. The crunches started out pretty slow. Then we put our heads on the floor and started doing alternating leg lifts. Then we did both feet at the same time. Then we did C Crunch. I'm not sure where this got the name, but the arms are out to the side and then they go up to the ceiling as our knees come to our chests and our chests go to our knees. I kinda like these. They are different than normal crunches. Then we did what they call a Cross Crawl. This is another one where I'm not really sure where the name comes from, but I don't think I really care either. Anyway, back to having our backs on the floor and our feet on the floor as well. We crunched up and brought one shoulder to the opposite knee as that foot lifted off the floor and the knee came to the shoulder. I like these better than bicycles. More C Crunches. I guess they do look like they are forming a C with their bodies. Then we did Shoulder Bridge a couple times. Then more C Crunches! More Cross Crawls! Then we rolled over for some plank time or Hover as they call it. We started these on our knees. They held it for like 20 seconds to finish off the track and then held it during the break between tracks. 

Track 2 

We were already in a plank so we didn't get to rest between tracks. We stayed on our knees and then alternated tapping a foot out to the side. Then we were back on our backs for more Cross Crawls, but we didn't alternate them this time. We just did one side for like 8 reps and then we switched sides to finish it out.The leg stayed up the whole time. Back to Hover! Yay! (Not) Then we alternated moving one hand out to the side. These did these on their toes. I just stayed on my knees though. I'm not really gaga over the whole hover after I read about them not being so great for some women. Then we did single cross crawls again, but this time we stretched the leg out straight as we came over with the shoulder. So the shoulder moving was the same side that the leg straightened on. It made my brain hurt. We did one side and then the other and then more Hover! This time the left arm with out to the side while the right foot went to the side. We alternated like that until the end of the track and then we held the hover. I did all of that on my knees.

Track 3

We started out on our bellies with our arms out straight. Then we did alternating leg lifts. Then we did alternating arm lifts. Then we did both arms up and then out to a T at our sides and then forward and down again. Then we did alternating arm and leg lefts. The left arm went up when the right foot went up. Then we did the double arm lift with the t thing again.Then we did airplane twists. So we went back to the t position and then lifted the right hand up to the ceiling as the other went down. We did each side a couple times and then held the up position with the arms in a t. Then we did more of the double arm t lifts. Then we did a side elbow plank. I did this on my knee. Some of them did it on the knee and some went to the toes. We did each side for a few seconds. Then we were back on our backs for crunches with our legs out straight at a 45 degree angle.We held it up for the last few seconds and then we were done. 

Overall, this could have been my favorite ab workout. They were slow paced, but challenging physically. I really like Supermans and stuff like that so the third track was probably my favorite section of any ab workout. 

I didn't bother with the Polar M400 screen shots since it was an ab workout that was slow paced. I figured it wouldn't show much activity anyway so why bother.

Now I've done all of the workouts that came with the basic package for Les Mills Combat! I really liked this program. I wish I had done it sooner! I've got a couple more Cize workouts to finish up thi week, and hopefully on Sunday, I'll start back on Hammer and Chisel. I don't plan on following the 60 day program though, but I am going to try to get through each of the workouts just to find my favorites so I've got Hammer and Chisel, Les Mills Pump and Body Beast to do my strength training workouts! 

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.