TLC stands for Train Like a Contender, which translates into this being a boxing series–or at least having one boxing workout on it. It is part of the 30 Minutes to Fitness series which means there are two 30 minute workouts on the DVD. One is boxing and one is conditioning; they’re both cardio. No equipment is necessary unless you want to wear weighted gloves (which I did). I really liked these workouts and found them much tougher than I expected.
I’m generally a lover of kickboxing rather than boxing, but both Cathe and Kelly have made me change my mind, so I decided to give this a try. Workout #1 is 8 boxing combos and they are actually pretty intense, at least with 2 pound weighted gloves on. I really enjoyed it and worked up a great sweat. She does use the lower body a good bit even if you aren’t kicking; you do a lot of ducks and squats. And of course, it is important to not be punching half-heartedly. You need to put power and energy into these punches to get the true potential of this workout–that means throwing hard punches that you put your back, arms, core and hip into, really squatting when you squat/duck. None of the combos are hard to learn, though #8 is the most complicated. But you do enough reps of every combo to catch on eventually, and I caught on pretty quick with all of them. I will say that on combo #8 when she switched to the other side, something about the rhythm seemed to be off, and even tho I got the combo down I seemed to not be in time with Kelly and crew.
Workout #2 has some boxing in it, but overall is a completely different animal and it is tough! I was surprised. It is not nearly as fun as Workout #1, but very effective. I am very interested in the premix that combines the two since that would take some of the dread out of Workout #2 if the moves are alternated with Workout #1’s boxing combos. So what is so difficult about Workout #2? This is a high rep workout. I wore my 2 pound weighted gloves for this workout as well and tho that did make the upper body conditioning moves more challenging, it had no effect on the lower body moves–they were exhausting on their own! This is set up alternating between upper and lower body moves with little break between. And like I already said, you do a lot of reps. Very exhausting. For instance, the first move is something called a “Jenga”; I have done a lot of workouts with Jengas in them and every trainer seems to approach them differently. With Kelly it was a lunge where you touch the ground with one hand–and you do a lot of them. Lower body exercises also include squats, plie hops, lunge varieties, and some simple combos like jumping jacks alternated with quarter turn jumps and 180 turn jumps. You will alternate these with an upper body exercise, which gives your lower body recovery time, but then completely burns out the upper body. The upper body moves are sometimes different kinds of punches done very fast (and a lot of them of course), or they are just some kind of arm movement like reaching arms overhead and pulling down. I really felt that to get the most out of this workout, weighted gloves are necessary. Near the end of the workout, you take it to the floor (at this point I did remove my weighted gloves) where you do push ups, plank rotations and then abdominal work. This workout ends with a long stretch (5 minutes). This is the same stretch that is listed separately on the main menu.
The warm up is listed separately so you do the warm up (which is 3 minutes) or the “quick warm up” which is just half of the normal warm up (so 1.5 minutes), then choose your workout.
Workout 1 is 28.5 minutes (31.5 minutes with the warm up or 30 minutes with the quick warm up), 27 minute training time and 1:30 minute stretch.
Workout 2 is 32.5 minutes (35.5 minutes with the warm up or 33 minutes with the quick warm up), 27:30 training time and 5 minute stretch.
This DVD also comes with a bonus called “Flip Up/Push Up.” Normally I like Kelly’s bonuses and they always add something to the workouts. This one….not so much. I don’t even really understand the purpose of including it. It’s silly. It’s 8 minutes long. Kelly and two exercisers are there. Kelly is doing push ups, one of them is doing sit ups and the other is doing squats. She has a deck of cards. Every time she flips one, they do the same number of reps as the number on the card. Ok… I did it for a few minutes then turned it off. I didn’t even go through the full 8 minutes. It was just silly.
The Coffey Fit Blend premix alternates the standing exercises in both workouts, but none of the floor exercises, though it does end with the long 5 minute stretch at the end of Workout #2. I’m looking forward to trying that premix.
Premixes include warm up and stretch:
Coffey Fit Blend (Alternating Conditioning and Boxing Exercises), 47 Minutes
Quick Blend (Selected Mix of Alternating Conditioning and Boxing Exercises), 19 minutes
Kelly’s Mix (Kelly’s Favorite Mix of Exercises from Both Workouts), 36 minutes
Upper Body Conditioning, 18 minutes
Lower Body Conditioning, 16 minutes
Cardio Express, 15 minutes
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