Austin Sizzler & garage sale shopping

[Guest guest]

Today I *finally* have some time to myself. I made myself do my workout and then went to a subdivision garage sale. Picked up tons of books for the kids and a few for me, snow boots for the big kid (found boots for the little one at a sale last weekend), the original 3 Star Wars videos for the newly 10 year old Star Wars, a Bionicles game (legos are his other love), nice sweaters for DH and Kathy 's Ultimate Stomach & Thighs Workout for me. This is from 1989. I think I paid 50 cents for it so if it is good that's great and if not, no big loss. I just can't seem to pass up anything by her! I wasn't sure if I should take this one or not but ended up getting it. I did pass up a couple of Tony Little workouts (thought about it but I'm just not sure about him) and a couple of Buns of Steel videos (one I think I had and one was cardio and I couldn't tell if the choreography might be okay for me or not and decided just to skip it). I'm becoming more selective about what videos I add to my ever growing collection instead of just grabbing it because it is cheap and a workout video. Maybe too selective though.

Speaking of garage sale videos... I'm not sure if I got Sizzler from a garage sale or freecycle but it seemed like a good way to get into writing about today's workout! This was my first Austin with cardio. This video has about a half hour of cardio/strength intervals followed by leg toning, abs toning and then a stretch. It is about 45 minutes total. The cardio intervals are 3.5 minutes and the strength (upper and lower body using light dumbbells) intervals are 1.5 minutes with the intervals taking about 25 minutes altogether. I felt like I got a good workout. The abs toning was very good, the legs would have been much better with ankle weights and the stretch was okay. The cardio/strength intervals were good work but her idea of cueing was to just say "Let's go!" She rarely said what move was coming next and never gave directions for how a move worked. The moves were mostly basic but when you've never done the workout and have no idea what is coming next it is challenging to jump in and try to do a couple of reps of a move and then jump into another one that you weren't expecting either! She also does not count out the moves so you don't know how many reps you're going to do and be ready for the next move. You just have to catch on as she builds the combination. I'm glad I've done a lot of more dancey (less strictly athletic) cardio lately, it definitely helped me with this. If I were new to workout videos I would have turned this off early into it.

Watching this first might have helped but I wouldn't have remembered all the combinations anyway. She builds on them well and repeats them (each interval was a different combination though) so that made it a little easier to follow. It is a mixture of low and high impact but she does say from time to time that you don't have to add the jumps. Her enthusiasm and encouragement is wonderful but I could have done with a few less "You can do it!" and "I'm proud of you!" comments. She talks through the entire video too, mostly repeating the same phrases. At least her eyes didn't look possessed in this one. Despite the lack of cueing in the cardio sections, she did cue the toning better. She was late cueing a few times but did announce most of the upcoming moves. She also gives a lot of form pointers for the toning. The toning intervals were cued less well than the legs and abs sections so I was usually trying to figure out which weights to grab when she was already doing the first reps. I wanted to know what the exercise would be so I could pick up appropriate weights. That could have just been me overthinking it instead of just sticking with 3s or 5s like she recommended. The other thing that really bugged me was that according to the case, there was some really good music in this workout but you could not hear the music hardly at all! I would consider trying this with my own music next time, it's not like I really need to listen to anyway since she doesn't hardly cue! ;-) I

Overall, if I had to say whether I liked this video, believe it or not, I would have to say yes. Despite the obvious flaws I got a good, solid workout. My heart rate was up in the cardio intervals whenever I could figure out the moves (and other times I just jumped around, no doubt looking like a dolphin that got caught on land). I burned over 200 calories for 45 minutes worth of work, which included a lot of toning so that is good for me. I will keep this and will do it again sometime.

Now I'm watching Teigh McDonough's Yoga Fusion Power. I did this workout once at least a year ago, probably longer, when I'd first started yoga and had never done any pilates. This is a fusion of yoga, pilates, dance, qi gong, tai chi and I'm not sure what else. It was way beyond me then but I'm sure I can do it now (and enjoy it). Teigh doesn't chat, she just gives instructions. She's pleasant though. I need to do my workout schedule for next week soon so I might put this in. I also have Yoga Fusion Strength and Power (got it at a dollar store) that I've never opened so I might have a look at that too. Gotta get a few house things done but it is really nice to be able to relax with my workouts a bit too!!