OK, here's the scoop on Interval Max. Lorrayne Schaefer, who lives just a couple miles from me, dropped by after work yesterday and we tried it out. I had to modify everything to low impact and a 4" step due to my knee and my pregnant belly, but Lorrayne assures me this is a killer tape. She even said "MIC would be a good practice tape for this one."

Interval Max is very much in the spirit of Reebok's Intense Moves--one of the few true interval workouts available that will challenge advanced exercisers. The intensity level and length of the interval segment is comparable to Intense Moves--each have 10 interval cycles for a total of about 30 min. of extremely tough cardiovascular conditioning. Interval Max's warm up is more choreographed and thorough, however, and the end stretch is also longer and more thorough, hence the longer 60 min. length.

Here's the breakdown of the workout: A 13 min. warm up, approx. 30 minutes of interval cycles, a 2 1/2 minute cool down, and a nice, long 5 min. stretch.

Those who attended last October's road trip to Cathe's studio will recognize much of this workout. The choreography is very similar to our Sunday masterclass, except that no toning segments are included. Most of the choreography in the aerobic segments is taken from previous videos-- the few new steps are taught during the warm up. The choreo overall is most similar to that in Body Max and MIC.

The music Cathe previewed for the road trippers is the music used in the video. It's a new Dynamix soundtrack (one that Cathe fears will reappear in future CIA tapes) and very motivating.

The warm up is fun--the music has a Caribbean feel, with steel drums. You'll see a few new moves--a rhythmic L step and an L step with a shuffle on the board. Parts of this segment reappear later in the step aerobic sections. Once you learn the combo you move into active stretching, including slow lunges with a kick off the back of the step, like in the third section of Step Max. Your body will be pretty warm after this point (about 10 min. in) but then Cathe goes back to the combo and adds a few variations, including a single power scissor/2 quick scissor move, side ups, and a U-turn. The warm up is very thorough, but believe me, you'll need it.

There are ten interval cycles--The first minute or so consists of a short step aerobic pattern of three or four steps repeated six times, the second minute is the intensity blast that will send you into your anaerobic training zone, and the final 45 sec. to one minute is spent in a basic recovery pattern which is the same each time.

The step aerobic sections feature moves familiar to Cathe fans, and some of the groups of steps you can even name by video. For example, there's one I call the "PowerMax" section with a knee up corner to corner, jump kick corner to corner, pony corner to corner, and hip flexor repeater. There's another right out of "Step Max" (A-step, knee off the back, long hop turn, knee off the inside, 3 outer thigh) and another from Step Heat (basic step, jump extend, up jack, down jack, repeater back). You'll recognize many other moves as well, such as rebounds, funky V steps, scoops, and in-and-out repeaters.

The anaerobic, intense segments run the gamut from those straight up jumps on the floor in MIC (for a whole minute!), to "power circles" galore, to power 7's around the world, to deep plyo jacks, to scissor lunges, to ski-type side to side jumps, to airborne jacks and tuck jumps (similar to Intense Moves). Like Intense Moves, some of these segments are a bit harder than others, and on the toughest, one of the participants (Hope) demonstrates less intense variations. About half of these sections use the step, half are on the floor.

The cool down is done on the floor, with mostly grapevines, a double grapevine, step touches and step turns. As I mentioned before, the stretch section is nice and long, with quiet, pretty music.

I think this will be a great tape for Cathe fans, and a nice alternative to Intense Moves.

WWWendy

12/02/1998