Jiggle Free Buns & Express Cardio

[Guest guest]

Both of these were on the schedule for today and because I had an INSANE day planned (first half especially) I had to break them up instead of doing one right after another. I did JFB after getting on the bus, then came up and helped Miriam with breakfast, etc. and saw her off on the bus (about 70 minutes later) and then did Cardio Express. Both use the TransFIRMer (though CE actually uses the FIRM Box).

First review is Jiggle Free Buns. Pam Cauthen leads it. This was MUCH tougher than I'd expected. I don't know why I expected a wimpy workout, probably because of the stupid name of it, but I did and I was torturously delighted to find I was wrong. It is a cardio+ sculpt Tortoise workout but it had a lot of cardio intervals (it went sculpt then cardio then sculpt then cardio through the whole workout). I'm having workout amnesia and even looking at a breakdown posted on YaYa's I'm not remembering it well enough to comment too much (that kind of day since then) but a few things stick out for me. The cardio was mostly very good and not crazy choreographically except something Pam called "Hot Cross Buns." (I keep hearing my kids playing that on their instruments in my head every time I think of it). You've got the transfirmer with the 6" section on the floor in front of the 8" section and I can't remember exactly how it goes (probably because I never did get it) but you put the foot you wouldn't expect to put up on the 8" section I think and I don't know, it was a disaster. Other than that move though, the cardio was reasonable, fairly intense and fun. The sculpting work emphasizes the lower body (of course) and both the sculpt and cardio make good use of the incline. I like the incline A LOT. I am definitely feelng my glutes and hamstrings talking to me right now. The workout moves fast and with so many (really good) cardio intervals and since you're using primarily lower body there is a big cardio effect (for me anyway) throughout the workout. That said, I had to go down to 7s for leg presses. I tried 10s and knew right away that wasn't happening. Went to 8s and was okay for a while but my heart rate was going too high for me to keep working at that level for I didn't know how long and I went down to 7s. That was good but wow, I was still working REALLY hard! Immediately after leg presses, and with my heart rate in the high 150s and even 160s she tells you to put down the weights and start doing tall box climb!! Holy crap!! I did them but it was TOUGH! Right after that you do hover squats and slide your foot across the floor to make those even harder... it never let up but it was GREAT! Pam's cueing is excellent. In 30 minutes I burned almost 200 calories doing this workout and my heart rate was in my zone for almost half of the 30 minutes. Loved this one. It packs a ton of good work into just 30 minutes.

Express Cardio is another story. Huckabee leads this one and I truly hated it. I remember trying it one other time and got so lost on the first combo that I gave up. Today, I really wanted to give up. I tried to give up several times but I had decided I was doing both workouts today, trying to stick to the rotation as best as possible and forced myself to stick with it saying "It's only 30 minutes, you can do the whole thing." I did and the only reason it isn't in my trade pile is because it shows up at least one other time in the rotation and I will try it again, maybe I'll do better with it. Plus, despite how totally messed up I was most of the time, I still burned almost 200 calories and was in my zone for over 16 minutes so maybe there's hope for it. changes cues SO FAST and of course, every foot move has a totally different arm movement, most of them complicated too. She seems to cue well but the adding on, fast changes and crazy arms was too much for me. I did take out the arms at some point. I didn't even use weights for one of the 4-limbed combos near the end thinking it would help me figure out what she was doing but neither helped that much. I've got workout amnesia for this one too so I can't describe most of it but there are combos just using the step at 6", on the floor, using the incline and 4-limbed. The ones on the step and incline are the most confusing. She just goes way too fast for me. I didn't like Ultimate Calorie Blaster for the same reason. I can follow some step choreography. I have finally figured out rocking horse, I can do turn step, I can do another one that I can't remember the name of that shows up in FIRM step workouts all the time and I can do a lot of it with power moves. I cannot follow really fast changing cues though and found this much too annoying. I'm not loving much at this point. I think I have other workouts she does, I'll have to see if I liked any of her other ones. Gotta run now though. I saw lots of super interesting posts on nutrition and other stuff that I will respond to later. Had to post my workouts first for myself though!