Cathe Live: Keep the Cardio Coming

Keep the Cardio Coming is an intense all cardio workout. And for a Cathe Live cardio workout, it is long. It is even long for Cathe’s more current DVD cardio workouts! Cathe used to do lots of hour long DVD cardio workouts (some even longer than an hour–Maximum Intensity Cardio), but those days are over unless you use a premix. So I was quite pleased to see this. And the title is appropriate–the cardio just keeps on coming! I really enjoyed this workout. Cathe uses lots of equipment to keep things interesting. Though it did get very intense at times (perhaps even HIIT level intense on occasion, tho my Fitbit does not agree, it sometimes felt like I was HIITing it), I felt there was no super difficult plyometric moves. However, the intensity increases as the workout progresses, so the final segment is the most intense of the lot and after 40+ minutes of intensity, that last segment had me pushing hard. Some of the people in the class looked pretty wasted, too.

Since this workout was filmed right before Christmas there was festivities going on. Cathe and much of her class wore Christmas hats during the warm up and cool down. They did take them off for the workout. I know when the workout started, I was thinking–WTC? This workout can’t be very intense if you are able to keep those hats on during the workout. But then they took them off and the real work started!

Since this is a cardio workout with lots going on, I am going to break it down a little differently. I will separate each segment by equipment (or lack of). I will list the exercises as they appear but there are frequently 2 sets of an exercise and sometimes Cathe has you repeat an entire series. For instance, you do all of the stability ball exercises listed in that segment, then you go back to the beginning of the stability ball exercises and repeat all of them. And for each equipment segment, know that you are using the equipment in some manner for every single exercise in that segment even if it isn’t noted in the name/description of the exercise.

Keep the Cardio Coming is 55 minutes long; 7:30 warm up and 2:30 stretch. Equipment needed: stability ball, fitness mat, firewalker, dumbbells (5, 8 and 10 pounds). It aired live on 12/22/16 and here is the video clip.

1. No Equipment: jacks alternated w/ high knee marches, side steps and sides steps w/ hops, grapevines, jumping jacks, scissors, heel jacks, heel tap/hops, alternating hop/front kicks, jack varieties
2. Stability ball: jogging and dribbling it, hamstring curls alternated with hops, jogging w/ tosses, pendulum legs, jump squats while bouncing ball
3. Dumbbells: side to side shuffle/reach, lateral squat jumps, lateral hops, plyo jump lunges, squat jacks, low impact butt kicks, squat press
4. Fitness Mat: power 7s + jog around mat, hop taps around mat, slam its, traveling jump lunges alternated w/ traveling scissors, lateral and forward/back hops, squat thrusts w/ lateral hops
5. Firewalker: jacks alternated w/ hip twist hops, forward/back squat jumps, plié jumps
6. No Equipment: 3 forward jumps and jump turn, one arm burpees, squat digs, squat/side lunge/squat/side lunge–hopping with each move, front jack/back jack/jack/air jack, side burpees