Linda Wooldridge created 5 short workouts for her Hotel Room Series. The workouts are short and do not use any equipment other than what you might find in a hotel room. And since they are free on YouTube you can do the workout on your phone, ipad or laptop even while you are on vacation. You can also purchase the Hotel Room Series DVD.
I love the idea of these workouts and will probably end up getting the DVD once I try a few more of the workouts in the series. Linda has quite a few workouts (other than these) that would be great to use while on vacation or staying somewhere where you have no equipment except for a chair (and many that you can do on the floor with no equipment and many that use nothing but a band which packs easily) but having these all on one DVD is a great idea–and each workout is only 15 minutes!
Cardio Sculpt Lower is a cardio barre workout. I am not staying in a hotel but I wanted to try it anyway. One of my absolute favorite Barlates workout is Stretch Sculpt Lower. When I do it, I usually pair it w/ 100 Rep Squat & Kick. Even tho this is an excellent pairing, it puts my total workout time at 66 minutes. I really like my morning workouts to be right around 60 minutes Monday-Friday (work days). I can always make time for workouts that are a little longer (and I have paired those two workouts together several times) but I am looking for something as good as Squat & Kick but shorter. So I gave this a try–and it is perfect! This morning I started with this little workout then went straight into Stretch Sculpt Lower and got an excellent lower body cardio barre workout in just under an hour.
For only 15 minutes this was an intense little workout! It got my heart pumping, I was sweating by the end and I felt the burn in my lower body. A perfect add on workout, or a workout to stack with others like I did this morning–and also perfect for being in a hotel room or some other place with no equipment.
Cardio Sculpt Lower is 17 minutes long; 1:30 minute intro, no warm up or stretch. Equipment: something elevated such as a sofa or bed and a mat or soft surface to protect knees. I used my weight bench. Each exercise is done for 50 seconds of work w/ 10 seconds of rest.
- Fast bench squats, tapping bottom to bed/sofa
- Remaining in squat, step out and in
- Fast wide plie bench squats
- In wide plie squat, alternate raising heels then raise both heels–continue this pattern
- Fast narrow bench squats
- Kneel w/ knees wide and toes touching, lower hips toward heels and when you raise them tuck hips forward
- Place one leg/foot on bed/sofa and bring knee in toward torso then push back out, twisting torso toward knee each time
- Lower onto one knee, other leg is extended straight and foot is on sofa/bed–raise and lower straight leg
- Repeat 7 & 8 on other leg
- Fast knee drops while in quadruped
- Get on all 4s and extend one leg straight behind you w/ top of foot resting on sofa/bed–raise and lower straight leg
- In quadruped but w/ legs wide, alternate tapping knees to ground but angled toward the opposite side
- Repeat 12 on other leg
- Start in kneeling position and stand using only legs but remain low in squat–so kneel to squat
For more info on Barlates and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
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