I have pretty much always wondered if these magazine exercises really help anything, but have never taken the time to test them. Diverging from the usual fitness routine to try something from a magazine has just sounded, well, silly... If you have ever felt that way, hopefully this will help you decide whether or not to take the magazine plunge!
The routine I picked is a cardio plan that uses a jump rope mixed with certain core and leg exercises to give you a total cardio and strength workout plus burn 250 calories in 25 minutes (Hmmm, ten calories in ten minutes, I see a pattern). It was created by Mark Harari in Sherman Oaks, CA and located on page 73 in Shape’s June issue.... The one with Malin Akerman on the cover. Side-note, every time I see this cover on my kindle, I think she is naked. It’s a flesh toned bikini, what do you expect?
Anyway, I was so ready to try this one out that I almost did it yesterday and thought to do a day-after review- I ate dinner and watched a movie with the hubby instead :) Maybe I will do the day-after thing another time!
Now, to the working!
Alternating leg lunges for two minutes.
Jump rope at an easy pace for three minutes
Torso twist for one minute. This is what the workout was created for.
Jump rope at a moderate pace for two minutes
Mountain climbers for one minute.
Jump rope fast for one minute
Repeat steps 1-6
Alternating leg lunges for two minutes
Jump rope easy pace for three minutes
I should note that I hate doing exercises with equipment, so opted to only use a band when doing the torso twist. For the rope jumping I did it pretendzies. Also, Shape rates the workout intensity as hard.
The long and short of it
Overall, I like it! Some parts were a little boring, but if you are in a gym rut and want something new, this is great! There were parts that seem intense (mountain climbers) and parts that did not feel like much work at all (torso twists) but it was nice overall. I would rate this as an intermediate-advanced workout since you do get quite the sweat drip-age out of it. The exercise took me 28 minutes total and burned 268 calories. Not the ten calorie/minute burn that was stated, but I could have worked harder and the calorie burn was based on 145 pounds. After this, I went on to bike two miles and do some stretches. In total, my exercise lasted 44 minutes and burned 416 calories... Not too shabby!
Next week we will be reviewing the new workout in this month's Shape magazine done by Jillian Michaels. Ooooo, so excited, I just cannot wait!!