Re: 15 minute workouts with Maya (from Mc's)

[Guest guest]

Hi Sara!

Great reviews, thank you! The cardio one sound pretty good! I only have core and strength and I have to say I like those. I'm glad Maya eliminated lunges for you on the strength! I should pull these out and use them again... gotta plan next week's rotation soon...

15 minute workouts with Maya (from Mc’s)

So, I have to say that these workouts were pretty decent, and a good choice for my light week! I did 15 min cardio on Mon, and 15 minute strength and 15 min core on both Mon and Wed. On Mon I was feeling really sluggish, so I started with cardio as a warm up, plus I wanted to get it over with, lol. I told Maya that I had a step, and that I wanted to "ease in to it" to get started.15 cardio with the step turned out to be a beginner step workout. Very beginner, I suppose. That was good thing for me due to my very, very low level of step ability and my low energy, heh. But, I can see using this one for a warm up and refresher next time I try step workouts. It was a good mix of basic step, v-step, ton, over the top, travel step, and turn steps. The time went by pretty quickly for me – but I suppose 15 minutes IS quick when I was spending an hour at a time with Maya last week. The stretch was barely there – maybe a minute of quad and hamstring stretches. But, that's the case with all of these workouts, probably due to the 15 minute time limit, I guess. No biggie, I just added more stretching afterward.For 15 min strength, I did the easy version on Monday and the "I'm up for a challenge" on Wed. I told her I had hand weights, and she starts with a very brief march/side step warm up. I'm happy to report that Maya did NO lunges for these workouts! I was shocked! But, she is very fond of plie squats with arm combos this time. She does 10-15 reps of each exercise, and usually does 2 sets of each exercise, alternating them. It breaks down pretty much like this: SquatsPlie squatsPlie w/ shoulder pressPlie w/ front raisePlie w/ upright rowplie w/ biceps curlRepeat plie sequenceChest press (on the floor, I used my ball)Bent over rowTriceps kickbackRepeat sequence from chest pressSuper short stretchThe "up for a challenge" version is pretty similar to the break down above. She throws in some push ups and narrow push ups instead of the chest press, and some of the plie squats are 2 count instead of one count, but other than that the workouts are quite similar. Same warm up and super short stretch, too. Out of curiosity I scanned the no weight workouts – and there were the lunges, lol! But the odd thing was that she also did chest presses and lat raises, etc without weights. You would think she could have done some other body weight exercises instead. Weird...15 minute core was a decent collection of ab exercises. Again, the two levels are pretty similar, and I did both with the stability ball option. I don't think there was a stretch at the end at all this time. This is the breakdown for the "challenge" level:Stability ball (SB) crunches – 2 setsSB crunches w/ a pulse – 2 setsSide crunches (floor) – 2 setsStraight leg reverse crunchSB push ups with quads on ballBicycle crunchesHundredsSeal roll (I did more crunches instead, this looked risky for my low back)SupermansChilds poseDouble crunchesComparing this to the PC version of Yourself Fitness, I actually think Maya offered more cues about form and how to do the exercises than she did on the PC game. And I was certainly glad it wasn't 75% lunges! But again, these aren't bad workouts, and I can see doing them again for a light week, and using the step workout to help me learn the moves at my (slow) pace. Sara