Cathe Live: Metabolic Madness

#267 Metabolic Madness should be called Metabolic Shoulder Madness–because man does it hit your shoulders hard. I loved it btw. In order to cram as many Cathe Live workouts as I can into a 2 month period, I am now doing them on Sundays, too. For my Sunday workouts, I chose shorter workouts titled metabolic, or something similar so I could follow them with an extended stretch. I approached this one as more of a cardio/conditioning workout and didn’t even bother trying to lift heavier, even in instances where I knew I could. Nevertheless, my shoulders are still burning. There were plenty of exercises where I lifted the same weight as Cathe and that was the max I could lift. However, there were also several other exercises I could have easily lifted heavier on. But regardless, I still got a great, very shoulder focused workout today. It also worked my lower body, biceps, triceps and chest–but the muscle group that got hit the hardest is the shoulders. And because of the pace and the fact that every move is a compound move of some sort your heart rate is elevated and you are burning fat while building muscle. Overall, this was an excellent workout. The back doesn’t get any targeted focus, but your upper back is worked as an ancillary muscle group in many of the exercises for the shoulders plus deadlifts hit the low back. There is also no focused core work but there are several exercises that use one dumbbell and work one side of the body–unliateral training, which engages your core. There are also a few exercises that challenge your balance–again, that also engages the core. Nothing that someone severely balance challenged like me couldn’t handle. Finally, on the final exercise (alternating front jabs holding light dumbbells) Cathe’s count seemed all messed up both times you do it. You do a million reps and I stopped trying to count them but I am not sure either time we did them we did the amount she claimed we did. And we definitely did more than she said we were going to do–but that’s obvious because during the exercise she acknowledges she is adding on more reps.

Overall, this is an excellent metabolic total body workout that packs a lot into 45 minutes. You can do Cathe’s live workouts by subscribing to her streaming site or purchasing the individual downloads. Here is a video clip of this workout.

Metabolic Madness is 45 minutes; 5 minute warm up and 2 minute stretch. Equipment: dumbbells. Cathe and class are using 3-15 pound dumbbells. I used the same weight as Cathe, but for future reference, I am noting below the exercises I believe I can lift heavier on (and yes–I plan to purchase this download!).

1. Sumo marches holding one DB in both hands (small steps, staying in sumo squat the entire time ) (Cathe is using one 15# DB; I will use one 20# DB in the future)
2. Pulsing lunges with bent arm standing chest flys (in stationary lunge, hold arms/DBs in goal post, as you pulse in lunge, open and close arms) (Cathe is using 10# DBs)
3. One deadlifts to 2/2 count + 4 calf raises (Cathe is using 15# DBs; in the future I will use 30# DBs)
4. Rear lunge, reaching DB down to floor near foot, bring feet together and do one single arm overhead press (Cathe is using one 15# DB)
5. One sumo squat hop holding DBs at shoulder then hop/pivot to side into a lunge while punching one arm/DB to side, alternate sides with a sumo squat/hop between each side (Cathe is using 3# DBs; in the future I will use 5# DBs)
6. 4 squats + 4 calf raises, 6 reps of this combo (Cathe is using 15# DBs; in the future I will use 20# DBs)
7. Start standing, hinge forward and walk hands out to plank, do one push up, walk hands back in to feet and stand, each time you repeat you increase the amount of push ups you do by one until you are doing 5 push ups (like an Inchworm push up but Cathe’s knees are bent)
8. Single arm overhead tricep extension while balancing one one leg, other leg is straight with toe pointed, you raise and lower leg in time with the tricep extension, 24 reps each side (Cathe is using one 10# DB)
9. Forward lunge, into knee raise with straight arm side raises (Cathe is using 3# DBs; in the future I will use 6# DBs)
10. Double arm scarecrows, one leg is behind you, with each scarecrow rep, do a hamstring curl (Cathe is using 5# DBs)
11. Hinge forward and do 3 rear delt flys, 6 reps of this combo (Cathe is using 10# DBs)
12. Pyramid bicep curls, 10 reps with heaviest weight, 10 reps with moderate weight, 10 reps with lightest weight (Cathe is using 15#, 12# and 10# DBs)
13. Alternating side lunges with an upright row between each lunge (reach one DB toward opposite foot while lunging) (Cathe uses 12# DBs)
14. 100 alternating front jabs (Cathe claims you are actually doing 100 sets, so 200 jabs) (Cathe is using 3# DBs)
15. Repeat #1-13 (but some of the exercises are done out of order)
16. Repeat #14 but this time you less than you did the first time–but you still do a lot!