Shape Magazine Workout Review: Maria Sharapova's Workout

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There are two reasons I am excited about this workout; first, it is a workout comprised of Maria Sharapova's top five ab exercises, and second, Maria's trainer (Yutaka Nakamura) hales from the same city I live in! Abs have been at the forefront of my workout mind lately, so this workout seems tailor made for me. Then, add in the whole trainer from Sarasota bit and I may be biased about this workout.

There is no doubt that tennis goddess, Maria Sharapova, has an amazing body that she works hard for. Other than training for tennis several hours a day, Maria also does core workouts, and physical training for another hour plus. Phew, that is a lot of sweat for one day, no wonder she is almost completely made of muscle!  

That being said, her workout is not something that only the She-Hulks of the world can accomplish. The five moves are done between 10-20 times per side and the entire workout only has two circuits with no break between. The workout requires an exercise ball and a 6-10 pound medicine ball. I opted for my husband's ten pounder medicine ball of pain.  

The Workout

I completed this workout after a short cycling session and before my day's squat challenge. The entire workout took me about twelve minutes and burned about 100 calories. This is a pretty good calorie burn for less than fifteen minutes of work, but I thought the exercises would produce a bit higher total number. Overall though, the workout was great! It is definitely not an ab workout to be done on it's own, but pairing it with your usual workout or a few other short workouts is perfect.

The medicine ball gave my arms a massive workout (they are still a bit achy as I write this), and I was quite surprised about which exercises worked my abs. The Oblique Twist is my favorite out of these five- it worked my obliques, lower abs, and back like madness! This is a great workout to combine with a few others, or as an extra sweat session to incorporate on one of your day's off. I would completely recommend it to anyone wanting to tone their abs or upper arms.