Thursday, September 9, 2010

The FIRM: Cardio Sculpt Review

The FIRM: Cardio Sculpt
Allie Del Rio, 2002

This is a 55 minutes AWT (though mostly strength work) workout led by Allie with 4 background exercisers. Libby provides the beginner modifications. The set is the bright white BSS1 set with blue-ish accents in the background. You will need your Fanny Lifter or another step and a variety of dumbbells for this one.

First off I have to say-I DO NOT do this one enough! Though not as challenging as the Classic Firms-it is really reminiscent of them. It has a weighted step segment like Vol 4 & Vol 6 and ends with floor work-pec fly & leg lifts and donkey kicks. She also goes slow enough to allow for heavy dumbbells. I was pleasantly surprised!

After a longish warmup up Allie goes into a strength set starting with hover squats and lat row. You do some leg press and other dumbbell work and then she moves into a cardio segment. She alternates the strength segments with cardio, but the strength work also gets your heartrate up with dips, lunges, leg press, and squats. The cardio is straightforward and athletic without being boring or repetitive. The cardio includes floor, step, and 4 limb step work.

She thouroughly works all the muscles though I did find the shoulder work a bit lacking. After the lying floor work you do an ab sequence that is comprised of crunch & crunch variations and then move into the stretch.

I would rate this workout a solid or maybe even high(?) intermediate if you use heavy weights. You can also up I really heavied up, used the 8" portion of the FL and added some plyos and jumps to my workout and felt I got a great strength AND cardio workout today. I must use this one more often (I know I say that all the time).

5 comments:

  1. I talk to fitness instructors on DVDs all the time. I'm not quite as polite as you however. I'm usually yelling expletives at the screen during hover squats, firewalkers or some other exercise they are kickin my bootay with.

    Maria

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  2. LMOA, oh ya I do that too! My fav comment is "are you crazy, bit$%?" hehe

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  3. Sometimes I talk to instructors too, but I'll say "Uh, I don't think so" or sometimes I'll say to the Firm instructors "I'm not ready yet" when I'm scrambling to set up my props. I never really thought about it until I read your post!

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  4. Oh - forgot to say your Hello Kitty pic and your LOLs made me smile :-) Love those LOL cats!

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  5. haha! I always say "Im not ready" to the Firm instructors too! They move so fast inbetween equipment changes. Slow down!

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