NANCY Re: SWAT Workout: Weight Loss & Fat Burning +

[Guest guest]

Hi , do you think all of the cardio is high impact? Are there any modifications? I wanted to get this but not if it's all high impact because my knees can't take that. JenSubject: SWAT Workout: Weight Loss & Fat Burning +

To: exercisevideos Date: Monday, December 8, 2008, 1:11 PM

I got my workout in today and it felt great! What didn't feel great was to see how much conditioning I've lost with very sporadic workouts over the last month but that will come back so I'm not worried about it. This is a (to me) very challenging workout but fun too! It is mostly cardio intervals. You march in place for the resting periods and the high intensity intervals consist of things like knees up running in place, butt kicks running in place, mountain climbers, jumping jacks (several variations), squat thrusts (some with pushups when you come down) and other boot camp/athletic exercise. Absolutely no choreography to remember (yea!). The warm up is 8 minutes long and the stretches were long and interesting. Commander Tom Stroupe, an actual SWAT commander, is gorgeous and very friendly and fun. He's got 2 women with him for the warm-up, then the stage becomes all lit and there's a bunch of women and him. All of the women are very fit and gorgeous too but he says they are ordinary people. One is a personal trainer though and one is a student of his who attends all of his classes. I don't know anything about the rest. He talks through most of the workout but it is mostly explaining what you're doing, cueing and counting and some form tips. There are 3 sets of exercises and they're mostly the same with just variations on the basic moves. There are also 3 short strength training sections interspersed between the cardio sets. One was overhead raises (can't remember what that is actually called), another I think was lunges (there's a lot of lunges in this workout) and another was bicep curls. They're not so great but could be good with heavier weight (I used 5s because I was already tired from the cardio). There's lots of pushups throughout the workout too. The emphasis is on cardio though. I could not keep up with all the exercises and especially all the pushups and I don't care. I don't know how I would have handled this one a month ago. Better than today but since cardio endurance is one of my weak areas I don't think I would have been able to do all the reps of everything then either. I'd love to have this one in my collection. I can really grow with it and enjoy it because I love athletic cardio. The only problem was that I was out of my training zone a lot because I was working so hard. I can watch that more closely and modify moves next time though.

It reminded me of Jillian s' workouts because it is so athletic but he is much more congenial than Jillian. She doesn't bug me but she tries to come across as a toughie and he knows the workout is tough but does seem warmer in his encouragement. There's also a (for me) very tough 6 minute abs workout (another weak area for me) after the cardio but before the cool down/stretch. It is labeled as a "bonus" workout but when you hit "play all" this comes up before the cool down and I liked that a lot. I think the total workout, with the abs, was about 53 minutes. When I got done I was at almost 300 calories so, wanting to just hit that mark I put in a 1 mile walk with (1 Mile Express) and did that too. Ended up over 350 calories burned which I liked a lot. :-) Plus I just felt like walking with for a little while so this energetic 15 minute workout was just right (fairly decent music too). I was thinking about getting rid of it but am keeping it. I'm getting rid of the 3 mile from this series though since if I'm going to do a 3 mile walk workout I definitely grab the Walk Slim 3 Mile instead of this. Trying to thin out my collection still by trying out workouts I haven't done in a while or ever.

Tomorrow is a full day of work in two different locations then an hour at home before having to take my daughter to dance. I haven't told her yet but we're talking about having to take her out of dance. That is going to be the worst change I think. She loves her dance lessons this year... we'll see I guess... maybe I can find some fun kids' dance videos for her... it won't take the place of her lessons but it might be something else for her to do at home... I dunno. She has 2 Bella Dancerella sets she's hardly used too so maybe she will. I'm planning strength workouts from Dozois' Next Moves for Wednesday and am looking forward to that. I need to do cardio but I don't want to lose my strength/toning gains either so I that should be good too.