Beachbody Body Beast Bonus Workout P90X3 CVX

P90X3 CVX

When I did the full program, I was using my friends DVDs. Apparently she got her DVDs awhile back and they have been redone with a better combination of workouts on each DVD to make it so you have to switch DVDs less often. This switch up also includes a different free workout. The set that I used had P90X Plyometrics, but when I bought the DVDs for myself, the bonus workout was P90X3 CVX. I've heard that P90X3 is crazy hard, but I'm a sucker for punishment and I can't do a review of a program and not do all of the workouts in the program. Call me anal retentive if you like. I'm okay with that. 

I did this workout between run days of C25K I was a bit concerned about doing that because I wasn't really sure how intense this was going to be on my legs, but I survived and managed to do a run the following day. This is a 30 minute workout, but it didn't include a warm up and the cool down was an extra three minutes tacked on to the end. I was surprised by that and didn't really leave myself enough time for thecool down, but I did it anyway. I apparently don't really care about showing up to my day job on time. I'm such a bad girl. 

This workout wastes no time getting into the intense stuff! It's a cardio workout, but it incorporates weights. He says not to use anything heavier than 12 pounds and go to as light as you want to. He says you can even use a helium balloon or nothing at all. One of the people in the workout uses a basketball. All of the people were in the test group for P90X3. They all lost a bunch of weight. 

The first move in this is doing jacks with your legs and then raising a weight up over your head. The moves all last a minute except some of them are 30 seconds per side for a total of a minute. This workout was crazy hard for me. I had to modify some stuff. I did the jacks with my legs as long as I could. I think I lasted about 30 seconds. I then alternated stepping a leg out to the side and then back in while doing the lifting part with my arms. I might have been able to handle the jacks for the full minute if I had been warmed up, but it was right there at the beginning. I don't own this program, so I'm not sure if they tell you that you should warm up before you do the workout. I'm in no way complaining that the bonus workout didn't have a warm up. I'm merely stating that it didn't have one and I couldn't get through the first move. I modified a few other things too. I can't remember all of them though. 

Each round had three exercises. We did each of the three at a constant pace and then went back and did them with a varied pace. He would say to do things faster for 10 or 15 seconds and then we'd go back to slower. Each of the people in the workout did their own intensity. There was one person who kept things pretty low key and then the other two were different versions of crazy intense. They didn't wear heart rate monitors in this one like they did in the P90X Plyometrics workout that I did. After we repeated the three exercises, we had a 15 to 20 second break before moving on to the next round.

There wasn't much instruction on this workout. I suppose that's good for people who have done it a few times, but it made it a bit challenging for me as a first time user of the DVD. I lost a few seconds of each move while I was trying to figure out what we were doing. I'm okay with that though. It gave me much needed rest. None of the moves in the workout were too crazy though. I picked them up quickly. Some of them were just too much for me to do for a full 60 seconds so I modified them a little bit. I didn't do the plyo lunges. I just did regular rear lunges and didn't jump. That was the only one that I modified from the start I think. I was a little sore the next day, but it wasn't enough to keep me from running. 

Polar M400 Screen Shot

I'm not really sure what happened at the beginning with that one blip going up over 180, but the rest of this seems pretty accurate. 

Beachbody Body Beast Lucky 7s

Lucky 7s

This is the free workout that you get by buying Body Beast from a Beachbody coach. It's not a workout that's listed on the calendar and my friend didn't have the workout. I didn't get it until I bought Body Beast. I whined about Body Beast while I was doing it, but I still bought it. LOL. It's an awesome program. I just chose a bad time to do it. I was so close to so many milestones and then, it went to crap. Now that I'm done with Body Beast and I'm back on track with my nutrition, the weight I gained during Body Beast is starting to come off. I'm happy about that! More about that later though. I'm getting sidetracked from the point of this post.

This workout was much different than the others. It's a 22 minute total body workout with a unique format. I might incorporate this one into my weekly routine while I finish up C25K. I'm not sure yet though. I like the workout and would do it again for sure, but I have other things that I always want to try out too so this one might have to wait for a bit. 

There are seven different combos and each one is done in an upside down pyramid format. It's hard to explain and I didn't really get what he was saying until we got to doing it, but I'll try to give an example that makes sense. So once of the combos is a split position push up. You then come up and "clean" and then squat. So the pyramid part of this is that you start with one push up on each side (right hand forward/left hand back and then right hand back/left hand forward) and then you come up to do the clean and then squat. Then you go back down and do two push ups on each side then come up clean and squat twice. Then back down for three each side and three squats. You do that until you get to seven push ups each side and then come up and clean and squat seven times. 

I had never done anything like this workout before. I thought it was fun and interesting. I was slow  though and had to keep pausing the DVD. I think there was only one section where I wasn't slow! There was this weird move where you hold a barbell with a weight only on one end. The end without a weight is on the floor and the weighted end is up by your shoulders. You hold onto the bar and then move it with you as you move into a lunge towards one of the side walls and you hold it for one second. Then you go to the other side and hold it for one second. Then you go back to the other side and hold for two seconds. You get the drift I'm sure by now so I won't keep going. Anyway, that's the only thing I wasn't slow at! There was a little bit of a break between the moves, but it wasn't much! 

This was a nice short total body workout. I really enjoyed it. No need for a bench for this one. I definitely suggest getting Body Beast from a coach instead of another source that way you can get the free workout. If you don't have a couch, you can sign up under me to get your free DVD!

Polar M400 Screen Shot

I gave up my BodyMedia Device and now have a Polar M400 heart rate monitor and fitness tracker. It's amazing! This screen shot only has the heart rate line. Since I didn't go anywhere, there was no need to have the GPS on to track my speed and elevation. I love that his device lets you set up a ton of different sport profiles! 

Want to learn more? Watch the video!

Review of Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds 3 Mile Super Fat Burning workout with weighted balls

What I did and why

I started a trial to Gaiam TV and I wanted to do as many of the Leslie Sansone DVDs as I could. I picked this one not realizing that I had already done it. I was pretty bummed once I realized it, but I wasn't going to stop the workout. I just re-read my first and second reviews of this workout and I'm glad that I did a repeat workout today. Sometimes, it's good to do workouts again and compare how you felt after a few months. I did this back in March. I did it once with the weighted balls and once without them. Apparently this was a rather challenging workout for me during both of my previous attempts.

The Workout

It started off with the four basic moves and then pretty much just repeated them all the way through. You can read my previous posts about it to learn more. I found it to be rather repetitive. A few minutes into the workout, the sound and video got out of sync. I found it highly annoying to watch her lips move after she had finished speaking. This was a good workout, but it didn't have the same impact on me today as it did on my previous attempts. I didn't really find her to be overly chatty and I didn't find any of the moves to go on for an excessive amount of time. I did feel it in my shoulders when we were doing the weighted balls up over our heads and when we did the tricep move with the weighted balls. My legs weren't tingly while I was at work today.

BodyMedia Screen Shots

Here are my screen shots for the workout. This workout had a nice arc to it as most of Leslie Sansone's workouts do. I'm not sure what that dip just to the right of center is from. Maybe I slowed my feet down too much during a water break. I'm not really sure. 

Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor

Here are the stats from my Polar FT7 heart rate monitor. Maybe one day, I'll get the weblink thing so I don't have to take pictures. It's really hard for me to take pictures of my watch. I'm not sure why, but it just is. The calorie burn on this was 247 calories less than the BodyMedia device. The difference between these two devices is pretty staggering for me. If this thing is accurate, I could be eating way more food than I should be according to the BodyMedia Fit. If the BodyMedia Fit is accurate, than there are a lot of people out there thinking that they are burning less calories than they really are. These are things that will keep me up at night! 

Easy Hike at Little Three Creeks Lake in Sisters, Oregon

How to get there

Take Elm Street in Downtown Sisters and head south. After at least 14 miles, it turns to a dirt road. Keep going and after a few miles, you'll come to the Driftwood Campground on the right. Park in there. If you get to Three Creeks Lake, you went to far. Just turn around and take your first left. The dirt road gets a bit narrow. It's also pretty bumpy, but we did it with a VW Jetta pretty easily. If you drive around 40-45 on the washboard stuff, you don't bounce as much. The road climbs up pretty high. The lake was at 6500 feet! 

The Hike

We found the hike in Hiking Oregon's Central Cascades. We picked it because it was under 200 feet in elevation, it was close to home and it was just 2.2 miles. The hike starts off going uphill right away from the parking lot. I hate going uphill first. This went uphill on this rocky, root covered step type thing. It didn't give me the warm fuzzies about the hike. We trudged on though. It didn't go up for long before it went down again. Then it went up a little bit and down again. It leveled out again. This trail gets some heavy use by horses and there was horse poop in numerous places. The trail was wide in some places, but narrow in others. It also had a couple river crossings. They were pretty simple. There were rocks or tree limbs to make it easier.

For some reason, we walked really slowly for the first mile. It took about 45 minutes to get to the lake. We did stop to take pictures periodically, but we were just walking slow. I'm not sure why though. There were a lot of people running on the trail and we pulled over to let them pass whenever we saw them so I'm sure that added a little bit to it. 

A short bit into the hike, you come to a fork. The way the sign was stapled to the tree, it looked like we were to go left, but there wasn't a trail to the left. We went straight which turned out to be the correct way. 

We finally made it to the lake! It was really pretty. We ran into a couple there and we started talking. The book didn't mention anything about going around the lake, but the people there said that it did go all the way around the lake. They also said that there were two ways to get back. You can go all the way around the lake and cross the river to get back onto the trail we went in on or you can take a different path to get to the other trailhead in the campground. They said that trail was shorter, but steeper. We decided to go all the way around the lake.

The path gets a bit narrow and difficult to follow at times, but it's hard to get lost when you're walking around a lake. The lake was pretty cool. The water was perfectly clear! The bottom was a bit mucky looking, but the water was just so clear! There were so many tadpoles in the lake! At one point while going around the lake, the trail continues around to the right, but according to the people we ran into, it deadends, so you switch back to the left. There were parts that were mucky on the other side of the lake.

It was pretty easy to follow the path on the other wise, but then we came to a fork and we weren't sure which way to go. The markings on this side were non-existent. We continued around to the left and then went through the marshy part. We ended up hooking back up with the trail that we had used to get there. It was about a mile around the lake. 

We walked really quickly on the way out. I didn't take many pictures on the way out. We don't normally take many pictures on the way out. We go super slow getting there and then just race back to the car. There was a porta potty in the parking lost. There wasn't a lot of parking in the parking lot, but there were plenty of places to park along the road. 

Overall Thoughts

We really enjoyed the hike once we got to the lake. If we hadn't gone around the lake, I probably would have been disappointed in the hike. Before the lake, the scenery was a bit blah. There were some interesting trees, but overall, the walk around the lake made the hike.

BodyMedia Screen Shot

Here is the BodyMedia Screen Shot for the hike. I actually got some vigorous activity on this hike! On the way back, we walked really fast even on the rough parts. I was pretty proud of myself for that. I usually go super slow. I felt like a mountain goat! 

BackCountry Navigator Screen Shot

The app said that I had a 21 day free trial. I'm pretty sure it's been more than 21 days. It still works though. Since we stopped without pausing the apps, my average speeds are wonky. I need to get better at pausing things. Oh well. The 5.6 MPH for the max speed is definitely wrong. I still don't understand how this app works for the max speed. The altitude gain is a bit more than the book said, but the book didn't talk about going around the lake. 

Runtastic Screen Shot

This is a new app that I'm trying. I was going to compare it to MapMyHike and Runkeeper, but I couldn't get Runkeeper to open when we got to the hike. Runtastic is already my favorite trail tracking app since it opens and it saved without needing the Internet. It has a half mile less than BackCountry Navigator though. I really need to just buy an actual GPS unit that tracks this stuff. Sometimes I think I should have gotten the Vivofit instead of my Polar Heart Rate Monitor since it does GPS tracking while tracking activity, but I just think that if my BodyMedia cost $100, a GPS unit costs at least $100 and a heart rate monitor is at least $60, how can a device that only costs about $160 do all three tasks effectively? A bit more about my love of Runtastic........it was able to pull the map up during the entire hike. BackCountry Navigator requires map downloads. It tracked my hike, but it didn't show me a map of where I was. MapMyHike rarely shows me the actual map of where I'm at. I can see the trail of where I've been, but I can't see the map. We actually used Runtastic today to make our decision about trying to find the other path back to the parking lot. It was nice actually being able to see the lakes on the screen. 

There is no way the calorie burn on this is accurate. I'm also thinking I did something funky and shut the app off where that blue dot is between miles 2 and three. 

MapMyHike Screen Shot

Here is my MapMyHike screen shot. Check out that insane calorie burn! It's not accurate, but whatever. I think my insane weight really messes with the math. Oh well. 

Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor

Here are my stats from my Polar FT7 heart rate monitor. This has 5 minutes less than the Runtastic app because I couldn't figure out how to stop the Runtastic app. Hubby suggested that I try once I got into the car. I believe the calorie burn on this a lot more than on the Runtastic app. I'm not sure if my weight really messes up those things up. I just know that MapMyHike is the same way. It comes up with crazy crazy high numbers! I spent an hour and 40 minutes in the fat burning zone! Woot woot! Then we went to Takoda's and had a peanut butter chocolate pie. Oopsy. At least I burned the pie off. 

Review of Beachbody Les Mills Combat Combat 30 Live

What I did and why

Today should have been a rest day! My body screamed for a rest day. I woke up 45 minutes late, but I said that I was going to do Les Mills Combat 30 Live which was the free workout since I bought my DVDs through a coach. I risked being late to work so I could do it. I really wanted to do it since I said I would and because I didn't want my Combat round to end on Shock Plyo. I'm glad I did it too since I did like the workout. I wish I had done it sooner. It would have been nice to use this instead of the studio version at times.

Combat 30 Live

WARNING! This workout is actually 33 minutes and has no cool down included in it. I wanted to make sure you all knew that before doing it. I think it's great that it's a longer workout, but I woke up 45 minutes late and was hoping to make it to work on time since I was going to be leaving early. I barely made it. I had to skip the hard boiled eggs for breakfast and the salad for lunch though to shave some time off getting ready. I went with a Jimmy Dean Delite breakfast sandwich and leftover shepherd's pie. It's not real shepherd's pie though. It didn't have gravy. 

Okay so the workout....It starts with an introduction of everyone. All of the people are the same as the 60 minute live workout. The first section was 3-1/2 minutes. We did jabs with our right hand 16 times. Then we alternated uppercuts right left right and a pulse. Then we added two jabs to the upper cuts and got rid of the pulsing. Then we did a double right hook and scissor legs! The song for this workout is a song from a different workout which kind of sucked. I like new music for new workouts. Then we did the low block and rising block. We added the decoy to it too. I wasn't thrilled with adding this part to it since it's in the 60 minute Live version twice. I like new stuff in new workouts! Then we switched sides and did it all over again. 

The next segment was about 4-1/2 minutes. It started off with a leg stretch. Then the kicking began! We started with alternating knee strikes. Then we did alternating triple knee strikes. Then we did the side kick set up. I'm not sure why we have to do these set ups, but whatever. After the set up stuff, we did actual side kicks. That was followed by shuffling left and right and doing side kicks. Then it was alternating front kicks. Then alternating push kicks. I actually did the push kicks this time. They really do work the abs! Next was alternating roundhouse set ups. Then of course we did the roundhouse kicks. Then we shuffled with the roundhouse. Then back kicks! Back to alternating knee strikes followed by alternating hip rolls.  The section ended with alternating triple knee strikes again. This whole section seemed a bit slow, but it was still the warm up really. 

The next section was 6-3/4 minutes. We started out with the claw which I didn't really get. Then we jabbed to the corner. Then we did a cross with a pulse. We went back to the jab with the pulse and then back to the cross and pulse. We turned to face the front and did a jab cross jab. Then we added an uppercut to it. Then we added a roundhouse kick. There was a bunch of pulsing between reps which really made it feel slow. We switched sides and did it all over again. We did some bouncing around again. Then we did a claw kata. I didn't really get the whole claw thing! Then we did front kicks into the corner with pulses in the middle. Then we added a hammer fit. So one hand went out in front and the other slammed down into it. We did the claw kata thing again and then kicked into the other corner of the room. We then added the hammer fists. We went back to the first side and did the corner kicks with the hammer thing without the hand to punch it into. Then we switched sides again.

The next round was about 6 minutes. We started with jabs and then jab cross. We combined the jab cross with four jabs. Then we did a hook on one arm with an uppercut with the other. Oh then we did hook upper hook and did crossjacks with it! I'm not a fan of cross jacks. I kept up for the most part. Then we did upper cuts 7 times and scissor kicks! Then we pulsed and ran in place. We switched sides and did it all again. Then we did a 8 jabs and 8 uppercuts. We alternated between those. We finished by doing 15 seconds of just uppercuts. 

The next section was 6-1/2 minutes. It started off with the same Kata that is in Combat 45 (I think it's that one) and it even had the same song. Then we did back kicks. Then we did a back kick, two knee strikes on the opposite leg and a front kick. Then we did a knee strike with the back leg and a front kick with the front leg. Then we did a step kick which led into the jump kick. I've missed the jump kick! It's in Combat 30, but not the rest. Well not this jump kick at least. We went back to the back kick double knee strike front kick. Then we switched sides and did it all again. We did 117 kicks on one side and then the other. That's the same concept as Combat 30 the studio version. 

The last section was just over 5 minutes. We started with alternating jabs. I love these! It was always my favorite part of TaeBo. Then we did alternating uppercuts. Then we did double uppercuts. Of course when you add double uppercuts you know you have to do scissor legs too. Then we did alternating hooks. Then we did double hooks which of course led to adding in scissor legs! They really like scissor legs! Then we did some running in place. Then we did it all over again. The last minute started with double jabs alternating each arm. Then we did singles! I really do like this part. Then the workout ended. They talked a little bit and did some shoulder stretches, but they mainly just said to get the stretch DVD and do some stretching. I don't have the stretch DVD because it comes with the upgraded package that I didn't get. 

BodyMedia Screen Shots

Here are my BodyMedia screen shots. Since this was my first time doing this workout, I don't have anything to compare it to. I did like this workout. I think it would be a nice to alternate this one with the studio version. I'm not sure why they didn't include that as an option on the calendar. PiYo includes the free one on the calendar. You get the free workouts by ordering from a coach.

Polar FT7 Heart Rate monitor

Here is a picture of my heart rate monitor after the workout. The calorie burn is so much less than with the BodyMedia Fit. Crazy crazy crazy. My husband did point out though that if BodyMedia has a 10% margin of error and the Polar has a 10% margin of error that will account for a possible 20% difference. So let's say that BodyMedia is high. So 10% of 467 is about 46. Let's say the Polar is 10% low. So 10% of 259 is about 25 and 46 + 25 = 71. There's still a 130ish calories difference! I just wish I knew what was more accurate! I tend to think that the BodyMedia device is since I lost the amount of weight I should have lost based on my calories in versus my calories out during my 7 Day Commitment to Food Logging. So, what does that mean for my heart rate monitor? Do I keep it? Do I return it? Oh decisions decisions! I want to find a purpose for it in my life, but it can't just be to show me some pretty chart or graph. It needs something more. I'll have to think about this and do more research.

Want to Learn More About Les Mills Combat?

I DID IT! Review of Beachbody Les Mills Combat Day 60!

What I did and why

Today was Day 60 of Les Mills Combat! I FINISHED IT! I have earned my T-Shirt! I'll have another post with official stats and everything, but I just needed to say once again that.........I FINISHED IT! I went all 60 days of Les Mills Combat. I did not miss a single workout in those 60 days. I swapped two because I read the calendar wrong, but I did all 60 days. If I woke up late, I still did it. I cut the shower short and risked being late to work, but I did it! If I woke up sore or tired or hungry or PMSy, it didn't matter! I still did it! It's quite the accomplishment for me! I get bored easily, but I stuck with this thing! Okay, enough tooting my own horn.

Shock Plyo

Someone's idea of a sick joke was to put the most difficult workout as the final workout, but I will fool them! I'm going to do the Free DVD tomorrow! Take that Les Mills Combat Calendar Creator! You will not make my last memory of this round of Combat by Shock Plyo! You can read my full play by play review of Shock Plyo on my Review of Day 3 of Les Mills Combat. You can read about how much I disliked it my first time around. It's growing on me, but it still has burpees, jumping lunges, jumping squats, mountain climbers, push ups, planks and skaters. Pretty much everything I hate about exercise. It's like real exercise. I prefer fun exercise. Things like hiking or combat. With the combat workouts, I can pretend it's not a workout. I can pretend I'm training to be an MMA fighter. With the HIIT workouts, I'm just working out. There's nothing fun about burpees! 

I still do backward lunges instead of the forward ones. That may never change. I didn't do the plyo lunges either. I didn't "drop" into the drop squats, but I did do all of the mountain climbers on my toes. I still did the push ups on my knees though. After the workout, I tried a push up on my toes. Let's just say that I'm not nearly as buff under all of this fat as I thought I was. I thought I'd be able to power out one push up on my toes. Well, not so much. I made it down an inch or two, but that's about it. I did try it after the workout though so I'm going to say that I was too tuckered out from all of the push ups on my knees to do one on my toes. I'll give my muscles a few days to recover from 60 days of Les Mills Combat and then I'm trying that push up again! 

I did all of the jumping stuff in that last torturous song! I so need a rest day! I can't wait until this weekend! I'm not going to workout either day. I think we're going hiking though. Hopefully, it won't be too much elevation gain. 

I'm really nervous about what next week will hold. For two months, I haven't had to think or plan my workouts. Before bed, I make sure I know what workout I'm doing so I know how much time I need in the morning and then I just wake up and do that workout. That has reduced my stress level significantly. It's also made me realize that I really do need a more structured plan like this. If I do the plan, I tend to let myself slack off with 10 minute workouts. I can't keep doing that if I want to get rid of another 108 pounds or more. Oh it feels so good to see that number instead of the 150 that I started out wanting to lose.

I'm excited for hubby to get home in an hour so we can do pictures! I never wanted to see pictures of myself, but now I want to see them so I can see if there are changes that I notice! I really wish I had my 317 pound pictures, but I was too embarrassed to have anyone take pictures of me and I didn't even want to take them of myself.

BodyMedia Screen Shots

Here are my screen shots for the workout. The HIIT workouts always make me feel like I didn't do enough! The stats are just terrible! I always hear about how HIIT workouts will increase your calorie burn throughout the day, but my BodyMedia Fit doesn't seem to show anything higher than my 1.6 when sitting down doing nothing. I'm not really sure what's up with that. Maybe I'm really burning it but it doesn't trigger the right sensors for the BodyMedia. I'm not sure. 

Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor

Well, this workout was the reason I got my Polar FT7 heart rate monitor. I didn't think the BodyMedia device was very accurate for stuff like this. Yesterday's workout didn't work for the BodyMedia, but the HIIT workout on Tuesday did. I wasn't thrilled with the results on that one, and I'm not thrilled with the results on this one either. BodyMedia is still higher and since I thought BodyMedia's calorie burn was low, I'm really bummed with the HRM's version of my burn. I think the difference was less today than it was on Tuesday though. I'm still going to play around with the HRM some more. I still think it will be helpful during my attempt to run. I also think it will be good to look at the percentage of time I was in the Fat Burning mode versus Cardio mode, but I've yet to sit down to learn how to use this gadget. 

Want to learn more about Les Mills Combat?

Leslie Sansone 2 Mile High Calorie Burn with my new FT7 HRM

What I did and why

Last night, I got my Polar FT7 heart rate monitor from Amazon. I was so excited to try it out and compare it to my BodyMedia device! I didn't want to do anything too crazy intense because I was pretty sore from my morning workout (and the 10 workouts before it!) and knew that I didn't want to make myself more sore since I still have one day left of Les Mills Combat. I looked over my DVD collection and decided that the 2 mile High Calorie Burn from the 5-Day Fit Walk would be my best option. I wanted a 30 minute workout, and I wanted something pretty simple.I remember this workout being pretty easy back in the day. It turned out to be rather intense though because my legs are just so bloody sore! I found myself wishing she would just let me go back to walking in place. I got a little out of breath, but it wasn't anything too crazy. It was mainly hard just because of my muscle soreness/weakness from Les Mills Combat. I only have one day left though so a rest day is coming! A rest week might be coming. Okay, getting sidetracked.

How did they compare?

I'll write more about the HRM later on it's own post, but for now, I wanted to document the results for each of them for this workout. The HRM is definitely lower in the calorie burn department. I'm not really sure which one to trust! I'm so torn by this. My husband and I talked about it last night and he thinks I should trust the BodyMedia device. I've read up on it online today and I tend to agree with that. The BodyMedia doesn't take your heart rate into account, but it does take motion, temperature and moisture into account when figuring the calorie burn. It seems like all of that would have a better result. Maybe I should do one of those 1000 calorie workouts on YouTube and compare the two! Whichever is closest to 1000 calories wins! I shouldn't say these things because I'll go do them! I don't have the thing to transfer the data from the HRM to the computer so I don't have a screen shot of that. I'm still trying to decide if I should keep the HRM or just stick with the BodyMedia. I was kind of wanting to get away from BodyMedia to get away from the monthly fee, but I really like the info I get from it so I'll keep it. The HRM will not replace it that's for sure. I'm just not sure how to fit the HRM into my life just yet. 

 

 

Review of Beachbody Les Mills Combat Day 59

What I did and why

Today was Day 59 of Les Mills Combat! I only have on more day left! Today was the last day of Combat workouts! They end the program on Shock Plyo. How silly is that. I'm going to do the Free 30 Minute workout on Friday so I don't end with Shock Plyo. I don't like Shock Plyo! I might like the results of Shock Plyo, but it doesn't mean I want to end my Combat round with Shock Plyo. That would be like ending the season throwing an interception! 

Power Kata

Power Kata is a 45 minute combat workout. You can read the full play by play of the workout from Day 3 of my Les Mills Combat round. I really like this workout. There aren't any parts to it that I hate or dread getting to. I don't do the jumping knees, but I don't modify anything else at this point. I forgot all about the jumping kicks that I used to do. I think it's a bit odd that they have jumping kicks in the 30 minute workout that you do in the beginning. I don't think that the Combat 60 Live has jumping anything. Combat 45 has jumping knees and I believe it was Combat 60 (not the Live one) has jumping side kicks, but I just don't remember any jumping anything in Combat 60 Live. How strange is that!

Okay, so I really like Power Kata. I hate lunges, but they aren't bad in this Ginga section. I actually really enjoy that section. It gets a little burn going on in the glutes, but that's a good thing right? There are a lot of different moves and nothing gets too terribly repetitive. Although, the knee strike section when they do the jumping knees does get a little old. The downward punches and descending elbows makes up for it though. I love all the elbows in this workout!

After 59 days, I'm not bored with this program. I'm ready to not be doing it for a period of time though since my body is just sore all over. I'm not in pain, but I'm stiff and my muscles are yelling at me whenever I move. I don't think I'm cut out for this 6 day routine. It started out with 2 rest days in a week, but last week I lost my Thursday rest day. I think that was a much needed day for me. I'm pretty tired of feeling sore and weak. I'm ready to take a week off from working out! I know I can't do that, but I need something really low key for the coming week! 

BodyMedia Screen Shot

I only have the workout arc today. There have been three times during these 59 days that the BodyMedia Workout tab has failed me. All three times were for his same workout. It's weird that the first time I did it and the last time I did it for this 60 day program, it would fail. I hate not being able to compare my results! I'm doing all of this exercise as a scientific experiment! I MUST HAVE DATA! Without data, it's like I'm working out just to workout. That's just boring and it sounds like actual work...GASP!

Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor

I got a new toy. I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it. The calorie burn is way lower than the BodyMedia device. I'm trying to figure out which one I feel is more accurate. The heart rate monitor takes my heart rate and uses it in a mathematical equation using my sex, age, height and weight to determine my calorie burn. The BodyMedia device takes my temperature and speed and uses those in a mathematical equation using my sex, age, height and weight to determine my calorie burn. According to the BodyMedia people, an HRM isn't very effective at judging the calorie burn for a workout, but don't they have to say that to convince you to buy their product? I was hoping that this thing would be on target with BodyMedia, but since it's not, now I have to decide what it is that I want the HRM for? I originally wanted it because I thought the calorie burn on the HIIT workouts was inaccurate due to lack of motion, but now I just don't know. We'll see what tomorrow brings! Stay tuned for a post about the HRM! I got sidetracked and read an article about this very question on SparkPeople. Now, I'm questioning if I should just return the HRM! Egads!

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