Review of 21 Day Fix Extreme Day 1: Plyo Fix

Day 1: Beachbody 21 Day Fix Extreme Plyo Fix

I'm back! I've taken a bit of a break from the blog and I need to rectify that! I needed a break from a Beachbody program after doing Cize, but I didn't intend for it to be this long of a break. We bought mountain bikes and I've been enjoying getting back into riding, but the weather is getting colder and wetter and it's time for me to start working out inside again. 

I decided to do 21 Day Fix Extreme. It's a program that I've owned for many many months, but just haven't taken the time to get through yet. When I bought it, I knew I wasn't going to do it right away since it sounded pretty intense and I thought I should work my way up to it. 

When I made the decision to do this program, I didn't realize that Plyo Fix was the first day. If you've been following me since my Les Mills Combat days last year, you'll know that I don't like Plyo and have never liked Plyo. For those of you who don't know what Plyo is.......it's basically jumping. There are some other Plyo moves, but the bulk of them involve jumping. Those that don't involve jumping, involve propelling yourself off the ground by other means such as those push ups where you lift your hands up off the floor as you go up. It's pretty challenging stuff for a 275 pound person!

For this workout, she says you need two sets of dumbbells and a towel. I ended up using only one set of dumbbells. They were five pounds. I just wiped my sweat on my shirt. The towel wasn't needed for the actual workout.

The workout is 30 minutes. It consisted of a warm up that was about a minute and a half. The warm up was jogging in place, a move where you step back with one leg and put the opposite arm up in the air, lunges, shoulder rolls and a kick where you bring the opposite hand down to meet the foot as the leg comes up. I think that was about it for the warm up. There might have been one more move though. It was all pretty simple stuff.

At the beginning, she says that the workout will consist of five rounds and each round has two moves that you'll do twice. She didn't mention the bonus round at the end. As I'm getting to the completion of round 5, I was thinking to myself, "Hmmmm. This must have one really long cool down." Then, she says that there's a bonus round. I find that highly annoying. I'd much rather know ahead of time what I'm doing instead of being surprised with some crazy move at the end. Each move is 30 seconds and there is 30 seconds of rest between each move. The bonus round was 60 seconds.

Round 1: Squat Jumps and Split Lunge Jumps 

Squat Jumps aren't that bad. You just squat down and jump as you come out of the squat. I didn't get much air on these, but that's okay.

Split Lunge Jumps weren't so bad either. As long as we weren't doing normal Alternating Jumping Lunges, I was happy! So with these, we held a static lunge position with the right leg back and the left leg forward. We went down and then jumped up as we came up. I didn't get much air on these either, but I did get off the floor. When we did a move like this in 21 Day Fix, we did one leg on the first half of the round and the other leg on the second half of the round, but we did each leg twice in 21 Day Fix Extreme.

Round 2: 1 Leg Squat Jumps and Sumo Squat Jumps

The 1 Leg Squat Jumps were challenging to my balance. I followed the modifier and touched my toe back. So if you did the full on version, you kinda leaned forward as you planted one leg and then brought the other leg back without touching the floor. Then you swung that leg forward and brought the knee up as you jumped up with the plant leg. Then you leaned forward and brought that leg back again without touching the floor. We did each leg twice during the round.

The Sumo Squat Jumps were different than I've done before. We went from ballet first position to ballet second position and back. We jumped in and out and landed in a bit of a squat for each. These were challenging because I couldn't quite get my heels together, but I got over that. 

Round 3: Burpee Tuck Jump and Squat Hop

We went down and did a burpee without the push up and then came up to do a tuck jump. I just jumped. I didn't bring my knees up in a tuck jump. I couldn't breathe as it was, so I didn't want to make it even more difficult.

The Squat Hops were new for me. We squatted and then jumped up and forward. Then we squatted down and jumped up and right. Then squatted down and jumped up and back. Then we squatted down and jumped up and left. We formed a bit of a box. I didn't jump very far. Some of the people in the workout were moving feet, but I was moving inches. 

Round 4: Twisted Skaters and Calf Jumps

The Twisted Skaters took some getting used to. I didn't jump with them because I was getting used to the form of doing them with weights and the whole twisted thing. So one arm went down and one went up and we were supposed to twist our torso to face the side wall. It didn't really go so well for me and since each move is only 30 seconds, I never quite got the hang of it. 

Calf Jumps. These were basically like Squat Jumps, but we were supposed to come up off the floor with our heels before we jumped and then land on our toes and then our heels. I think I do that anyway when I do squat jumps though so maybe this wasn't any different for me because I've been doing Squat Jumps wrong.

Round 5: Squat Thrusts and Sumo Squat Hops

The Squat Thrusts were hard for me. We were in push up position and then we brought our feet in towards our hands and then out. Then to the right and up and back to center and up and to the left and up. I'm not even sure I did these right. I kinda made it easier by not coming so close to the hands and by moving a little slower. It was just hard.

The Sumo Squat Hops weren't so bad. We did a Sumo Squat and then jumped up and to the right. Then squatted and came up and to the left. It wasn't so bad.

Bonus Round: X-Parallel Squats

These were hard because I couldn't really figure out what I was doing. We did a squat and then jumped and did a split squat into one of the corners and then back to center and then the other corner, but I could never figure out which leg was supposed to be in the corner. It lasted a minute and I never did figure out what I was doing.

The cool down was a couple minutes and it was normal stretching type stuff. 

Overall Thoughts

This workout didn't actually feel all that difficult while I was doing it. I felt like I wasn't going very deep into the squats and I never really felt like I couldn't do a couple more. I didn't have to "work through the pain" because there wasn't any pain. I was breathing pretty heavy for the bulk of the workout and never really felt like I had a chance to catch my breath even during the 30 second rest periods, but I never felt muscle pain while doing the moves. 

At the end of the workout, I felt like I had cheated myself a little. I was so scared about getting through this Plyo workout that maybe I hadn't put everything I had into the workout. Once I shut the TV and DVD player down and started heading to the bathroom for my shower, I realized that my legs were pretty much jello. As the day went on, I realized that going up the stairs at work was not fun. Before bed, my legs started to tighten up. When I got up in the middle of the night for a potty break, my legs were sore. When I woke up this morning, I could definitely feel it. I doubt I'll need the handicap bar to use the bathroom at work, but I can definitely feel that I worked out yesterday. Apparently I put more into this workout than I thought I had. 

I like that Autumn is pretty mellow. She's really low key and not in your face screaming at you. she puts out a few motivational things about fighting through it, but she's not all hyped up and annoying. 

I'm actually happy now that this was the first workout of the week. I don't have to dread Plyo day because I made it through it already which means that I should be able to do anything on any of these DVDs. 

Polar M400 Screen Shots

I'm not really sure what happened to cause those two huge dips. I saw one of them as it happened. My heart rate went down to 45 on the thing. Maybe I need a new battery in it or maybe I just need to duct tape that thing to me. I might have to invest in one of those bras that has the snaps for the heart rate monitor built into it. It's really annoying that it does stuff like this and you can see further to the right that it stopped worked for several seconds. I still love the device. I just wish I could figure out how to put it on so it doesn't do this. Maybe it's time to tighten the strap again.