Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Beachbody Les Mills Combat Day 2 Review


What I did and why

I did Day 2 of Beachbody Les Mills Combat. I'm doing the Warrior plan and Day 2 for Warriors is Power HIIT which is a 30 minute High Intensity Interval Training workout. I did Combat 30 yesterday and thought that I would be pretty sore today. Turns out, I wasn't very sore at all. I could tell that I had worked out yesterday, but it didn't impact my movement or cause any actual pain. I did this workout because I've committed myself to doing the whole 60 day program. Although, I do reserve the right to change my mind if I feel that continuing with this program is a detriment to my health and well being. (I learned from doing Jessica Smith's Thin in 10 exercise plan that I do need to give myself that out. Although, sticking to that plan made me realize that I can do amazing things!)

Power HIIT 1

This workout used weights. I used 5 pound dumbbells. One of the guys in the workout used a barbells. The other three people used dumbbells, but they were heavier than mine! They give you suggestions on how much weight to use for the workout. He suggests having different sized weights, but I only have the 5 pounders. 

For those of you who don't know what HIIT is, it's High Intensity Interval Training. I did some of this with Jessica Smith's Thin in 10 exercise plan, but hers was a bit different. People do HIIT different ways. Her recovery time was more of an active recovery time where we still moved, but we didn't move as fast, so we would do 60 seconds of fast walking and then 60 seconds of slower walking. This workout didn't seem to have a set time for the high intensity or rest parts, but maybe I just didn't pay that much attention to the clock. The other difference with this was that the recovery parts were pretty much just standing there. The screen has a message for us to keep moving, but the people in the DVD just set the weights down and stood there doing nothing.

The DVD gives you the option of watching the DVD with the music pumped up, but it doesn't give you the option to play it with just the music. I have to keep the TV pretty low since my husband has a late shift so he wakes up later than I do. I can barely hear the music on the non-pumped up version. I haven't done it pumped up yet since I need to keep the noise down.

This DVD has the double timer system like the one I did yesterday for Day 1. One timer is for how much time is left in the whole workout and the other timer is for what's left in that segment. The segments don't have even amounts of time to them which is just odd for me.

One of the people in the workout does a modified version of all of the moves. The editing again made it a little hard for me to follow her though. I definitely modified a lot!

The workout starts with a 4 minute warm up. It started out with running in place and then running forward and backwards. he suggests doing high knees if you don't have a lot of space. He does talk about technique a bit in this one. After the running in place we did side shuffles and touching the floor. Then we did squats. Any workout that has squats in the warm up is going to be insane. Then we did running forward followed by two squats and then back with two squats. This really made me want to keep doing the workout. Switch sides and more shuffling. The warm up actually had my heart rate going faster than any other point in the workout. After the shuffling, we did front lunges with our arms up over our head. We went right into the inchworm, but it's not a normal inchworm. You go down and do a push up and then come up. More squats! Then push ups. Can this workout getting anymore hellacious for me?

Now for the weights! We started with a deadrow. I had never done this before. You squat down a little as your weights come down to your knees. Then you pull them up to your belly, let them go back to your knee and then stand back up. We did two sets of this. Then we did what he called single dead lifts. He kept talking about clean. It must be a weight lifter term that I just don't know. This was a weird move for me. After this we did the same dead lift type move but then did a shoulder press with it as well. He talked about technique during this section. I must have been doing something right because my shoulders didn't hurt and I have such wimpy shoulders that 5 pound dumbbells usually kill me! We did this clean and press for two sets. Ten we moved into a power press which started with the clean thing and then we did three presses up. Did I mention that we're doing squats during all of this? Insane! We did four sets of these. 

Okay for the next set, the fun really begins! We did jumping squats! Oh wait, THEY did jumping squats. I just did squats. They started pretty slow and then did them fast and they did them while moving the feet in and out. So jump out feet go out land in a squat jump up feet go in land with a squat. Then they did jumping lunges. I can barely handle a lunge forget a jumping lunge. Once again, the modification person was barely in the screen. They did encourage drinking during the recovery periods. Back to sumo jump squats! Back to the "cross sumo squats!" Back to the jumping lunges! Then we did squats while holding a dumbbell in front of us. That was quickly followed by doing the squat and pressing the weight over our heads as we cam out of the squat and pulling it down as we did the squat. First it was slow and then it was fast. I actually didn't mind this move that much since there was no JUMPING!

The next section was hell. They were called burpee squats. I did the modification again. She just went down into a push up plank position and then came back up. She didn't do the push ups or the squats. First it was 8. The next round was 12 the last round was 16. The second round they added an extra squat with a jump forward. Madness. 

The next section didn't get any better! It started off with what they called a Hover Plank. We were in a push up position on our knees. We went down on our elbows and back on our hands over and over again. I really felt this working my abs. We then did mountain climbers, but they were different than the ones I've seen. The knee came to the opposite elbow. Then we went back to the Hover Planks. This time, he suggested doing them on our toes! Then we went to spire push ups! So we're in the plank position on our elbows and you take you knee and pull it up to the elbow of the same hand. He actually called it quits with 30 seconds to go because he couldn't keep going. 

Then it was time for the cool down! We sat down first and stretched our legs in some position that was just not physically possible for me. Then we got up on our knees and did some more stretching. Then we stood up and stretched out the shoulders and triceps. The stretching only lasted about 2 minutes. 

My Thoughts on the Workout

This was insane! No person who is 288 pounds should be doing this stuff! I survived, but I did most of the modifications. It will be interesting to see if I can do this without the modifications by the end of the 60 days. Not likely though! I'm just not built for all of that jumping even with my sports bra. I think the boobs are shrinking though so I need a smaller sports bra! 

BodyMedia Screen Shots

I really need to get the heart rate monitor because I really think the BodyMedia device has issues with strength training. it thinks I only had 11 minutes of activity in that 30 minute DVD. I just don't get it! I was breathing heavy and sweating the ENTIRE time! The 210 calories seems pretty low as well. I know I did the modifications, but this thing was insane! Looking at the workout arc though it looks like I was kicking back on the couch for most of this! I'm pretty bummed though because I forgot to put my BodyMedia device on before I went to work. I really wanted to see if this did anything to increase my metabolism for the remainder of the day. They always talk about how HIIT stuff revs your metabolism up for the entire day. I'd like to see if it really done! 


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