Last night was the first time I did the "Cardio Abs" workout, which is the last workout in the program for this month that had not been done. They waited until the 2nd week to introduce it, and for good reason: your body needs time to adjust to the other movements before you can incopororate them into ab routine (at least that's my theory). The workout is always paired with Pure Cardio (which you do first), so you're doing about an hour of hard-core cardio once everything is said and done. Pure Cardio is about 40 min and the ab workout is 16 The best thing about it is that because the it's so short, every movement is substantial; a true testament to the old saying "quality over quanitity", and proof that you don't have to spend hours a day or do 91823768273 crunches to get abs. In fact, I think you only do abs once a week, and surprisingly enough, there are no crunches involved whatsoever! If you're like me, you hate crunches, so in the past I would do different types of crunches to keep things interesting. I really liked this routine.
But overall, I loved Cardio Abs! I didn't struggle with this one nearly as much as I did the others, which I'm sure was helped by my previous ab work.
It starts off with some plyometric moves from the Pure Cardio video, you know, jumping and whatnot. You rotate your upper body while you're doing the movements to engage the obliques - brilliant. Then you move to the floor and pretty much keep your core tightened for like 5 min straight in a C-position (bsaically sitting on your butt, rolling your back so your body makes a C). Now that might not sound like a long time for those of you who are psycho crunch junkies don't do a lot of fitness, but for someone who's done ab work before, this is a very long time to keep your abs tightened in the same position, sans break. Personally, I'm a fan of this position since it puts little to no strain on the neck and it really magnifies each movement; since the ab muscles are already tightens, any additional movement puts them into overdrive. So if you survive that, you go to upper and lower planks. Planks are a great ab workout, and I've even heard people say they're better than crunches (although I'm not sure how true that is). For those who don't know, upper planks are planks done in a push-up like position, and lower planks are done on the forearms. You rotate between the two, giving your arms a workout as well. Then you stretch...that is, if you're still able to breathe at this point. All of this, stretching included, is done in 16 min. If that ain't efficiency, my name ain't Ameilia Earhart.
This is the last workout of week 2, so I thought it was a good placement for the new routine - your body, especially your abs, should be used to the extreme movements of the program by now. This workout coupled with a good diet and the other hip flexor stretches will def give you abs...or at least tighten your core, depending on your level of effort. A solid core is super important for posture, so I'm always on the hunt for a good ab workout. Cardio Abs is never done on own, and I think it's interesting that it's only ever done after the Pure Cardio workout. It could certainly be done with any of the other workouts in the program; Pure Cardio is no longer or shorter than any of the other routines, so I wonder why they chose this one.
But like the question of how many licks does it take to get to the center of a toosie pop, the world may never know...
The routine could probably have been done on Sunday, the off-day, if they wanted to extend the program to 7 days. But the problem with that is it there would be no rest day, which is def needed with a program like this that puts so much strain on the knees with all the jumping and bending. And those of us with knee problems know how crucial it is to let them bad boys rest once and awhile.
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