Martial Fusion is a series of cardio kickboxing workouts by Guillermo Gomez who is a 4th degree black belt and Jessica Smith’s husband. In addition to the main workout, there is also a 24:30 minute heavy bag bonus. The heavy bag bonus is more of a tutorial. Guillermo gives a lot of instruction on how to use a heavy bag. There is no music. After several minutes of instruction, you do punch and kick drills. Before each drill, he describes form in detail. I don’t own a heavy bag so I didn’t do the bonus.
Fitness Kickboxing is 57:30 minutes; 12 minute warm up and 5:30 minute cool down/stretch. There are 10 push ups at the end of the cool down. No equipment is needed but I wore weighted gloves. This is not the most intense cardio kickboxing workout I’ve ever done but it is a lot of fun and I really like Guillermo. He likes to talk during a workout! Fitness Kickboxing is made up of 7 uncomplicated punch/kick (some are just punch) combos, plus he builds them in layers. The combos are separated by little cardio bursts that consist of jacks, speed bags, and some punch and knee drills. I counted 4 distinct drills, but there are other mini drill-like sequences. This is not a low impact workout but there are no plyometrics. The impact consists of jacks, jogging in place and boxer shuffle. There is no other impact. In the course of the workout you also do 3 sets of bodyweight squats, 16 reps each time. The final set of squats ends with some pulsing squats.
Unlike other cardio kickboxing workouts I’ve done, this gives you a lot more lower intensity moves between the high intensity moves. I can distinctly think of other trainers (Cathe, Ilaria) who give you no time to get a drink of water or towel off. Guillermo definitely does and, because of this, some people might find this workout too low intensity. I might have found it too easy just a few years ago. Now, I enjoyed it. I got some great steady state cardio and burned 450 calories in 57:30 minutes. There was also a time when the 10 push ups at the end would have made me groan but this morning–I said booyah! I look for any opportunity to add push ups to my day. We’ll see how long that lasts! But for now–I love push ups!
There are two premixes. One is just the heavy bag bonus with the warm up and cool down, and the other is the whole workout with the heavy bag bonus added.
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