Cardio Sculpt Fat Burn is another Barlates YouTube workout from Linda Wooldridge. It is also available on DVD with 3 other workouts (Cardio Sculpt Fusion). I have not purchased that DVD yet but it is on my Amazon wishlist. Cardio Sculpt Fat Burn is a short metabolic cardio + strength workout. Linda alternates two cardio segments with two strength training segments. I didn’t like this workout as much as I thought I would. The cardio was not intense at all. It was pretty basic and since you can barely hear the music there is nothing to drive the workout, no beat. I think I would have liked the cardio portion better if there had been good music. That would not have transformed it into intense cardio; however, it would have motivated me to put more energy and “bounce” into the cardio moves. The metabolic strength work, on the other hand, was very effective. My heart rate elevated much more during the strength work than it did during the cardio!
Now I feel the need to try at least one more of the workouts on the Cardio Sculpt Fusion DVD before I purchase the DVD. If I’m not crazy about the other workouts on the DVD I’ll probably delete it from my wishlist (and I’ve now bought 7 of her DVDs–yes, I am now glomming them obsessively). I did find two of the other workouts on the DVD on YouTube. This time I will create a playlist with good cardio music on it to play during Linda’s Barlates cardio workouts. I just started doing that with my Yoga Collective workouts (playing my own music), so I have the set up in place (workout iPod, speakers and all the cords in the workout room now).
BTW–I did like this workout. The metabolic strength is what made it worthwhile (for me at least). I do think I would have liked it better with good music. However, the only way I will ever return to this workout is if I buy the DVD and that depends on if I like the other workouts that are also on the DVD. So we’ll see! I will update this review if I do buy the DVD and do it again with my own music.
Cardio Sculpt Fat Burn is 36:30 minutes long. 30 second intro, 3 minute warm up and 4 minute cool down/stretch. Equipment needed: medium dumbbells. Linda used one set of 8 pound dumbbells. I used 8-15 pound dumbbells. Listed below are the weights I used for each exercise. For the cardio segments Linda teaches it add on style. So you do a move, then do another move then you add the two moves together into a combo. Then she keeps adding on to the combo in that manner.
- Cardio: hopping lunge reaching side-to-side; add knee pull; changes to bouncing side steps; changes to chasse; add 3 point toe taps w/ hops; changes to alternating hopping knee lifts; add cross back lunge and 3 point toe taps; changes to jog in place; alternate jogging w/ hopping knee lifts; go back to the beginning of this series and repeat everything
- Strength: Dealifts (15# DBs); add overhead press (15# DBs); just overhead presses (10# DBs); add arching side raises after 3 overhead presses (8# DBs)
- Strength: Bent arm lateral raises (8# DBs)
- Strength: DB swings (swing DBs from between legs and pivot to side/overhead; alternate sides) (8# DBs)
- Cardio: Side steps moving forward and back; changes to hops/skip (she calls them “scoops” I think); add hamstring pulls (she calls them butt kicks); grapevines w/ punch; cardio segment ends hopping lunges side to side w/ punches
- Strength: Curtsy lunges; add tricep kickbacks; forward leaning tricep kickbacks; repeat curtsy lunge and tricep kickback on other leg; forward leaning tricep kickbacks (8# DBs)
- Strength: Reverse lunges w/ hammer curls (12# DBs)
- Strength: Traditional bicep curls alternate w/ wide biceps curls while in static lunge (10# DBs)
- Strength: Deadrows; ends w/ bent over rows (15# DBs)
For more info on Barlates and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
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