Power 90X series: Cardio X (2004)

[Guest guest]

Okay I was probably a little harsh on Tony yesterday -

he bugs me, but I'm an instructor and by no means

perfect so I won't go into his personality again today

:-)

Cardio X is an AWESOME workout! It starts off with

three minutes of jogging, jumproping, and doing some

jumping jacks. After a couple of hamstring stretches,

he extends the warmup by doing some sun salutations.

How very nice to incorporate yoga into an athletic

warmup! It does indeed get the breath moving, and

works on strength and flexibilty all at once. Tony

adds in the advanced extra pushup before going into

downward dog and that's cool! We don't often do this

even at the gym! It does intensify the vinyasa, that's

for sure! Tony utilized a good cue I hadn't heard

before during updog, and that was " getting the turtle

head out of the shell " .

The first set of exercises are Karate Kenpo. This is

great because there is a whole other dvd devoted to

just this, so this is a good preview of what's to come

later. In fact I'd say that Cardio X is a " sampler "

of several of the workouts in the series, utilizing a

rehearsal effect. This is nice, because that way you

have an intro to the other workouts without feeling

too new to them. If you've done any Tae Bo these moves

will be familiar to you. Tony cues safety very well,

emphasizing pivoting during the punching sequences and

foot placement for the kicking sequences. The only

thing he doesn't do is mirror his cueing; like

Blanks, when he says " kick right " it is his right, not

the home viewers' right - a real no-no in my opinion.

The next section is plyometrics. I had already worked

up quite a sweat from the Kenpo section, so here we

were for much more! He does a very fun exercise here

called Swing Kicks where you get a stool and do almost

like crescent kicks over the stool; right then left,

then left and right. I had to go a little bit slower

than the class to maintain good form, but they were

fun! He also did some basketball jump shots and tire

runs.

After that is the core section of the workout, my

personal weak area so this was good for me. My

favorite exercise in the entire dvd is right here -

you start on the floor and roll up to a standing

position with your arms overhead, then roll back to

the floor. You can end it if you like with a jump

tuck! It's much harder than it sounds, and as with the

swing kicks I had to go a bit slower than the people

on the dvd.

Next is a short cooldown, and that's Cardio X! I am

dripping in sweat! I liked the variety of this

workout. I was never once bored, and again Tony cues

for safety and offers modifications. A thumbs up!