10 Minute Solution: High Intensity Interval Training

10 Minute Solution has moved into the HIIT arena with their High Intensity Interval Training. Believe it or not I own a ton of these DVDs. I don’t know how many will ever be reviewed on this blog but I do own them and have no intention of getting rid of them. Before I get to the review for this specific DVD, I’m going to share a little background about me and 10 Minute Solution workouts. I honestly cannot recall what inspired me to purchase my first 10 Minute Solution, but it was their very first one led by one of my favorite trainers, Michelle Dozois. I still own that one and still return to the 10 minute yoga section on occasion for a nice stretch. In fact, it was this specific 10 minute yoga workout that was the initial “pull” to continue acquiring 10 Minute Solution workouts. At the end of a longer workout, it was a great way to add on a long stretch, or some ab work or pilates or even a short cardio burst. In fact, prior to my discovering Beachbody workout programs and then Cathe, the 10 Minute Solution was my primary source of add ons. And they have some pretty good ones that I have forgotten about over the years. In memory, some of them are not as easy as you would expect for a 10 minute workout. They actually pack a punch in 10 minutes.

So on that memory, when I saw 10 Minute Solution had come out with a HIIT collection,  I snapped it up. And I am loving it! It is led by a female trainer who never gives her name. She does a good job. These are tabata HIITs, but done differently than the normal tabata protocol. But I can see this was necessary to fit an intense workout into 10 minutes. Let me give you a quick breakdown of how tabata generally works. A tabata contains 8 drills. Each drill is made up of 20 seconds of all out HIIT (high intensity interval training) and 10 seconds of recovery. So one tabata is 4 minutes. Before you do you another tabata you have a brief recovery of approx. one minute. Well, not in 10 Minute Solution! You do 16 tabata drills–one right after the other for 8 minutes! No rest except the 10 second recovery after the 20 second HIIT. You get a very brief maybe 30 second warm up at the beginning of each 10 minute workout and a stretch of maybe 1 minute at the end. I will say that not every drill is crazy intense, but enough of them are that these are very intense workouts! The hardest of the five is definitely HIIT Explosion–that was a very intense 10 minutes. The easiest was Upper Body HIIT.

Real quick, let me explain a bit about how 10 Minute Solution DVDs work. Every 10 Minute Solution DVD comes with five 10 minute workouts. The workouts are programable so you can just do one workout, or build a workout so that they play one right after the other. Say, for instance, you want a 30 minute workout; you just program 3 of them so they play straight through, one right after the other. And you can mix and match–so you can put them together in any order that suits you. In addition, they all have a selection where you can play all 5 straight through for a 50 minute workout.

On that theory, stringing together 5 of these HIITs seems insane! I haven’t done that yet. In fact, in reviewing these HIITs, I used them as warm ups for other non-DVD workouts. So I only did one at a time.  For that purpose–as a warm up or an add on–I really loved these HIITs. I don’t know that I would be so charmed with them strung together into a longer workout. They weren’t that fun and other trainers (Cathe, Amy Dixon, Chalene Johnson, Shaun T, Chris Freytag) create much better HIIT/tabata workouts.

On to the breakdown of each workout. As I mentioned, there are 16 tabata drills in each workout. Each 10 minute workout starts with a very short warm up and ends with a short stretch. The trainer introduces 8 exercises and each exercise is repeated once. And finally, for most of the high impact/plyometric exercises, the trainer offers a lower impact modification. Oh–one thing I noticed. A lot of moves in HIIT 101 and Ab HIIT are done in plank position. If you have any experience with plank position moves you know that plank-based cardio is HARD. And often makes your arms and shoulders ache. You are warned!

HIIT 101: Warm up is skipping rope. 1. lateral jumps, 2. frog jumps (in plank jump feet up outside of hands), 3. ski abs (in plank hop feet side, middle, side), 4. tap dance (in bridge kick legs with hop and hip lift), 5. bear crawls (crawl forward and back on hands and toes), 6. four corners (hop in a square), 7. jump overs (same as ski abs but no middle hop), 8. surrenders with knee tucks (without using hands, kneel then stand then tuck jump).

AB HIIT: Warm up is torso rotation. 1. high knee pull, 2. reptiles (in plank bring knee to elbows), 3. reverse crunches, 4. ski abs (in plank hop feet side, middle, side), 5. ab hammer (with hands fisted together do a full sit up touching the ground between legs and the floor behind head), 6. knee rotation (in plank bring leg under you to opposite side of body, keeping leg straight), 7. bear tucks (in plank “scrunch”–bend legs and twist from side to side so the side of your thighs touch the ground), 8. plank punch (in plank with wide legs punch in front of you).

Upper Body HIIT: Warm up is chest hugs. 1. walk outs with a push up, 2. body pendulum (with hands on floor pendulum legs side to side), 3. tricep dips with alternating leg kicks, 4. [something] frogs (I couldn’t understand what she called them) (in deep squat fall forward onto hands and, using upper body strength, push back into squat), 5. 2 walking planks with 4 mountain climbers, 6. downward dog slaps (in down dog push back and slap ankle with opposite hand–alternate), 7. traveling push ups (right to left), 8. rotational plank (alternate side planks with one arm in the air).

HIIT Explosion: warm up is jumping jacks. 1. high/low run (high knee run alternated with a low run), 2. double leg jump forward and shuffle back (long jump forward, fast feet back), 3. single leg burpee, 4. single leg burpee–other leg, 5. fast feet/tuck jump (alternate fast feet and tuck jumps), 6. squat jump jacks (sumo jacks touching the floor with one hand), 7. suicides (shuffle side to side and touch ground), 8. donkey kicks with hot feet (donkey kick then stand and raise right then left knee high and to the side).

Rock Bottom HIIT: Warm up is small squats. 1. skater jumps, 2. squat jump followed by pendulums, 3. low lunge and hop at the top, 4. low lunge and hop at the top (other leg), 5. alternating bridge kicks, 6. low sumo jacks, 7. squat turbo kick, 8. surfer burpee (burpee but at top jump to side in a wide squat).