Walking Cardio Sculpt

This is my favorite workout under Walking workouts, but it is the least walk-y of all of them.  It's an excellent workout, I wish I could do it every day but I am a lazy ass.  :)

It's Chris Freytag, who is excellent and cheery but not too cheery.  She is also by herself, which of course I prefer.  The workout is divided into four walking parts and four sculpting parts.  It's almost 50 minutes long.

So you do some marching and out-out-in-ins, some walking up and back, some squats, some jogging, some jump roping, some mambo-ing, some v-steps, ... I feel like I am forgetting something, but basically it's a few minutes of some low impact cardio.  Oh, you do some "skater moves", which are wide steps back behind your opposite foot, and some "power knees", which are knee lifts but you sort of hook-punch your opposite arm while you are raising your knee.

The sculpting parts are divided, so you start with squats and lunges, then go to arms and back, then chest and biceps and then abs.  They're all excellent, I use five pound weights but on some stuff you double up.  You could also do it with no weights, which I actually considered doing today, because it's been so damned long since I've done anything but it was fine.  Today I had already done 65 pushups on my toes so I was thinking of NOT doing the pushups but it was fine - now when I do 16 or 32 pushups as part of a workout, it's like nothing.

She calls it great, she is super easy to follow and she reminds you a lot of the right way to breathe, supporting your lower back with your abs, etc.  She is very motivating and kind and unlike a certain Biggest Loser meany that we will be talking about soon.  She never screams "I want you to feel like you're going to DIE", which is nice.

Walking (One Mile)

This is my last Leslie Sansone walk on Exercise TV.  Not EVER, or anything, but it's the last for this blog.  I have had a tough week and this one, on Saturday, is the first I've done all week, so that's lame.

The one mile is excellent, though.  She does almost all the steps that are in her repertoire, and you get just enough of each.  Although the pace is fast, it's not super exhausting or anything because it's short.  If you wanted to do 30 minutes of cardio, you'd have to do it again, though.  Leslie mentions this - she says it's SO convenient, you can just do it in the morning and then do it in the evening, to which I say BS.  I mean, it's short but you do get pretty sweaty, so unless you want to shower twice a day, it's not super convenient.

Leslie is so funny and polite.  She's alone for this workout, which I prefer.  At one point she says, "you just finished a mile!  If you were walking outside, you'd be a mile away by now.  But this workout uses more muscles than just a stroll outside.  NOT that there's anything wrong with strolling OUTSIDE!  I LOVE the OUTSIDE!".  Ha!  It's like some pro-outside walking group is going to sue her or something.

It's a good workout, but like I say, I rarely get a chance to workout twice in a day.  This workout is listed at 22 minutes, the 2 mile isn't much more than that, so I would just do it.  Of course, something is better than nothing, and her calling is so excellent that if you had never done an organized workout before, this might be a good way to start.

2 Mile Workout

This was fun to do, it's been a while because I had been so in the habit of doing the three mile.  One thing I noticed in this is that Leslie Sansone is an excellent caller - you are rarely, if ever, caught unawares.  She is alone during this workout, which I prefer, as I've said.  It's a good workout, I did it with 2 lbs. of weights, just wrist-type weights.  It's 34 minutes long, maybe 30 minutes of walking, so 15 minute miles is what you're doing.  That's a pretty good pace for most of it, particularly considering that you are doing not just walking, but step outs, knees up, side steps, etc.  I didn't do anything yesterday, so I am one day off but I am hoping tomorrow I'll be able to do two.  We'll see - I always have high hopes for the weekends and they are almost always dashed.  :)  

Walking Down Blood Sugar

I guess I am going to go through all the walking workouts first.  I think I've done this before, they are SUPER repetitive, I'm realizing now.  On this one, she has six other people with her, which I really don't like.  If I wanted to go to the gym with Do Everything Too Much Guy or Don't Do Hardly Anything Girl or Whoops So Loud You Hate Her Lady, I would go to the gym!  But whatever, its fine, it's Walking Down Your Blood Sugar, so the people are older and heavier.  I learned tonight that Leslie has kind of a cackle going when she gets really funny.  BUT she is so positive and ... kind or something, I really enjoy her workouts.  If I could get Leslie Sansone to do the Jillian Michaels workout, that would be perfect.  But we'll get to Jillian.  Anyway, this is just like the others, 24 minutes, too short, etc.  At the end tonight, she said "didn't that go fast?" and I thought of course it did!  It was TWENTY FOUR minutes, ha!

Walk and Tone

When I was pregnant with Maria and had gestational diabetes, I did this work out a lot, or at least I thought it was the same workout.  It's not.  It's a short (24 minute) workout, segmented into walking or toning.  There's basically a warm up (with the standard four Sansone walking moves - walking, kicks, side to side moves, and knees up) and then walking, then toning, walking again, and toning.  It's the same four backup people.  She recommends that you use weights for the toning parts, I only used 2 lb. weights because my 5 lb. weights were upstairs and the girls were sleeping up there.  So it wasn't hard, but it could have been harder.

The music is just fine for this, it's got a good, easy to hear beat, which is all that matters, really.  Leslie adds a move in this that I haven't done before, it's a "walk and run".  It's the same as a step, step, cha-cha-cha move from aerobics, I think.

It's a good workout, not hard, but it's too short.  It would be a better workout if the time were doubled, I think.

Cardio Slimdown - Leslie Sansone

It says the Cardio Slimdown is 24 minutes but it's more like 20, which was disappointing.  I have been doing Leslie Sansone's mile workouts since I was pregnant with Maria and she's 2.5, so ... more than three years.  I started with the one mile when I was pregnant and have gone up to the 3 mile in the last year or so.  I have plantar fascitis so I haven't been working out for a while now, except for these damned 100 pushups I'm doing, so I was sad to see the 3 mile is gone from Exercise TV.  I did this because it was the longest.  

It's a fine workout, she does it with four other people, two women my age-ish (42) and one guy and one younger girl.  I am not fond of workouts with other people.  In Sansone's 1, 2 and 3 mile workouts, she is alone, which is what I prefer.  I love Chalene Johnson and Turbo Jam and Turbo Sculpt but I do NOT like some of the people she has working out with her.  I should say, I just don't find them very motivating.  I don't think it's motivating to see fakety fake smiles and white man overbite dancing during workouts.  Shake it or don't, but don't be all hip hop if you're not, is my advice.  I also don't like when people OVERDO it.  It's not impressive if you are waving your arms higher than everyone else, especially if it's during a cool down. I'm talking to YOU, red headed lady from Cardio Slimdown.  

Leslie says it's about a mile of exercise, which didn't feel like enough for the day.  I did this and my pushups (49) and I probably should have done this twice to get enough cardio.  It's hard to start over again, though, right?  Once you've warmed up and worked out and cooled down.  I wish they had a longer option.