Cathe Live: Kickbox & Barre

Kickbox & Barre is another Cathe Live workout that I found less then stellar. I really wanted to love it. I mean, I adore kickboxing and barre is a new-to-me type of workout that I really enjoy. I was expecting something along the lines of Kick Max–but shorter, so I could actually fit the entire workout into my morning. Kick Max is 72 minutes–so I either have to do it on a non-work day or skip the leg drills/barre work to keep the workout around an hour. But alas, that is not what Kickbox & Barre delivers. First, your body is worked unevenly in both the kickboxing and the barre. It’s more blatant and obvious in this workout than in the other Live workouts I’ve done so far. Second, tho it has the title of “kickboxing,” there is definitely way more boxing and straight cardio than kicking. I did get a decent workout so it wasn’t a waste of my time, but this will not be a workout I will return to. For that reason I am not going to spend as much time breaking this workout down like the other workouts that I plan to return to.

Kickbox & Barre is 53 minutes long. It aired live 9/11/14 and here is the clip Cathe posted for it. For this workout you need boxing gloves (I used 2 pound weighted gloves) and a chair. There is also a heavy bag segment but I don’t feel a heavy bag was really needed for this. It’s super short and nothing more than boxing combos. This is another workout that I am not sure when the warm up ended and the workout began. The workout begins immediately with punching. She does say at one point the we are nearing the end of the warm up but then she starts doing kicking drills that are more warm up-like. But when we do finally get to combos, kicks are never included. So I really have no clue. For a “kickbox” workout, there was a scarcity of kicking. It was more cardio boxing–there was lots of punches, cardio blasts, some kicking that could have been part of the warm up, but was maybe part of the workout, and switch kicks done on only one side of the body. The cardio boxing is approx. 26 minutes long (including warm up) and heavy bag is 3:30 minutes. Then you get a long break while Cathe and exercisers set up the barres. Barre is 18 minutes long and the stretch is 3:30 minutes long.

The barre work consists of heel lifts at various tempos, both double and single leg. Next is raising one straight leg in front of you with foot both pointed and flexed. Next is curtsy lunges with side knee raise at top (you do lots more on one leg than on the other). Next is a long segment of hydrants; you will pulse your bent leg in various angles, but always bent in hydrant. For the final barre exercise you will raise onto toes and bend knees, keeping torso straight, and pulse; first small pulses, then you will go deeper/lower.