First, as I mentioned before, Turbo Jam is an awesome workout.  I def. felt it in my sides/ obliques the next day.  As an aside, I love Turbo Jam SO MUCH that I am going to fly my cookies to Miami, Florida from New Hampshire to take an instructor training course with Ms. Chalene Johnson herself.  I am SO STOKED.  Why on earth this cubicle-dwelling little lawyer is leaving the comfort of her freezing office to go do this is beyond me, I guess I just… have to.

Moving on.

So the antidote to my sore sides was Shiva Rea’s Surf Yoga Soul video (as you prolly guessed from my blog title?)  I instantly ordered it when I heard the title because I like yoga (I don’t love it, but I like it) and my dream one day is to learn to surf.  And not get eaten by a shark.  This video was really incredible.  Yoga videos are generally not my favorite thing to do.  I’ve done a bunch by Patrica Whatsername (too lazy to google, but everyone know who I’m talking about) and the dude with the ponytail.  Shiva’s are totally different.

First, her body is truly inspirational.  She’s in great shape and is so strong and flexible.  Also, her series are very unique and creative.  She lets you use your own movement on quite a few of the sequences.  I never felt bored by her routine.

Another cool thing, and one that is becoming more common, is that the DVD is split into several segments so you can do them all at once or a few at a time depending on your body (and time) dictates.  This is great for yogini’s with short attention spans like me, but I honestly couldn’t think of a single sequence I’d want to take out of the practice.  They were all so beneficial and I felt fantastic after each one.

Here are the elements of the practice:

1. Wave Meditation – This has the creative arm movement and you can practice “popping up” on your surf board.  I felt like a cool surfer chick.

2. Mandala Namaskar – This is more lower-body work, with warriors, squats (I’ve never done squats like these) and the up/down dogs.

3. Agni Namaskar – These are 9 rounds of pushups with some other poses.  I’ve done these push-ups with Shiva on her “Creative Core” DVD (another good one, but not as good as “Surf Yoga Soul.”  I admit that in the last 4 or 5 sets of push-ups, I did plank work.

4. Breath Wave – Yogic breathing to build up the lungs (always my least fav. part of yoga because I have piddly little lungs thanks to marinating in second-hand smoke for half my life).  This wasn’t bad, actually.

5. Balance Flow – This was my absolute favorite part of the DVD, and the most challenging.  I can’t name all of the twisty, bendy, hold-y poses, but it definitely wrings your muscles out of any tension.

6. Flexibility Flow- This really is what got a lot of the soreness out of my body.  It opens up the shoulders and a lot of the joints that you carry stress in without realizing it.  This was another one of the best parts of the DVD.

7. Shavasana – Ahhhh, after all that work, Shavasana felt great.

I ran 6 miles today, the farthest I’ve ever run, in training for my 10k in October.  I just finished week 1 of the FIRST program and it is ramping up very quickly.  Today we had a church luncheon and met some friends just to hang out after… I haven’t really eaten very balanced meals today.  1/2 an Ezekiel muffin here, carrot cake there, some veggies and guac and TJ’s soy and flax seed chips (awesome, btw, remind me of Dorritos)… Some more cake… then some more…

Luckily, Husband’s little brother came and took the rest of my carrot cake away.  He is accommodating in eating my baked goods and is blessed with the metabolism typical of your average, active, 20-something year old boy.  I don’t know what I’ll do when he goes back to college.  Ship him my half-eaten baked goods?

Paz,

E.

Okay, a little more info.  TurboJam is a series of vids distributed by Beach Body.  The instructor is Chalene Johnson.  My one complaint about Ms. Chalene is she is into so many things, it is hard to keep them straight.  She invented TurboKick, the pre-curser to TurboJam.  Then there’s PiYo (pilates/yoga fusion).  Hip hop hustle.  ChaLEAN Extreme (another Beach Body enterprise that I bought recently and am SUPER impressed with.  These are high quality programs).  Plus, she designs her own workout clothes.  Plus, she totally kicks butt.  Plus, her program is gonna be bigger than Zumba, you mark my words.

First.  Chalene came to my attention through the lovely Charlotte over at The Great Fitness Experiment. Charlotte kept talking about this weird program she does at her Y called Turbo Kick and Hip Hop Hustle.  Huh?  Wha?

Okay.  Go here and check out the HHH video.  TELL ME you do not want to get up and dance with her?  There are other videos on YouTube if you’re addicted.  Alas, there are no HHH classes in my area (yet.  I have plans.)

So TurboKick is like a blend of dance cardio and kickboxing/martial arts. TurboJam is the Beach Body version of Chalene’s TurboKick classes.  Confused yet?  That’s okay, confusion burns calories.

All I can say is I had a ball.  The DVD comes with a brief instruction where Chalene teaches you the moves and proper form, which is genius.  I hate doing a workout video and hearing the same explanation on how to do a move each and every time I do the program. The DVD also has a brief cardio workout (20 minutes) where you can practice the moves before going on to the longer 45 minute Cardio Party.  Also included is an ab workout (haven’t done this one yet) and a strength training workout.

And I gotta tell you… are you ready?  In terms of my calorie burn, the Turbo Jam videos BLEW the Jillian Michaels videos out of the water.  Of course, your body may be different, but on the 30 day shred videos, I burn around 125 (depends on which level I’m doing) for 30 minutes.  I burned 143 cals doing Chalene’s 20 minute cardio program, which is really like an introduction to the moves, not the real workout.  The 45 minute cardio workout burned over 300 calories!!  I forget the exact number (it was around 330 or 340) but I know that Jillian’s 45 minute workouts (Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism and No More Trouble Zones) only burn around 225-245 for me.  The strength training is really good also, but I wasn’t wearing my HRM for that one.

I love Chalene’s funny, bubbly, goofy personality.  She’s definitely a motivator and takes her job seriously, but the actual working out part she makes as fun as possible.  She reminds me a lot of the dance teachers I had growing up and I just loved that about the workout.  Also, my abs were sore for 3 days largely thanks to her wheel move — it involves standing in a squat with your hands up like someone told you to stick ‘em up.  Then you crunch from side to side, targeting the obliques.  YOWZA.

This was the TurboJam DVD I used but there are tons more available on the Beach Body website.  Seriously, this lady is one busy mama.  Her blog is here.  I wanna be just like her when I grow up.

After I crunched and burned my poor abs, I was really tight along my obliques and the sides of my hips.  I’m always pretty tight there from running.  Luckily, the antidote was waiting for me in the mail.  Stay tuned for another workout video review tomorrow!

I netflixed a copy of “Pure Barre 1” a while back and I finally got around to doing it yesterday.  I watched it first so I would know what I was doing and it’s full of tiny little isometric contractions (“the movement should be so small it’s like a quiver” the instructor, Carrie Rezabek, repeats).

It looked… easy.  Way too easy for this Jillian Michaels disciple. Plus, I danced for 15-ish years (more if you count the grooves I bust in my kitchen), so I have logged my share of time at the barre.  To be honest, that’s why the disc has sat on my t.v. stand for a few weeks — it didn’t look like much of a work out.

Ha!  Oh how I have been punished for my arrogance.  The phrase “feel the burn” applies here.  Feel the burn in your abs.  Feel it in your thighs.  Feel it in your working leg, especially feel it in your supporting leg.  And then you feel it in your bum.

I have been humbled.  I have been schooled by the pure barre technique and will not scoff again.  Yowch!  The technique works the muscles so differently… on of my favorites was in plank position with the knee pulsing in microscopic movements.  The movement should come from the abs, not the knee.  I tested it out and my abs literally felt like they were ripping with each tiny pulse.  This is a great video to throw in to the mix if you’ve been doing a lot of lifting.

In other news, I am out of greens to add to my Green Monsters because I got a bit over zealous with my juicing the other day and I have been very lazy in going to the store.  Oops.  So today I made a Mauve Monster:

A grey-ish pink smoothie. YUM! Hemp Bliss unsweetend hemp milk, strawberries, banana, Amazing Grass Superfood Powder, some water. It tasted better than it looked.

That’s all for now!
Peace,

E.