20 Min Low Impact Cardio Core Kickbox | Intense Cardio HIIT is a fun cardio kickboxing workout from Michelle Briehler. But despite what the title claims, this is not a low impact workout. The very first exercise is squat jacks and there are also full jumping jacks. Neither is a low impact exercise. And since this is a circuit workout, those high impact exercises are repeated 3 times! Michelle does show low impact modifications but she only shows them once and briefly. Even though I personally enjoyed the workout, the words “Low Impact” should not be in this title. At the very least one of the background exercisers could have been a modifier throughout, always doing the low impact version. But that did not happen. And on the very first exercise (squat jacks) Michelle did not even show the modification until the very end of the interval the first time through! I know I am spending a lot of time criticizing this but when you put “low impact” in the title, you are drawing exercisers who do not want to jump and that is not what this workout delivers. Everyone is the workout is jumping.
However I did enjoy this workout. It was a fun cardio workout. Not super intense but I got some good cardio. I burned a total of 227 calories. Michelle gives us a really nice deep stretch at the end which I really appreciated and enjoyed.
The exercises are done interval style: 40 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. There is a timer in the lower left hand corner of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. There is also a little bar at the bottom of the screen that counts down the entire workout time as a percentage.
20 Min Low Impact Cardio Core Kickbox | Intense Cardio HIIT is 28:49 minutes; 45 second intro, 3 minute warm up and 3:30 minute stretch. Equipment: light hand weights, lace ups or weighted gloves, and fitness mat. Michelle and crew are using one pound weighted lace ups. I wore 2 pound weighted gloves
- One squat + one crescent kick, alternate legs doing a total of 3 crescent kicks then do 2 squat jacks
- 2 wide lateral step touches w/ alternating cross punches + 2 knee pulls (same leg), when you repeat do knee pulls on other leg
- One front kick + one back kick (other leg) + one knee raise + one jab-cross
- Repeat #3 on other side of body
- 2 jumping jacks + two side kicks (one each leg)
- One knee raise + one insole tap (other foot) + one side kick (other leg) + one torso twist pulling elbow behind you
- Repeat #6 on other side of body
- 2 double wide steps (or shuffle-leaps) + one upper cut + one hook (other arm) + one upper cut (other arm)
- Repeat #1 & 2
- Repeat #3 & 4 but punches change to fast jab-cross-jab
- Repeat #5-8
- Repeat 9-11
- (intervals are over) Alternating front punches; continue but faster
For more info on Michelle Brieher’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
