Hello, HC Fitness Readers!
In the last month and a half I have been taking aerobics as one of my fitness classes. We have done everything from Pilates and Richard Simmons (yes, I’m serious) to Turbo Jam and P90X, and currently we’re doing workouts by Jillian Michaels from “The Biggest Loser.” For this week, I decided to rate these various workouts and suggest the best ones for you to try:
Anne’s #1: Jillian Michaels Workout– AWESOME. Seriously, I am thinking of buying the tape. Jillian has it down to a science. Work out hard, do a lot of lunges and squats, keep your heart rate going while you continue to jog in place or do sidekicks. I can see how contestants on “The Biggest Loser” are successful with her – she knows what to do.
Anne’s #2: Turbo Jam– Love it. I found this workout to be fast-paced, having some intervals of intense “Turbo” while making it fun, upbeat and most importantly both a good core and ab workout.
Anne’s #3: Pilates– If you are flexible and enjoy hard ab workouts, this is the workout for you. So many of the exercises are done slowly, putting emphasis on tightening that core. However, if you are like me and flexibility is not something you are particularly good at, you won’t reach the full potential of the workout. Yes, there are some exercises that are perfect, but when you have to do something that is qualified as “beginner”(like I had to during some exercises) that feeling like you were working out simply isn’t there.
Anne’s #4: Richard Simmons– In other words glorified stretching. You get the gist, it is hilarious and fun, and you will find yourself humming along to “I will Survive.” But if you’re looking to break a sweat, this isn’t the workout for you.
Anne’s #5: P90X– For me, I knew it wasn’t going to be my favorite workout right when the instructor started calling one of his helpers “Blam Pam.” What? It was comments like those that made me want to turn down the volume. Besides that, where was the difficulty? I had heard P90X was intense, and all of the guys and women on the show are ripped, but I don’t see it. I had to do an entire new workout in the evening, feeling like I hadn’t done anything. Harsh, I know. But just trying to save you time or $$.