Cathe's Boot Camp

[Guest guest]

Go me! I just got this recently in a VF trade but was very intimidated by it. Today, I wanted to a serious workout, wanted circuit but didn't plan to do one that was an hour long but did this one (58 minutes) anyway! This workout is broken into 8 cycles, each with 1 minute of cardio, 1 minute of lower body, 1 minute of upper body and 1 minute of core. I already knew from other workouts that 60 seconds can feel like forever and had no intentions of underestimating Cathe. Good thing too... the 1 minute of most of the cardio cycles about killed me and some of the weights too (try 1 minute straight of triceps dips... I dare you). The very first one was jumping jacks, quarter jacks and then plyo jacks (I had no idea a jumping jack could be made even higher impact like that until today). My heart rate monitor flat lined on me not because I had died but because, I think, my heart rate went so high so fast it couldn't keep up!! (It said "0" and the strap did shift too so I'm not totally sure it was the intensity but I think that was part of it). The highest it recorded during the workout was 171 though. I did all of those jacks too!! I was thinking "If this is what the workout is going to be like, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do it!" but I did! I did only about 1/2 or maybe less of the terminators though and thought it would be a goal to get through all of them sometime! I managed to get in all the reps on most of the other cardios and all the weights too though. "Terminators," for the uninitiated, are a squat thrust followed by what she calls a scissors I think but what felt like a mountain climber to me (you do two of those I think) then as I recall you jump your feet back towards your hands then jump up in the air and do it all over again for an entire minute. "Terminator" fits well. At the end of those Cathe says something like "You were probably watching thinking what was that?!" And yes, at times, I was!! When she said another couple of cardio cycles later in the workout were super tough, I was definitely scared! The cardio cycles were all tough, some more so than others (and for me the terminators were the toughest). All of it was athletic, no combos. A few required more coordination than I have but I did my best and with practice I could get better. I was impressed to see Cathe and the others breathing very hard and needing to walk around and catch their breath at the end of those too.

The weight cycles were easier to modify and I think I went too light for many of them but I hadn't previewed this and since that jack stuff was the first thing out of the gate I didn't want to lift too heavy. Plus my heart rate was up too high after the cardios to go with heavy weights for lower body (first sculpting sections). I will go heavier next time though. All the exercises focused on a single muscle group instead of being combination moves. A lot of the core work was plank variations which I was thrilled to see myself do very well with.

I liked the music in this, it helped me push forward. The core music was always lower key but still good. Cathe made it really fun, despite how hard it was. I'm glad I did this today, I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment in making myself try (and not give in to fear of not being able to do it after that first cardio cycle too).