Thursday, July 18, 2013

Workout Wednesday: Blogilates July Calendar Review

Since so far on the blog I've mostly focused on food (don't I always?) I thought today I would talk a little bit about the latest workouts I have been using to meet my fitness goals.

I have always been fairly active. I played volleyball growing up and in college and still enjoy working out now. My main exercise issue has been consistency. I might have a flag football game Saturday, play in a doubles tournament all day Sunday, do some Nike Training Club strength routines Monday, and then not work out at all the next week. I also tend to get bored easily and want to try every cool new fitness trend, which has made it difficult to stick with a workout program.



To combat this tendency, I decided to commit to and stick to a workout calendar for the whole month of July. Well, I actually committed to two of them (that whole attention span thing). So far this has made a big difference for me so I thought I'd share how it's been going now that I'm about half way through.

Blogilates July Calendar

The first monthly challenge I set for myself was to complete the Blogilates July workout calendar. I'm not gonna lie, I was not an instant Cassey Ho fan. I've never been into instructors that talk through workouts, and Cassey talks A LOT about random things. She is also extremely high energy, which was a little hard for me to get used to. However, she also has TONS of hard workout videos available for free, and as a fitness instructor she really knows her stuff.



For July, Cassey put together a great calendar of 6 days a week of workouts, which are around an hour long each. There is great workout variety in the calendar, with Sunday focused on total body toning, Monday on core, Wednesday on upper body, Saturday on lower body, and Tuesday and Thursday on cardio. The calendar is really easy to follow, as all the workouts are posted together on a playlist for that day and all you have to do is press play.

Pros:

Variety: Like I mentioned, Cassey has a HUGE collection of YouTube workout videos. This means that, by the middle of week 3, very few of the videos have repeated at all, really helped to beat boredom and hold my short workout attention span.
Balance: There is a really good mixture of strength, flexibility, balance, and cardio moves, which makes me feel like I am getting a much more complete workout than I could on my own.
Community: Cassey has a large following and does a great job of interacting with her followers through social media. Seeing what other Blogilates fans is motivating, and it is great to have the community's support.
Ease of use: Since all the videos are stored in daily playlists, it's very east to follow along with the calendar. Most of the moves require little to no equipment, and I have done every workout in my living room. This has helped prevent me from skipping any days! (although that might change this weekend if I play in two volleyball tournaments)


Cons:

Time commitment: Some of the playlists are looong. An hour a day is a big time commitment for me, and sometimes the day's workouts take over an hour.
Workout intensity: Because of the great variety and balance of exercises, each day varies in intensity and calorie burn. Not a huge issue, but it is hard to spend over an hour burning relatively few calories. 

Bottom Line:

Sticking to this calendar has been relatively easy and has increased the consistency, variety, and balance of my workouts. I can already see changes in my core strength and muscle definition. The new HIIT routines (my favorite part!) burn a ton of calories and I can see repeating them after the month is over. While this calendar is a pretty big time commitment, I think it has been worth it and I would highly recommend giving it a go!

To access the calendar, click here and sign up for the Blogilates newsletter to get the password.

Stay tuned next week for a look at my other monthly commitment, The Betty Rocker 30-Day Bodyweight Challenge.

5 comments:

  1. What a great article. I also do some effective exercises regularly with my brother to stay active and healthy.
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  2. Rick Says,
    Your latest workouts methods truly gives me a new way of gaining success in my fitness mission. I don't want to loss the way. I hope that if I will able to follow your process then will also able to get success. Thanks for the review :)

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