Body Revolution - Phase 3, Cardio 3

Phase 3 cardio takes you through all four weeks of Phase 3, just like with the previous two phases. This one is pretty simple in which you do the circuit three times over, but the moves in general are HARD. Even Jillian herself says that this was probably the most vicious workout she's created and she wasn't lying. By the end of Cardio 3, I was dripping in sweat. It is the toughest Jillian cardio workout I've done personally (Workout 11 and Cardio 3 are about equal).

So, there are several different moves that last around twenty seconds or so. You start with windmills, and you quickly move from that to fast feet, knee thrusts on both sides, double jump jumprope, and jumping front kicks. She also has you drop down in plank for plank moguls. Then you do a purely evil few minutes of rockstar jumps, squat jumps, jumping lunges, and squat jacks. She has you do four high knees and then an up down/burpee. Standing mountain climbers, high knees with a rotation, long jump forward and two jumps backward, cannon balls. She has you drop down on the floor for plank taps, crab kicks (which I hate with a passion!), knee thrusts in plank, down dog thrusters, zig zag jumps, side burpees, single leg hops, and then finally, back in plank again for plank punches.

And you get to do this two more times!! 

It is tough. A ton of plyometric moves, lots of planks, lots of burpee variations. I did this workout in the summer months and also in the winter months when my home was pretty cold at night, and it didn't matter. I was dripping. But it's still a great cardio workout a super effective!

Body Rev - Phase 2 Cardio

Phase 2 Cardio. 

The Phase 2 cardio workout takes you through all four weeks of Phase 2. So on your cardio days, you will do this workout, and you’ll do it a total of eight time during Phase 2. All other workouts you do four times.

So the cardio workout is pretty simple. There are 14 different moves that you do for approximately 30 seconds, and you repeat it three times. Get ready to sweat. Since it’s a cardio workout, you don’t need to warm up. The moves are jump rope, butt kicks, high knees, alternating knee thrusts, jumping jacks, fast feet, skaters, skiers, plié hops, cross jacks, half squat uppercuts, towel runs, hooks, and…boom! Thought you might escape those burpees, but they are ba-aaack! 

So, like I said, you do each of these moves for approximately 30 seconds each, and then you move on to the next one and repeat this circuit three times. The Cardio 1 workout is my favorite cardio from Body Rev, but this one is my second favorite (and then Cardio 3 is somewhere down in hell!). I did like having some uppercuts and hooks in there, and I'm all about those skaters, jump rope, and fast feet. There is one amusing moment during towel runs and Jillian is joking about how bad the workout sucks, and then she’s like, “Who’s the crazy person who came up with that? Hurts So Good, oh my endorphins!” I KNOW! John Cougar Mellancamp, and I love that song! Small towns unite! I always love when there are moments in a workout that I remember and look forward to getting to when it comes to doing them over again. 

Cardio 2 is definitely a step up from Cardio 1. I’m someone who likes cardio more than the strength training/HIIT training. 

Revisiting Ripped In 30

I decided to revisit Ripped In 30 in between Level 1 and Level 2 of Six Week Six Pack (6W6P). RI30 has always been a favorite of mine (if not my absolute favorite program), and doing it again was great on so many levels! Six Week Six Pack really hurt my back and let me know that I may have lost some core strength while taking my Jillian break, so I thought, why not go back. Plus, Level 2 of 6W6P was sooo intimidating. I didn’t think I was strong enough to do it, so what a better way to get myself back in the groove than to get ripped?!

The first time I did Ripped In 30, I had been doing Jillian workouts for just a couple months, but it was the second Jillian program I ever did. Now that I’ve done a few different programs and a few different people, it was nice to go back and see how far I’ve come. Definitely a non-scale victory! It was great showing myself how far I’ve come physically! Since I’ve already given the rundown of what each week entails in previous entries, I won’t do that again, but feel free to go back and read those entries.

Week 1, I loved. It was great going back to Jillian and doing the 3-2-1 plan again. And I felt that it was a great way to reboot myself and my system again and get an all around whole body workout. It was all pretty basic and getting the moves down, but even for me, I still felt challenged. This time around I used 8 pound dumbbells and did fine with it. My first time around I used 5lbs.

Week 2 can burn in hell. I only did this one for five days because I’m pretty sure this workout made my back hurt something terrible - I had the same issue with 6W6P, so it makes me wonder if I’m doing something wrong or if I’ve pulled something. Since I’ve never been to a gym and never had anyone tell me that my form is absolutely correct, it very well could be that I’ve been doing all this wrong. But this time, I felt more challenged than I did the first time! 

Last time around, I hated Week 3. This time, I loved it! I can’t believe that I found duckwalks and bear crawls so hard! I mean, yes, they’re difficult, but I feel like I had them down! The whole entire workout was great. Challenging, fun, but I still loved every minute! 

And Week 4 is still my favorite, even with the burpees, which I’ll be honest - are not as scary as they used to be! That’s an amazing feeling! And at the end, the speech Jillian gives about brought me to tears. Again. I’ve been doing two workouts a day; an hour of cardio and then a strength DVD or youtube workout that’s anywhere form 30-45 minutes for over two years. And sometimes I just feel like a zombie. It’s just gotten to be routine now that I forget what I’m doing. Wow. I’m actually doing something! Not a lot of people do this, and her speech was another reminder of that! 

I didn’t take measurements or track my weight this time around, but I feel like I’ve come a long way. I can tell that when I read my old posts about this workout program. It was so nice to revisit and go back to the basics. It was like going through my old closet of bigger sized clothes, just to see how far I’ve come only fitness style. I think I need to do it more often! 

Natalie Yco's Cardio Kickboxing with jump rope.

Sorry for the delay! Here’s the fourth workout I began doing consistently after breaking up with Jillian. It’s a Natalie Yco cardio kickboxing workout with a jump rope and it’s definitely one of my top five favorite workouts, if not my all-time favorite workout. Words can’t possibly express how much I adore this workout so I won’t even bother gushing about it, I’ll get right down to the nitty gritty and talk about the workout itself - just know that I love it and it is AMAZING!

Natalie starts you out with doing a quick warm up, jumping jacks, lunges with rotations, swinging legs, and punches. She then has you go right into the workout, jumping rope for a minute. The way she designed this workout is you do one minute jump roping, and then another minute doing a kickboxing move, repeat jump rope, repeat with a new kickboxing move. I don’t actually use a jump rope, but I mimic the moves and hold my three pound weights during the jump rope sections to get a bit of an extra calorie burn. After your first time jump roping, your first kickboxing move is a move where you turn to the side into lunge and punch, come up and punch forward for two, and then two punches down in squat, and then from squat you move to lunge. I know that sounds like a lot, but the video will show it better. You twist to the right for the first 30 seconds, and then twist to the left for the next 30 seconds. After another minute of jump roping, your kickboxing move for the next minute is a squat, front kick, squat, front kick with the opposite leg. Get ready to feel the burn! Jump roping, and then a side lunge to a side kick. 30 seconds going right, and then 30 seconds going left. I really like this one because - nerd alert! - I was/still am a wrestling fan growing up, and side kicks always remind me of Shawn Michaels. Sweet chin music, anyone? Haha! After jump rope, you do my next favorite move is where you bring your knee up, punch with your elbow, bring your knee up again, and then a back kick. After 30 seconds you switch legs, and then start jump roping again! After jump roping, you shuffle side to side punching for a minute. The next moves are three kicks, a front kick and a jumping jack, alternating legs, and then a fun move where you punch and bring your knee up. That one reminded me of dancing! Then in jumping lunges, she has you punching out to the side. Next, she has you do a round kick, and a jumping jack alternating legs. After that, you do jumping jacks one last time, and then your final move is two jumping jacks, and two front kicks, one kick per leg. And then it’s time to cool down, and you have earned it! 

I LOVE this workout. I love cardio and this is a cardio kickboxing workout. And I’ve been a big fan of Natalie’s for a long time, so this workout was just made for me! (Okay, not made for me, but I can pretend, right?!) 

If you’re interested, you can check it out and do the workout yourself with the link below!

Ripped In 30, Week 2 review

Week two of Ripped In 30 is finished! I’m a couple days into Week 3 now, but here’s my thoughts on week two!

Phew. It was tough and definitely more challenging than Week 1. The first circuit had static lunges with rows, a pendulum lunge, and then on the floor with pelvic thrusts and chest presses. Those I enjoyed, especially the pendulum lunge. The cardio was a total killer! Ahhh! Plank Jacks, into mountain climbers, back to plank jacks and then finish out with mountain climbers. Two minutes in plank. Oh my gosh. The first day, I thought it’d never end! By the end though, it was still challenging, but I didn’t feel like I was totally going to die! I forget the abs moves for the first circuit though. 

In circuit two, you did side lunges with a leg raise, ahold into a table top, and then crow pushups for strength. I have really short arms, and they weren’t long enough to really do an ab hold at all. I ended up towards the end of day three realizing that I could raise myself on on weights that would give my arms a little bit more length, but I had to be careful not to twist my wrist when I would transition into table. That was challenging in itself trying to figure out how to actually do the move with my super short arms! Ack. (Random fact: in high school, I used to have classmates tell me they wished they had my arms, because they were short. You should wear shorts at fingertip length, and technically, I could get by wearing a pair of panties if I were to go by fingertip length!) And those crow pushups? Damn. Those things were tough. I could hike my knee to my shoulder if I was in the advanced position, BUT I couldn’t get my arms to move in a pushup, so I did it on my knees, but then I couldn’t get my leg high enough, I didn’t think at least. Other times if felt like I did. I am really thinking of getting a mirror to watch myself to make sure I have all my form down completely. I need to work on my flexibility and my shoulders in general though. I loved the jump rope kick outs! I know Jillian mentioned they were like a Pollyanna move - I love Pollyanna. It was my favorite growing up, and the second she mentioned them, I was like, “Heck yeah. I’m the new Hayley Mills!” but then it was short lived because plank thrusts were the next move (before doing jumprope quickest again) and my poor arms were still screaming from the two minutes of plank before. The ab moves circuit two made me so happy though! Reason being, in Week 1, there was this move called hollow man, and I felt like it would never end. There is a move that goes from hollow man to where you crush up into a sitting up position. Hollow man’s killed me before, but I was able to go from that to a crushing position using the advanced version and I was so happy, I wanted to cry tears of joy. It was that move that reminded me how far I’ve come. The next move was crawling up your leg, with it extended up in the air. 

Circuit 3 was not my favorite strength by any means, but I loved it because that meant it was almost over. Haha! You went with a sumo squat with tricep extension, stork stance with a low row, and then into plank for a renegade row. The first day I rotated my hips until I heard Jillian say not to on the DVD. So I worked my butt off to never rotate my hips again! In the 30 Day Shred, she had renegade rows with a leg extension, and I wasn’t able to do the advanced, but I was able to do the advanced in this one! So that made me excited. Another way for me to realize how far I’ve come, not only from the beginning, but since starting to do Jillian DVD’s in January. Cardio was jab cross high lows, and then high knees. I was pretty familiar with these. Jillian doesn’t switch legs for the jab cross, but after the third day I did, because I noticed my left knee was a bit sore. Maybe because I was using it a bit more with this move, so I actually did switch legs. That helped a lot with my knee (although this one I hurt a couple years ago and since then, it’ll hurt on and off). Abs were sit-ups with a leg extension and then a crunch with a leg raise. 

AND THEN IT WAS OVER! WOOO! Week two was much more challenging than week one. And besides the jump rope kickouts, there really weren’t any moves that I can say that I enjoyed. Like, I’ve always been a fan of skaters, I like running man, jump rope, single leg hops. Rockstar Jumps are fun (I’m a total cardio girl). Even some strength like squat and press. But I did it and enjoyed it. I know Jillian says to take a break and do this 5-6 times a week and always make sure to take a break, but I went six days and then I moved on to Week 3, which I’m two days into. No breaks yet. I’m just worried that I’ll fall out of the routine. I’ll review week three when I finish, which should be in a few days! 

After I finish the Ripped In 30 DVD, I’m going to reward myself with a deluxe pedicure! I’ve never had a pedicure before (or a manicure) so I’m really excited about it. I thought of the idea when I first started this with my new shoes and my feet killed me afterwards. I was soaking them every night, and that’s where I got the idea of a pedicure! 

So this week, I realized how far I’ve come thanks to two different ab moves. Have you ever had that epiphany? 

How do you reward yourself after a week well done? 

Thanks for reading! 

Ripped In 30, Week 1 review!

I started Jillian Michaels’s Ripped In 30 last week! I’m actually already into the second week, but I thought that I would talk about how the first week went. 

So, Ripped In 30 is a Jillian Michaels workout DVD and it’s kind of similar to her 30 Day Shred DVD. It uses the same 3-2-1 system that the 30DS uses and it’s approximately the same amount of time, which is right around 30 minutes from warm up to cool down. RI30 is a bit more challenging though. You do three strength moves in each strength circuit rather than two that you did in the 30DS, but it’s still three minutes long. There were pushups, squat and press, and tricep kick backs in crescent pose in the first strength circuit. Stiff leg deadlifts, a squat swing holding one weight (like a kettle bell), and good mornings for the second. Chest fly’s in chair pose, side lunge with a shoulder raise, and lunges and bicep curls in the third circuit. I mentioned on my 30 Day Shred review that I sucked at lunges, but I thought it was because I worked out barefoot. I started RI30 the day I got my new shoes (oh, Lord, do these things hurt my feet. I think I need to go up a size) and that does make lunges much better. I feel like I’m much better at them. It could be that the 30DS prepared me for them. Maybe a bit of both. In all, I loved the strength moves for this one!

Cardio is always my favorite and this was no exception. There was fast feet, skaters, punches, running man, butt kicks, and single leg hops. I LOVED the single leg hops! And skaters has always been a favorite of mine, too. Really, I loved all the cardio. I always got so excited when the strength part of the circuit had ended, because that meant cardio was next and I loved the cardio moves in week 1!

Abs were pretty basic, but there was this one called hollow man, and oh my gosh. That was very difficult. It did get easier though!

But all in all, I really loved the Ripped In 30, Week 1! Jillian recommends you do RI30 5-6 days a week, and I went, I think five days straight, took a break, and did the week one again for one more time because I hadn’t watched Week 2 yet. I like to watch the next level before I actually do the workout so I can get an idea on form and know what to expect. Otherwise, I’m stopping to watch the TV screen when I should be working out!

I’ve done Week 2 three days in a row now, and unless something crazy happens, tomorrow will be day 4. When I’m finished with it, I’ll be sure to give my opinion. So far, it’s going good! It’s much tougher than week one though ;). Phew!

Thanks for taking the time to read! Click here to check out the DVD on Amazon.

Finished the 30 Day Shred - here's my review!

Woo hoo! I completed Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred!! I got to say, I’m pretty proud of myself! This is not the first time I’ve started the Shred, but the first time I’ve started it and completed it in full. The first time I did it, I went through Level 1 and was halfway through Level 2 and contemplating moving to Level 3 when I got sick and I fell off the 30DS bandwagon. I used to do all my exercising together - one hour of cardio followed by the 30DS - right before bedtime and I was always SUPER tired, so when I think about it, I can totally see why it was pretty easy for me to drop the 30DS. This time I really wanted to finish it and I made it my goal to finish. I started on January 11th. I didn’t finish it completely in 30 days, but I’d say around 35-40 days because I took a day off here and there to give myself a break. Instead of doing the Shred right after my cardio before bedtime and being so tired, I started my day with it so I had no excuses to half-ass it.

So, in case you don’t know much about the 30 Day Shred, let me give you some background information on it. The 30 Day Shred is a Jillian Michaels workout. It comes with three levels and all levels are approximately 25 minutes long from warm up to cool down. Each level gets progressively more challenging. Jillian suggest that you start at Level 1 and work yourself up Level 2 and then Level 3. These workouts contain Jillian’s 3-2-1 system, where you do three minutes of strength training, two minutes of cardio, and one minute of abs and you do the 3-2-1 circuit three times after a warmup and before a cool down. Behind Jillian are Anita and Natalie. Anita does modified exercises for beginners.

I can remember when I started Level 1, I was so sore the next day! I actually took day 3 off because I was so sore. By day 6 or 7, I remember smiling when Jillian said, “if you’re on day 5, 6, 7, I’m sure you’re seeing a huge difference in your endurance!” because I was noticing huge changes! Level 1 was pretty basic but tough. The strength training you do throughout the circuits are pushups, squat and press, side lunge with lateral raises, chest flys, static lunges with bicep curls, and dumbbells rows in a squat position. Cardio is jumping jacks, jumprope, butt kicks, and punches/shadowboxing. Abs is a basic crunch, reverse crunch, bicycle crunches, and oblique crunches. I still to this day hate lunges!

Level 2 is my least favorite, to be honest. Mostly because it has so many plank moves! Ack! I did start enjoying plank a little more once I got a good pair of grippy gloves that kept my hands from slipping. I didn’t have a decent pair of shoes while doing the Shred so I did it barefoot most of the time, and I think that is another reason why I found the planking so difficult. I did the modified most of the time, except for the plank jacks. I find pros and cons to doing this barefoot, but more pros for me since my shoes are a full size too big. (New shoes should arrive tomorrow, woo hoo!!) This one is definitely a lot harder than level 1. And my least favorite. Phew. I loved when it was over for the day! The strength moves for level two are walking pushups, dumbbell rows in a squat position, military press and a leg extension, V raise and a chair squat, pendulum lunges and hammer curls, and  static lunge and rows. Cardio was plank jacks, plank thrusts, double jumprope, oblique twists, skaters and high knees. Abs were plank twists, and a few others that I can’t remember right off. I LOVED the skater and the oblique twist cardio though. But that was about it. This one was tough! Phew. I think I actually did this one for 13 days because I didn’t feel ready to move on. In fact, I moved on to Level 3 worried I might have to hop back to level two to continue building up…

But Level 3 was my favorite!! To be honest, I almost felt like in a way it was too easy?! But still tough. It was like doing Level 1 all over again, but only more fun. This one doesn’t have as much plank as level 2 did, and you don’t use the weights as often as you did in the first two levels. The exercises have a lot of jump and plyometric training. The strength moves were traveling pushups, a plank move where you start on your elbows and then go up to your hands and then back down, a superman stretch, deep squat with a dumbbell clean, jumping lunges, and plank rows with leg raises. Cardio is rockstar jump, jump squat (loved these!), jumping jacks, butt kicks, and punches (all with dumbbells), mountain climbers and plie squats. Abs is sit ups, pike crunches, scissor crunches, and side plank raise. Since I’m used to doing a lot of jumping with DDR, this one was a lot of fun for me because it had lots of jumping. I never was able to get the jumping lunges down though. I hate lunges and never feel like I have the proper form (although I’ve been told I do so who knows!) but I think this is where not having good shoes was a total hindrance.

All in all, I really did enjoy the 30 Day Shred and totally recommend it. The music that is played in the background is a little annoying and after a few days and you have the exercises down, I ended up turning off the background and would watch the TV screen but play my own music and that helped it go on a lot! With my own music, even Level 2 got to be tolerable! I didn’t think to take measurements before, but I did take pictures. I think I see some definite changes!! I know I’m a bit pessimistic as it is, but I use the word “think” because somedays I do truly see the changes, and some days I don’t. But when I do notice the changes, I see it in my arms, which is exciting, since my arms are definitely one of the places I feel most self conscious about. (I’ll blog on that later.) Looking at pictures from the back, I can tell that I’m starting to look less “cupcakey/muffin toppish/love handles” (I currently cannot remember the correct term I want to use here)!

Because of all this, I totally recommend it! Here’s something cool: like I said, I bought new shoes and they should arrive here tomorrow. I also bought Jillian’s Ripped In 30 dvd a few days ago and I planned to start it the day I got my new shoes. Even though I finished the Shred a few days ago, I’ve been continuing to do Level 3 in the mornings because I enjoy it so much, but wanted to mix it up a bit so yesterday I did Level 2, and today I did Level 1 again today. Level 2 still was challenging, but not like it used to be! And level one I didn’t modify at all! And to be honest, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole workout, remember how I had to take a break the first few days because it was so hard. I used to think it’d never end, but today it ended too fast. :)

Thanks for taking the time to read!! If you're interested in buying the DVD, here's a link to it on Amazon.