Barlates: Hotel Room Cardio Core

Linda Wooldridge created 5 short workouts for her Hotel Room Series. The workouts are only 15 minutes 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 Linda’s cardio barre workouts and, at least in my experience, no one does them better. After doing her Hotel Room Cardio Sculpt Lower, I decided I needed to try Cardio Core. The workouts I already had planned for this morning are Linda’s Standing Barre Abs workout followed by a 30 minute Jessica Smith yoga routine. What better way to prep for both than with some cardio? This workout definitely raised my heart rate! And it was tougher than it appeared. The actual workout is 15 minutes and you alternate between a plank based cardio move and a non-cardio core move. But since the non-cardio core move is tough, your heart rate doesn’t drop much. You can easily make this workout even tougher. Linda does the plank based cardio moves with her hands elevated. Place your hands on a lower surface (a step @ 8 or 10 inches) or even the floor and the intensity will jump. I used my weight bench because 50 seconds of a plank based move is hard and this was supposed to be a warm up–so I did it just like Linda demonstrated. I still got an excellent workout. This would work well paired with one (or more) of her other Hotel Room Series workouts, or like I did this morning–following it with Standing Barre Abs. Standing Barre Abs is not cardio but it does work you well, so I didn’t start cooling down until I started doing yoga. Overall, I got a really excellent workout this morning and I am wondering if my abs will be sore tomorrow.

Cardio Core is 17 minutes long w/ 1 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 for everything. Each exercise is done for 50 seconds of work w/ 10 seconds of rest.

1. Mountain climbers w/ hands on raised surface
2. Sit on raised surface, torso leaned back, and raise and lower bent legs, tapping toes to ground
3. Plank jacks w/ hands on raised surface
4. Same as #2 but this time you arc your legs from side to side as your raise them (like making a rainbow with your legs)
5. Alternating crab kicks but hands are on raised surface behind you
6. Same as #2 but this time alternate legs as you raise and lower them
7. Mountain climbers w/ hands on raised surface but this time bring knee toward opposite elbow underneath body then knee to same side elbow on outside of body (alternate between these two variations of mountain climber)
8. Lay on back w/ calves placed on elevated surface, do crunches while bringing one knee toward chest, alternate sides
9. Get on one knee w/ same side hand on raised surface, other arm is raised overhead and other leg is extended out straight to side–bring knee and elbow together at side of body–fast
10. Lay on side on raised surface, top hand behind head, legs straight–raise and lower top straight leg while crunching elbow toward leg
11. Repeat 9 & 10 on other side of body
12. In plank w/ hands on raised surface, jump feet in toward hands into a wide squat then back out to plank
13. Lay on back w/ legs raise straight to ceiling and raised surface near legs, hands behind head–do a straight leg bicycle maneuver w/ calves tapping raises surface when they lower (the further you are from the raised surface the harder you are working)
14. Same as #2 but open and close legs as you raise and lower them (and you are doing this fast, too–so cardio!)

For more info on Barlates and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.