Posts filed under 'Workin' It'
Okay, so the word got out that another new Firm workout will be released on May 20, 2008. Which workout? It’s the cardio jump rope one with Annie called Firm Cardio To Go. Both Amazon and Overstock are taking preorders on it, but the Overstock.com price is cheaper than Amazon - for now. It looks like the kit is going to contain a jump rope and a DVD and will come in a pink drawstring bag. It’s kind of hard to tell if it comes with anything else since the picture at Overstock is soooo tiny.
I think it is going to definitely be a must miss workout for me. Annie just doesn’t seem like she would be a very good instructor and well, I don’t like high impact stuff right now anyways.
Although, I am curious to see a preview of this thing mostly because it finally looks like the Firm is trying to take some “different” approaches workout wise - except for the gadgets thing. Grrr. Gadgets!
Oh yea, and I don’t write about Cathe Friedrich that much - mostly because I am in no shape to do her workouts - well not like I am in shape to do some of these Firm workouts either, but I digress…..
Well, Cathe has been talking about it for awhile now, but she is coming out with a whole new series pretty soon too. She’s calling it STS, which I think stands for shock training system. I think she is trying to come out with a version of P90X, but she is going absolutely Cathe crazy with making this series. What am I talking about? The series itself is going to be compromised of 37 - yes 37 - DVD’s! OMFG! She already started her presale and this is the time to really jump on it actually. Why is this good time to jump on it? Okay, I admit the presale price is really high, (it’s $200 plus shipping I think), but if you think about it, it comes out to about $5 a DVD! Saweeet!
Also each DVD is going to be about 45 minutes to an hour long. Not bad at all. She is already in rehearsals and has posted a ton of pictures on her blog. Dang! Those people got some muscles on them!
If I was in better shape, I think I would probably cave on this one - just because the price per DVD is so darn good!
February 25th, 2008
Personally, I have never ordered anything from Total Fitness DVDs, but I have read nothing but positive reviews about them from the various video fitness boards I go to.
I am mentioning them today because they have a few new Firms available for preorder right now. The Firms available for preorder are the ones that are set to be released on March 4, 2008. There is a possibility that they might have them sooner than that, but don’t quote me on it.
They are currently showing these new Firms available for preorder -
Tight Buns and Killer Legs was part of the initial add on pack for the Transfirmation system and one I am looking forward to, even though I haven’t worked out in ages. Ha!
I am also looking forward to the Balance Trainer one. I have seen those types of discs at the gym, but never tried them. It looks interesting though. I should probably try it at the gym though - to see if my wonky knee gets affected by it - that should make or break my purchase of it.
The prices at Total Fitness DVDs actually are quite reasonable - more reasonable than Collage actually, and I have heard that their shipping is pretty fast too. I am surprised, but a few of those new ones aren’t even available for preorder at Amazon yet.
In other workout news, Cardio Coach is running a pretty awesome sale until February 1, 2008 right now. What’s Cardio Coach? Okay, again, I have never done one myself, but they are audio workouts designed to help your cardio fitness. The people at the video fitness boards swear by them and I can’t wait to get them actually, even though I have no idea when I am going to use them - again HA!
You can use them on any type of fitness machine, but most people use them for running on a treadmill, I think. I will probably start off with walking on the treadmill and see how that goes.
They are offering a New Year Special, which is just incredible. You get 6 CD’s, 1 mp3 download and a $20 gift certificate - for $30!!!!!!!!!!!! Each workout is normally between $15 and $19 dollars, so you can see why this is such a bargain. I ordered them really early Friday morning and they should be here tomorrow actually. I would have gotten them on Monday, but there was no mail on Monday because of the holiday.
I would highly recommend picking this up now - just because the price is so good.
One thing that is really bad about getting the Cardio Coach’s though, is that it is making me want to get one of those ultra mini mp3 players for the gym. I just got a new one which I don’t want to talk about yet, just because I am weird like that, but I am now thinking about getting a Creative Zen Stone Plus. It’s like an iPod shuffle, but costs a bit less. The Zen Stone Plus holds 2 GB’s and also includes a display, a radio, a stopwatch, clock, timer, voice recorder and can be used as a storage device - for around $50. Those new fangled shuffles only have 1GB of storage, no display and costs around $80!
Yea, I know what I would rather spend my money on. I really like the Creative products, I just don’t understand why their market share is so low. I mean, heck, there is even a freaking keychain case for the Zen Stone Plus, so you can use it as a keychain! How cool is that?
Oh, but if you like the sound of the Zen Stone Plus, Creative is actually coming out with a newer version soon which is going to include a built in speaker! ZOMG! I don’t need a built in speaker though, so I think I will pass, but the price shown at the Creative site is still really reasonable - I think it is going to pretty much be the same price as it is now.
January 21st, 2008
The Firm Transfirmation system has been out for awhile now. I don’t really have any reviews for that stuff yet since I’ve only picked up a couple of the new workouts.
I am hopefully going to review at least one of the new ones I got this week. We’ll see.
But, if you were planning on getting it, it has gone retail and you can pick it up at various online retailers. The cheapest one I’ve seen is at Overstock.com. It retails there for about $30 and their shipping is always really reasonable. The main difference between the retail kit and the one you could get through Collage or the Firm directly is that the retail kit only comes with 8 1 pound weight plates versus 12 pounds with the normal kit. Plus the kit costs about $75(!) at Collage plus shipping.
Personally, I don’t see the point of selling the videos with the weights. I mean, I already have weights. I heard a lot of people with weights already would set the weights up at 4 and 7 pounds since those types of dumbbells are a little rare to come by. I am pretty sure that most of the videos are going to hit regular retail in the next 6 months anyway though.
I am attempted to pick it up through Overstock though - just because the cost per workout for the price is really cheap. Oh yea, Overstock lists it as being out of stock. They had a whole bunch a little while ago, but sold out within a week I think.
Oh yea, if you want to see preview clips of the new videos, you can check out 2 to 3 minute clips of all of the new releases here. These are clips that are available to members of the Firm Believers club, but they didn’t do a very good job of keeping the preview address “secret.”
A lot of people on the video fitness boards I go to all gave Hi Def Sculpt by Annie really poor reviews. Tight Buns and Killer Legs by Kelsie has gotten universally good reviews - but that is part of that add on pack they released shortly after the CardioWeights release. This video looks pretty good from the preview clip I saw. It is also going retail in March 2008.
There also some new Firms set for release next year. This is something I picked up from the Firm boards.
We wanted you to be the first to know about new programs that will be released via retail in 2008. We have tentatively scheduled these for release throughout the year so look for updates and announcements here about when each of these new FIRM programs will be available. A few will be available as early as May 2008 while others will be released later in the year.
· Cardio Dance workout led by Alison Davis
· 60 minute calorie blasting workout led by Kelsie Daniels that is slated to be packaged on one DVD with a 30 minute AWT led by Emily Welsh
· Sculpting workout led by Rebekah Sturkie
· Kickboxing Cardio workout led by Kelsie Daniels
· Balance workout led by Tina Smalley
· Travel / quick workout led by Annie Lee using a jump Rope and other fun compact equipment
· A new Cardio Sculpting Ball Workout led by Rebekah Sturkie
The most amazing news is that some of your fellow FIRM Believers will be in the cast of some of these workouts! They will be able to share the behind the scenes making of The FIRM workouts!
These sound pretty good and they were all filmed this past September. The only drawback to these? Well, I am pretty sure that most of them are going to be released with new gadgets. What the hell!!???!!!! Ugh, it’s so sickening how they are pushing so many gadgets. I think I am pretty much done with the new Firm. I mean, they were so great in the early years because they were different from other videos out at the time and they used weights! The early workouts were a little gadgety to a certain extent too - I am not denying that. But, it’s not like you would have to buy the gadget in order to get the workout.
I also heard somewhere that the Cardio Dance Fusion workout with Allison is going to be released in March 2008. I am really curious to see how that turns out - mostly because she is in the dance workout with Allie in the lead and well, the girl ain’t got no rhythm.
I also don’t know why they are having Annie lead workouts as my understanding is that she doesn’t seem to be a very good lead at all. Then again, the majority of the old school Firm instructors have left the Firm and are now working with Nancy Tucker at BodyFit in Columbia, SC.
One of the sleuths over at one of my fitness boards found this image. It basically looks like a new Fanny Lifter, renamed Body Trainer and it’s pink and purple instead of blue and purple. There was a rumor that a new Fanny Lifter workout was filmed back in 2006, but no details were released about it. If this is the new workout and considering the way Gaiam has been operating, the workout probably is not going to be available without the purchase of this thing. It’s also been speculated that the name of the gadget was changed because fanny means something completely different in the UK than it does in the States.
November 19th, 2007
I’ve been pretty active this past week and I am getting more comfortable with it, which to me, is just awesome!
I took my second Turbo Kick class last week Monday at the Mililani 24 Hour Fitness. I wasn’t going to go because I was starting to get really nervous just thinking about it, but a friend of mine convinced me to go. I am pretty glad I did. The Mililani 24 was larger than I thought it would be and it looked like they had a lot more cardio machines than the main one on Kapiolani. They even have a 25 meter pool!
The place was packed too. It was a little unnerving simply because all of the machines, cardio and weight, were so close to one another. It looked like you would bump into someone if you got off a machine wrong.
The Group X class room was twice as large as the one in downtown and quite a few people took the class as well. I was pretty happy with the room the class was in simply because even though there were a lot of people there, you pretty much didn’t have to worry if you were going to kick someone in the head when you did a kick.
I made it through an entire class too! Yippy!!! I know some people walked out simply because I was in the back row and the back row thinned out a lot before the class was halfway through. I did remember to wear my heart rate monitor and I am still wondering how accurate it is because it said that I burned - get this - 1500 calories!!! 1500 calories!!!!!!! That is CRAZY!!! I mean I know my heart rate got, I would say, dangerously high a few times when I was really pushing it, but at least I knew when I should tone it down.
I really enjoy the class, but I don’t know if I should continue taking them until I get into better shape. I feel great during the class but I feel like such crap afterwards and it’s taken me at least a day to recover after. Of course maybe I wouldn’t have this problem if I took everything down a notch while I was actually doing it, but it’s hard not to get into it.
Other than that I did go to the beach a couple of times. Going to the beach has been interesting. I mostly use a kick board when I go now because I get shoulder problems, (ugh, the joys of aging). I don’t know if it’s kismet or coincidence but the latest issues of both Shape and Self have had articles about aquatic exercises - with a kick board!
These images are from Self -
They called this one the Kick Board Climb. It’s basically just a set of knee ups in the water. It really isn’t that difficult, but I was really feeling it in my abs. I think it has to do with stabilization in the water. It is a lot of fun though and I would kind of use this as a warm up before I swam a little.
This was called the Water Taxi. This is also a lot of fun because you are basically just sitting on your kick board and you propel yourself through the water using your arms. You are also supposed to be kicking, but it just seemed awkward. I would try to make it to the second life guard stand doing this, but man, it was just killing my triceps. I would go maybe, just maybe, half way between the life guard stands and then have to kick my way there.
This was called Surf’s Up! and it was the hardest one for me to “get.” With this one, you need to stand on your board and once you’ve done that, bring your legs up and down. Eventually you are supposed to work on doing this with one leg.
This also had me laughing the most out of all of the ones I tried because for the life of me, I just had the hardest time trying to stand up on the board. If I did get on it, not 20 seconds later I would be falling over on my back because I lost my balance. I did kind of “get it” the second day I tried it and I was also actually able to do the one legged ones too.
During the week, I also did Cardio Party from Turbo Jam.
Turbo Kick is definitely more intense than Turbo Jam. The intensity not only comes from the more complex combinations, but also because there are no breaks between the segments. In case anyone was wondering, my 1500 calorie burn mentioned above is probably not typical. There is no workout out there that can tell you that you will burn x amount of calories by doing this workout since there are so many different factors when it comes to total calories burned. My total calories burned is probably abnormally high because 1) I am very overweight and 2) kind of out of shape. Someone in really good or average shape will probably burn 1/3 to 1/2 of the amount of calories I burn during these workouts.
I also did something tonight that I never thought I was ready for. I took a live yoga class at the downtown 24 Hour Fitness place. I, again, was going to chicken out, but Fred called and was like “you’re coming right?” Yea, that was motivational. Heeheee. I promised him I was going to take the class with him, so I couldn’t back out when he called. I got there like 1 minute before the class started too.
Oh man, it totally kicked my ass. I was pretty familiar with most of the poses because of the various yoga videos I’ve done over the years. But, taking a live class is pretty different from a video - in a good way. I was able to do most of the poses and I did modify whenever I needed to. The only pose I was not able to do was the bow pose.
I just do not have the flexibility right now to be able to this. Plus, I have my apprehensions about this because I pulled a back muscle the last time I did this. Well, that was a couple of years ago, but still, it makes me a little nervous.
I really need to invest in a new sports bra too. I have several that fit me perfectly well, but, how do I say this? Well, there were several times during the class where I felt like the girls were gonna pop out and say hello. Doh! I think I need something with a little more support and, ahem, coverage.
I should be going to the beach again on Tuesday and I will be working on mastering some of those kick board moves some more. If all goes well and I don’t chicken out, I am planning on taking a water exercise class at 24 Wednesday. I am pretty curious as to what kinds of exercises we’ll be doing.
I am still refusing on checking my weight for now and I still haven’t taken any measurements yet. Doh. I really should measure myself though.
July 31st, 2007
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