My new industrial strength workout

My DVD's finally came!

It was just the thing to kive be a kick in the ass to get back at morning workouts again.

This morning I crawled out of bed at 5:30 (I know I didn't like it either) to pop in this baby:

Shakra Industrial Strength Dance Workout.

So far, I am tentatively giving it 2 sweaty thumbs up.

I am also admitting I am seriously out of shape cardio wise...This was hard.

The DVD had a longer 45 min workout that goes thru all the moves slowly and builds them up into sequences for exercise. Then there is a 25 min one that uses all these moves for a hardcore faster workout, with no slowing down for explaining and demonstration. Being a newbie I stuck to the long workout and was pleasantly surprised. They clearly break down all their moves and help you repeat them and work up in speed until you're doing them at top speed. There's arm moves, torso focused moves and leg work, even some squatty, knee raising stuff. I exhausted some muscle groups this morning...it looks like it will be a fun way to build some muscle tone and a pleasant diversion from by exercise ball DVD workout, which is good, but tedious after a few years of doing it. Because of the slowing down for explaining, I didn't get too sweated up, but from what I did do, I can see the shorter workout getting the heart rate going...

The routines on this are a lot like taebo where there's some moves I'll need to practice in sequence for a few workouts before I'm not flailing like Animal at a drum set, but I was impressed. Most of the moves are actual bellydance/fusion dance moves, so not only am I getting muscle tome in arms legs and butt, I'm reinforcing and learning more dance moves. Very cool.

I like learning more movements and making them fluid and fast. I'm good at torso and hip stuff in bellydance, but my arms need strength and toning, so this should help me out a lot.

There is also a separate 20 minute cooldown on the DVD that goes thru stretching all the groups...I did it and it worked very well. There is even some technique training sections fro fusion moves, but I haven't gotten to that yet...I skimmed through it and it seems to go thru a lot of basic dance moves and posture, so that even a beginner would feel good jumping in. I haven't done the 25 minute workout yet...I'm going to spend a few weeks on the longer one to get the moves down so I don't hurt myself or get too discouraged by trying too much too soon (I'm good at that...). If you haven't done any bellydance or other dance before, you might find some of the movements a bit unfamiliar, but they do a really good job of breaking them all down ,so even the inexperienced can muddle thru in the end..altho you'd need to build up some of the muscles I've gained form bellydance as you go. Those newly awakened muscles can get a bit twingy, but it is worth it. You get all kinds of ab and arm toning from this. The DVD has a lot of leg movement and lungy/squatty type stuff that will work on my legs, so I'm excited about that. Bellydance doesn't have a lot in the way of legwork, so my legs are far less toned than the rest of me at the moment. The music leans to industrial and techno, but my tastes can lean that way, so I didn't mind.

This morning I actually had fun, when I wasn't struggling to breathe or twist myself around in odd new positions...:) I am SO out of shape.

The other DVD I got was a Contemporary bellydance yoga DVD that I'm itching to try (free shipping...I was sucked in). This one has over an hour of tribal fusion movement drills as well as a 36 minutes yoga workout designed to focus on the muscles commonly used in bellydance. Nifty. I would like to do more yoga...I'm hoping this will make it interesting for me.

I'm determined to find some fun new ways to workout until the snow melts. It's been too much to get out of bed early to workout...I needed new shiny distractions to get me back at it.

Hopefully this will be the thing :)