Tag: workout reviews

80 Day Obsession, Uncategorized

80 Day Obsession Diary – Day 50 – Phase 2 Cardio Flow

sophiemunday

I have a shocking confession to make. This should have been the fourth time I did Cardio Flow Phase Two. It was actually the first! It’s not that I’ve been super lazy every Saturday. Sometimes, I’ve used Saturday to make up a workout I’ve missed earlier in the week. And then having had a bit of a gap, last week, I didn’t dare launch straight into the phase 2 version, so repeated phase 1 – and once again, found that exhausting enough!

This week though, I realised I had to be brave. I’ve been much better with the programme full stop this week. It’s the first time in phase 2 I’ve fitted in all the workouts, and I wanted to end the week and the phase on a high.

Unlike the other phase 2 workouts, which are completely different to their phase 2 equivalents, this involves the same moves in the same order. There’s just one key difference: you have to do 6 reps each time rather than 4.

Now, initially, that doesn’t sound like much of an addition. But the genius of this workout is the way it builds up, with exercises repeated again and again. And in that context, and extra 2 reps to every single exercise every single time quickly turns into a lot more reps overall. And much like the first time you do the phase 1 version, you think it’s fairly easy at first and then suddenly find yourself dripping with sweat, at first, I thought this wasn’t much harder, then found myself struggling to get through the last few rounds.

That said, it all goes so fast that you just keep going, and the increasingly familiar moves mean you can disengage your brain in quite a nice way, in stark contrast to trying to keep up with some of the complex compound moves in AAA etc.

I actually did the maths. In Phase 1, you do 296 reps in total. In Phase 2, the figure is 444 reps. Which means there’s an extra 148 reps to get through! (And that treats each move as just counting as one rep. You could definitely make an argument for counting mule and frog as two moves, and perhaps even the tricep dip and the kick part of crab as two too) The tables are below for anyone who wants to check. Got to admit, I’m planning to stick with this version for the first week or two of phase 3, not upgrade again…

Round 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 X Y
worm 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 44
spider 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 44
diamond 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 40
flamingo 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 36
duck 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 32
kick 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 28
gorila 4 4 4 4 4 4 24
bear 4 4 4 4 4 20
crab 4 4 4 4 16
mule/frog 4 4 4 12
TOTAL 296
Round 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 X Y
worm 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 66
spider 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 66
diamond 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 60
flamingo 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 54
duck 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 48
kick 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 42
gorila 6 6 6 6 6 6 36
bear 6 6 6 6 6 30
crab 6 6 6 6 24
mule/frog 6 6 6 18
TOTAL 444

***

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 48 – Phase 2 Legs (including Phase 2 Legs review and move list)

sophiemunday

Like the other strength-based workouts, Legs has undergone some changes between Phase 1 and Phase 2, which go deeper than just a different set of moves. With Total Body Core, AAA, and in particular, Booty, the changes have definitely made things more difficult. With Legs, I’m a little unsure whether the Phase 2 version is harder, easier, or just very different.

The basic idea is that there are 6 standard, weight-based leg moves. The twist is that after you’ve done the requisite number of reps, you then do a variation of the move without weights, but using the sliders. I found that the weight-based moves got my heart-rate up more, but the slider moves really made individual muscles burn. This is why I can’t decide quite how it compares to Phase 1. It left me feeling less exhausted but more sore.

The weight-based moves are mostly very straightforward moves that anyone who has done any strength-training will be fully familiar with. And they aren’t compound moves at all. After all the complexity in some of the other workouts, I quite appreciated this. It allows you to go relatively heavy and really focus on thoroughly working certain muscles. Conversely, the slider moves will probably be new to most people, and I found they took a bit of effort to get the hang of.

I did this in week one and two, but because I’ve been a bit lax with my reviews, didn’t post one. The pattern is the same as it’s been with other workouts: week one is 15 reps of each exercise in turn, then another 15. Week Two is 10 reps of everything, done three times. I missed Week Three, but Week Four, today, involved doing each exercise and its slider equivalent for 15 reps, then repeating, with no other exercises inbetween. This basically meant working the same muscle with the same sort of exercise for 60 reps back to back, which was pretty brutal, even compared to the other workouts this week.

Each time, it’s hovered around the 40-45 minute mark, so relatively short for a 80DO workout. But even allowing for that, it always seems to go very fast and I find it surprisingly enjoyable.

MOVES

  • Reverse lunge – then reverse lunge with sliders
  • Goblet squat – then modified pistol with sliders (keep back leg bent and still, keep front leg straight and slide it forward)
  • Curtsey lunge – then curtsey lunge on sliders (ouch)
  • Sumo squat – then sumo squat on sliders (which for anyone with visions of going flying, reassuringly involves only moving one leg to the side at a time)
  • Weighted Warrior Threes (aka good mornings, aka flamingo – pick a name and stick with it Autumn!) – then hamstring curls on sliders (lay on back, pull legs in and go into bridge, lower down and straighten legs)

There’s also been a different bonus move each time so far. Week One, it was a surrender, Week 2 built on this with camel to surrender. And Week 3…

***

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 47 – Total Body Core (including Total Body Core Review and Moves list)

sophiemunday

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

***

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)

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

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 28 – Review of Cardio Core Phase 2

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

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.