Lower Body Sculpt I

[Guest guest]

I almost didn't work out today but finally forced myself late this afternoon, then had to rush for the evening activities but at least got my workout in and I feel a lot better for having done so.

I did The FIRM Lower Body Sculpt I for the first time. Kay leads it and, except for the idiotic commercials for the fanny lifter during part of the workout, I enjoyed her cueing and instruction. She actually instructed too! I think it was the only time I've ever seen a FIRM instructor actually show you how to do an exercise before telling you to do it. It was only one exercise, but I swear it happened. She also actually instructed more than just robotically scripted form tips, I was amazed! No dumb chatter but more personality than they are allowed to show most of the time. I wish more FIRM workouts had the instructors like that. It is only 30 minutes and intense so it was perfect for my day today. It was also a surprisingly tough and sweaty 30 minutes! She said to use heavy weights through almost all of the workout, only one exercise called for mediums. I used 10s for all but that one (8s for that) and it was really tough with those. It is all standing leg work. You do a lot of squats, lunges, dips and lots of leg presses. Not many hover squats though, which I masochistically like, so I was kind of bummed about that. There's also two short (3 minutes each) intervals of mostly low impact cardio, at least one uses the purple step too, that is very easy to follow, even for me. They were very low intensity though so I'd even consider grabbing light weights to hold during those, except that I needed the low time to recover from the intensity of the leg work! I thoroughly enjoyed this workout! I burned 158 calories (great for me, especially for a 30 minute primarily strength training video that's) and was in my aerobic training zone for over 13 minutes!! That's what a zillion leg presses will do for you I guess! If this is anything like Standing Legs, I already know I won't be using 10s throughout that. They were almost too much for just 30 minutes, I can't imagine what double that would be like. I guess I'll find out in a few weeks though, when it comes up in the rotation.

This one gets two big thumbs up!