Cathe Live: Bun Burners, Barre & Ball

Bun Burners, Barre & Ball is great workout. This is the workout you want when you want to fry your lower body but with hardly any equipment. No workout cards or weights to keep track of, but your buns will still be burning by the time this workout is over. I loved it.

This workout consists of 3 parts. Bun Burners is standing metabolic strength exercises with no dumbbells so lots of reps. In fact, that is the theme throughout this workout–very high reps. Then Cathe and class pull out the barre and at home, I grabbed my chair for barre work. The workout ends with stability ball work. I really liked the structure of this workout because the metabolic strength work definitely gets your lower body warmed up and your heart pumping so you burn some calories in this workout and break a sweat. The barre work is pretty fast paced, too, so even tho your heart rate does start to lower, it doesn’t leave the cardio zone. It does during the ball work, but still–that totally finishes your legs/glutes off.

Overall I loved this workout but I do have a nitpick. During the bun burner section, Cathe does a walking lunge series. Normally, in both Live and DVDs, when she does walking lunges, you do 3 or 4 forward, turn and do 3 or 4 back the other direction. Not in this Live workout–you do lots–8 total. You have to be in an enormous house–or a gym like Cathe–to be able to do this. I actually have a good sized home gym but it was too small for this move so I had to modify due to space problems. Which really irritated me. It is totally unnecessary to include such a space hog move in workout filmed for home exercisers. Save moves like that for workouts you do for the actual class only–not filmed for the home exerciser. Most home exercisers do not have the space for a move like that.

Also, on the lunge kicks she messed up the count on the second side, so I am not sure both legs were worked evenly. However, both legs did feel fried!

Bun Burners, Barre & Ball is 47 minutes long; 5:30 minute warm up, 13 minutes of bun burners, 15:30 minutes barre work, 9:30 minutes stability ball work and 2 minute stretch. The stretch at the ends seems pretty short, especially after how severely she fries your legs–but don’t worry. She stretches you out repeatedly throughout the workout, so overall, you actually get a good bit of stretching. Equipment: barre or chair, stability ball and a fitness mat. It aired live on 3/17/16 and here is the video clip.

Bun Burners (13 minutes):

1. Step out squats (get into squat and move one foot out to side 3x, farther each time, while staying in squat)
2. Squat + front kick 4x followed by 4 hang squats (hang squat is a squat w/ alternating knee raises while sweeping arms overhead) 4x; alternate these two combos
3. Press down squats (fast squats like air squats) with feet out in plie then feet forward in regular wide squat; this changes to pendulum lunges pulsing first 4x each direction then 2x each direction; this changes to forward leaning lunges but you stay on same side of body (no alternating), bringing elbow to opposite knee and when you come up, you raise the knee; ends w/ pulsing static lunge
4. Repeat #3 on other side of body
5. Alternating side lunges; this changes to a pattern: 4 alternating side lunges + 4 forward diagonal lunges; alternate these two patterns
6. Walking lunge series: two lunges pulsing 4x, 2 lunges pulsing 2x, 4 single walking lunges, pivot to plie and pulse 8x; this is one series–hope you have the floor space to do 8 walking lunges in one direction or you will have to modify
7. Lunge kicks, first pulsing then singles; ends w/ static pulsing lunges

Barre (15:30 minutes):

1. Pulsing plie squats w/ heels raised
2. More plie squats w/ heels raised but this time you will be pulling down w/ one arm to add body weight to the move
3. Cross-back lunge w/ knee raise (touch knee to same side elbow), singles and pulsing
4. High hip pulses (pulse leg in fire hydrant position)
5. More fire hydrants but this time you pulse leg forward 4x then back 4x
6. Face barre/chair back and raise one leg straight behind you, bending torso forward; pulse leg w/ pointed toe; changes to raise and lower to floor (foot still pointed); changes to pulsing w/ flexed foot; changes to raise and lower to floor (foot still flexed); ends still pulsing but alternating pointing and flexing

Stability Ball (9:30 minutes):

1. Lay on back, heels on ball and hips raised; roll ball in and out
2. Repeat #1 except w/ toes pointed out
3. Still on back, heels on ball; raise hips and hold; then roll ball in and hold there (hips still raised); raise one leg off ball and hold; change legs and hold; put both leg back on the ball and lift hips a little higher and hold; in this position, march feet slowly; roll feet back out long/straight but hips still raised and hold; ends rolling ball in and out
4. Ball toss (lay on back, legs raised, straight and open in a V; toss ball up and catch between feet)
5. Hold ball between straight legs (still raised to ceiling) and slowly turn ball w/ feet, side to side
6. Sit up and place ball between knees; press knees against ball
7. Get into a side plank on ball but bottom knee on ground; raise top leg and pulse w/ toe pointed; changes to pulsing w/ foot flexed; ends w/ more pulsing but alternate between pointing and flexing foot

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