The May issue of Women's Health Magazine has a few reads that almost every woman would enjoy. Not only does this issue have a kick-butt workout via Keri Russell (star of the FX show The Americans and previously Felicity), but it also has an article by the new author of Drop Two Sizes, Rachel Crosgrove. Crosgrove's new book claims that we can loose more weight with shorter, higher intensity exercises.
This workout comes with an entire in-depth article talking about something many of us have been reading and implementing already- circuits, intervals, and thirty minute workouts. According to The Journal of Obesity, regular aerobic exercise has much greater limits for fat loss than we initially thought. If you are working out at the gym for hours on end and seeing little to no dips in the scale, Rachel recommends switching to some high intensity exercises that have been shown to increase fitness, lower insulin resistance, and increase fat loss.
Rachel Crosgrove recommends trying this "countdown" workout once to twice a week, replacing your usual cardio workout. Countdowns are a form of circuits where, instead of doing certain exercises for a determined amount of time, you do a determined number of reps, then, reduce the number of reps by one in each set. The last set of exercises should have one rep per set. Whoa, that was a lot of rep and set talk!
This countdown workout has five exercises and starts doing each exercise five times. Crosgrove says that the countdown method encourages proper form and a higher output of energy with every set. By doing the countdown, we are able to put more energy into every exercise to see better results.
The Review
When I first saw this workout I thought it was too good to be true... Loose two dress sizes just seems to be a media ploy. I am still not convinced of the title, but am completely intrigued. The workout starts with a quick warm-up and is followed by five reps of each set and a 20-40 second cardio break between each set. All of the exercises are quite simple and almost all of them have been on the blog. There is nothing that seems too difficult about the workout, but I was dripping with sweat by the end, all the same.
The entire workout took me about fifteen minutes and burnt about 130 calories. That is pretty fantastic, especially for something with so little cardio! I was especially happy when I woke this morning to some sore inner thighs and other tiny leg muscles I did not know existed... This was much better than the burn I felt in my quads during the entire workout.
Overall, the workout is fantastic. Rachel Crosgrove has put together a great sequence that tricks you into working harder than you think. I am very excited to implement more "countdown" workouts into my fitness routine after this introduction. Hopefully, next week I will be able to review the super intense Keri Russell workout as well; it's what she did to get in shape for her role as a Russian spy!