80 Day Obsession – Page 3 – Munday Morning Fitness

This is basically the same principle as Phase 1’s Total Body Core. 5 sets, each of which involve two strength moves targeting the same area, followed by one core move. Over the course of the 5 sets, you work all key body parts – the upper body directly, the lower body in a supporting way.

The main different between this and the Phase 1 version is that the moves are much more complex. Not necessarily more difficult (though on the whole that’s also true) but more compound and involving either several steps or two different moves at once. Many of them took quite a bit of getting used to. Crab Position Tricep Dip to Sit Through, for example, mostly defeated me, not because I lacked the core or triceps strength, but because I lacked the coordination.

It was pretty ingenious in how it got lots of total body work into each move and I felt well worked out and pretty exhausted afterwards. I think on balance I prefer my workouts just a touch simpler though.

As with the other strength workouts, the moves stay the same each week but the structure varies. Today, it was 15 reps of each move in the first series, repeat, then on to series two, and so on, which on balance, though exhausting, is one of my favourite rep schemes.

MOVES

SERIES 1: SHOULDERS

Squat, Row, Twist, Row
Kneeling Lunge Clean & Press
Quad Ped Opposite Arm Knee Crunch

SERIES 2: CHEST
Chest Press to Half Turkish Get Up
Spider Man Push-Ups
Frog Sliders

SERIES 3: BACK
“T” to Single-Leg Hip Hinge

Lat Pull Over w/Leg Raise
Weighted Plank Hip Drop

SERIES 4: BICEPS
Low Twisting Lunge Hammer Curl
Press Out to Curl
Weighted Standing Torso Rotation

SERIES 5: TRICEPS
Crab Position Tricep Dip to Sit Through
Alt. Skull Crushers with Bicycle Legs
French Twist

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If you don’t currently have access to BOD, you can get a year’s subscription, a month’s supply of Shakeology, and all the accessories you need for 80 Day Obsession for just £180 here

If you’re already a Beachbody on Demand customer, you can get everything you need for 80 Day Obsession (workout calendar, resistance bands, strength sliders, portion fix containers) with Shakeology here, with performance supplements here, or with both here.

There are a variety of different combinations of BOD access, 80 Day Obsession accessories, Shakeology and performance supplements available. Do drop me a line if you’re not sure which is right for you or if you’d like more information about this programme or anything else.

80 Day Obsession, Uncategorized

80 Day Obsession Diary Day 43 – Arms, Abs, and Ass (including AAA review and moves list)

March 2, 2018March 4, 2018 sophiemunday

The first thing to say is that this isn’t the first time I’ve done this workout. After a near-perfect Phase 1, I’ve been a bit more hit and miss in Phase 2, but not that hit and miss. It’s just that I’ve been super short on time, with long hours and lots of stress at work, and while I’ve tried to keep both up, where something has had to go, I’ve tried to make sure it’s the blog and not the workouts themselves!

The second thing is that you only need to scroll down and look at that monster move list to realise that this workout a)packs more moves into an hour than anything else we’ve seen so far, and b)is correspondingly more complex in structure. Personally, I kept losing the thread of the structure, and if I’m absolutely honest, I did wonder if it was a little unnecessarily complicated. That said, I did feel like the three body parts it targets got thoroughly worked and that I also got a reasonable all-over body workout.

The basic principle isn’t that different from AAA in Phase 2, in that each set involves two arm moves (well, upper body moves anyway – despite the name, they work shoulders, chest, back etc as well as what you’d traditionally think of as arms), one ab move, then one booty move. All of them are done to work the negative, which involves going into a move fast and coming out of it slowly.

The difference is that, for some rounds at least, each move is followed by a similar move done very rapidly, which really helps to burn the muscle out.

When we finished round 1 in the first week, I couldn’t believe that we were only halfway through and that I had to do what seemed like hundreds of moves (actually 12!) once again. I wasn’t sure I could. Luckily, we weren’t, and I didn’t have to. Round 2 is quite a bit shorter and easier, as it only involves the first move from each set (so the isometric one, not the fast one).

Week 2, I missed, so I’m not sure how it was structured there. In Week 3, like most other workouts that week, each series of exercises is completed with tens reps, then repeated twice before moving on to the next series. The extra moves were only done as part of the final round of the three, which I actually found much more palatable, albeit still exhausting.

MOVES

SERIES 1
Shoulders:
• Bilateral Press
• Alt. Unilateral Press

Delts:
• Lateral Raise
• “Y”

Abs:
• Lat Side Bend
• Standing Weighted Knee Driver

Butt:
• Loop Standing Donkey
• Forearm Plank Jumping Jacks

SERIES 2
Chest:
• Chest Press
• Fly

Triceps:
• Kickback in Plank
• Tricep Push-Up

Abs:
• Corkscrew
• Teaser

Butt:
• 1st Position Bridge
• Single-Leg Bridge w/Loop

SERIES 3
Back:
• Pullovers
• Renegade Row

Biceps:
• Curls
• Turned out Curl

Abs:
• Loop Scissor Twist
• V Leg Raises

Butt:
• Narrow Bridge, Clam
• Straight Leg Circles
***

If you don’t currently have access to BOD, you can get a year’s subscription, a month’s supply of Shakeology, and all the accessories you need for 80 Day Obsession for just £180 here

80 Day Obsession, Uncategorized

80 Day Obsession Diary – Day 28 – Review of Cardio Core Phase 2

February 13, 2018 sophiemunday

After the way Booty ramped up for Phase 2 yesterday, I was a little nervous about the Phase 2 version of Cardio Core, which I found to be one of the most challenging workouts in Phase 1 (in large part because I’m just not a cardio girl).

The bad news – or the good news, I guess, if you want to push yourself – is that again, the Phase 2 version is harder and more intense than the Phase 1 version.

The good news is that, unlike with Booty, which basically felt like a different kind of workout compared to the first four weeks, Cardio Core 2 follows the same format as Cardio Core 1, just with some more complex/higher-intensity/more challenging moves.

So once again, there are six rounds, each of which involve 3 minutes of cardio – 30 seconds of a relatively low intensity skipping move and 30 seconds of a high-intensity or particularly challenging move, repeated 3 times nonstop – then ten reps of an ab move. Then after all six rounds are done, all 6 ab moves are repeated for another ten reps, back to back.

The skipping moves were a bit heavier going than last time around, but recognisably the same sort of thing.

The other cardio moves felt a lot more complex. There were several compound moves and some series of moves that it took me a while to get the hang of, like jumping sideways twice, lunging to the side, doing a squat jump, then going the other way. And most dramatically, there was the horror of burpee push-ups – if there was ever a two-word combination to strike fear into my heart, it’s that one!

plank to chair

The ab moves were perhaps the most different though, partly because several of them used bands, as opposed to before, when they were purely slider-based, and partly because again, they generally involved a little sequence of movements.

Much as I tend to dread it, I always thought Cardio Core was a really effective workout that allowed you to get a good amount of cardio in relatively quickly, do some sneaky bodyweight-based resistance training through squats, lunges and plyo moves, and blast the abs. All of that is just as true here. I was dripping with sweat by the end and my heart was racing. I felt like I’d got a great cardio and abs workout in, and felt pleased with myself for getting through it. There were a few breaks this week while moves were demonstrated. I suspect it will be a real killer next week when it’s a bit more non-stop!

Clearly, this programme is designed to be done to the letter, but more than most of the workouts, I’d also recommend this as a standalone for anyone just wanting to randomly scorch some calories and work their core.

ROUND ONE
Jump rope
Side jumps, side lunge, squat jump (it took me several attempts to get this one right)
High plank to chair (start in plank, on sliders, pull legs in, stand up half way)
ROUND TWO
Jumping jack skipping
Iso knee raise
Side Pulls (everyone’s favourite from Phase 1 Total Body Core is back!)
ROUND THREE
Pogo jump rope (ie. jumping on the spot, feet together)
Burpee push-ups (Arghhhh)
Criss-Cross double pulls (start with the right knee to left elbow, left knee to right elbow combo from phase one, but then pull both knees to the same outer elbow. Ouch!)
ROUND FOUR
Twisting skips
Squat jumps with butt kicks
bicycle with loops
ROUND FIVE
double hops
side ways squat jumps to lunge jumps
Pike to single leg pike (I literally could not do the single leg version for some reason)
ROUND SIX
wide-leg mountain climbers
knee tucks with bands (sitting down and leaning back, with band around thigh, lift legs, open legs, lift legs, close legs, lower legs)

***

If you don’t currently have access to BOD, you can get a year’s subscription, a month’s supply of Shakeology, and all the accessories you need for 80 Day Obsession for just £180 here

80 Day Obsession, Uncategorized

80 Day Obsession Diary – Day 27 – Start of Phase 2 (including Phase 2 Booty Review)

February 12, 2018 sophiemunday

After yesterday’s introspection, it’s time to get back to business. Today marked the start of Phase 2, and even though one of the good things about this programme is that way it’s kept the workouts feeling fresh, today everything felt strikingly new.

It first struck me when I got home from work all ready to do my now-traditional Monday evening round of Total Body Core. Only to discover that Monday’s are apparently now Booty Day.

I next hit me when I prepared to launch into the jumping jacks that have started every workout so far, only to find myself confronted with butt kicks and a whole new warm-up.

And then, readying myself for the classic Booty experience of moves that are intense on the muscles but gentle on the heart-rate, I was a little surprised to find myself being told to pick up some weights…

This feels like a very different workout to Phase 1 Booty. Probably harder, on balance, but also just much more of a total body workout (albeit still focused on the butt, obviously), more of a cardio experience, and much more weight-based. Please don’t cry when I say it reminded me a lot of Phase 1 Legs, only with bands used in addition to weights. I’m not sure I’d have physically made myself do it if I’d seen that description before hand, but it actually turned out to be quite enjoyable, and while I occasionally spent Phase 1 Booty wondering whether I was going enough, that never crossed my mind here.

Most of the moves were familiar from one or other of the phase one strength-based workouts, but were made harder in some way.

Sometimes, by adding a band to what had previously just been a weighted exercise – like with the diagonal backwards lunge from legs.

Sometimes by turning it into a compound move, like with squats to hips hinges or back lunges to knee pulls. And perhaps most traumatically, with, wait for it: Bear Fire Hydrants, which are just what they sound like and hurt about as much as you’d imagine, across shoulders, core, and legs, as well as the obvious glutes.

There were also some classic mat-work type moves, just involving bands and one movement at a time, they were just harder than last weeks. The hamstring curl was particularly tricky. And there was the return of one of the moves I remember most from A Little Obsessed, where you put a weight on the back of your knee and lift up your leg.

Today involved 15 reps of everything, straight through, then repeating the whole thing from the top, like in most of Phase One, Week One’s workouts. I imagine that will change to three lots of ten reps straight through next week. Booty was always a bit of an anomaly in Phase 1, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the other workouts ramp up in quite the same way.

MOVE LIST (note that the idea of “series” was irrelevant today, but they’ll presumably be broken down into them in subsequent weeks)

Series 1 – Standing
- Squat to hinge
- Curtsy lunge lift
- Rotating back side lunge (with bands on thighs!)
Series 2 – Quad Ped
- Heel Press up on angle
- single leg hamstring curl (on all fours, using a band. Ouch!)
- Bear Fire Hydrant (just don’t think about it too hard)
Series 3 – Weighted
- Kettle bell swings (despite the name, the whole cast do them with a dumbbell, though I grabbed my chronically underused KB and gave it its moment in the sun)
- Sumo hinge
- Reverse lunge with a leg lift
Series 4 – Floor Weighted
- single leg bridge
- Press Up and Over (this is the weird ALO one with the weights on the back of your knees)
- Camel (sit back on your heels, holding a large weight, then sit up straight)#

kettlebells — I own way too much home workout equipment

***

If you don’t currently have access to BOD, you can get a year’s subscription, a month’s supply of Shakeology, and all the accessories you need for 80 Day Obsession for just £180 here

80 Day Obsession, Uncategorized

80 Day Obsession Diary – End of Phase One

February 11, 2018 sophiemunday

So, I’ve reached the end of Phase 1 of 80 Day Obsession, and I’m a mass of contradictory feelings.

Firstly, I’m incredibly proud of myself for how well I’ve stuck to the programme. On the exercise side of things, out of the 24 workouts (plus 4 recovery sessions) I’ve only missed two in total, one legs and one cardio flow. I work out regularly and consistently, but I don’t think I’ve ever reliably managed 6 nearly hour long workouts every week for a whole month.

My nutrition has also been pretty good:

On weekdays, during the day, I’ve not wavered once. I’ve got prepping my boxes and saying no to colleagues’ homemade cakes down to a fine art.
In the evenings, me and my husband have cooked for each other as per usual. For these meals, I’ve not stuck rigidly to the boxes, but I have stuck to clean eating, relatively low-cal meals, sensible portions and no snacks or puddings.
At the weekends, I’ve wavered a little, but have avoided unhealthy snacks and – with about three exceptions – meals that are completely beyond the pale.
My main weakness, as I expected would be the case, has been booze. I’ve avoided drinking during the week, but at the weekends, I’ve had far more wine than I can really justify on a strict programme like this. That’s the main area where I want to be stricter with myself in Phase 2. Not going completely tee total – I just don’t feel that’s compatible with my lifestyle – but not taking advantage of the bit of slack I’m cutting myself.

When I set it out like that, it sounds like I’ve cut corners in quite a few places, and compared to some of the people I see on Facebook who don’t seem to have deviated from the plan an inch, I suppose I have. But I’ve been stricter with myself that I’ve really managed before, I’ve been good most of the time, and on balance, I’m still quite proud.

This will be heresy to some people, but for Phase 2, I’m moving away from an absolute reliance on the boxes and on timed nutrition, in favour of calorie counting combined with clean eating. In practice, I don’t think I’ll be eating all that differently, but it should simultaneously give me more flexibility and hold me more accountable.

Secondly, I’ve really enjoyed the programme. The individual workouts are good in and off themselves, but what I really love is the fact that no two videos are on the same, so you don’t get bored and you really feel like you’re on a journey with the cast and all the other participants worldwide.

Thirdly, I have found it a challenge to fit everything in. As I stated on Day Zero, I have a demanding job and though I always make fitness a priority, I’m used to 30 minute workouts and/or about four sessions per week. Frankly, I’m amazed and delighted I’ve completed as many as I have, but I’ve only managed it by really prioritising this. It’s been doable for four weeks, and I’m desperately hoping it will continue to be doable for eight or nine weeks more. But realistically, it’s not a schedule I can see myself sticking to long-term. And meal prep is pretty time-consuming too. For now, it works because I’ve embraced the idea of being obsessed for three months.

Fourthly, hand on heart, my results are a little disappointing. In four weeks, I’ve lost two pounds and an inch from my waist, hips and thighs. It’s not bad for a month, particularly considering that I’m relatively small to start with (4 pounds would have been about the most I realistically could have lost), but for the time and effort I’ve put in, I feel like I should have seen more results.

Some people might look at the paragraph above about the two missed workouts and the occasional deviances from the letter of the food law and claim I only have myself to blame, but I know I’ve had months where I’ve worked out for fewer total hours and put far less thought into what I’m eating, and lost quite a bit more. I’m confident I’ve been in a meaningful calorie deficit most days, I’ve walked too and from work every day, which burns around 300 calories, and I’ve worked out 6 times each week, so it’s frustrating.

My after pictures are below, and honestly, I can’t see that much difference. I think I’ve got more noticeable obliques and my abs are starting to show more generally, though the picture doesn’t really capture that. My waist is a bit smaller, as the measurements suggest, and there seems to be less fat on my back. So all good stuff, just again, not quite what I feel would be fair when effort is compared to reward.

All that said, I’m starting Phase 2 tomorrow, and I intend to give it my all. I’m excited to experience the new workouts, interested to see whether changing up the nutrition a bit helps or hinders, and really hoping things suddenly fall into place as far as results go.

BEFORE

80 day obsession before back 80 day obsession before front 80 day obsession before side 2