Power Hour

Cathe Friedrich
Year Released: 2002

Categories: Total Body Workouts


The music is loud and very upbeat, don't know any of the songs since it's mostly music only, but it's really good.

You do a warm up with your barbell, no stretching at all which I didn't like but she does have you stretch between body parts. You start with squats and she adds in a lot of variety. Slow 3 count down and 1 up, down 2 and up 2, down 4 slow and up 4 slow, low ends, and a new move where you go down 2, hold for 2 and up for 3 so there is plenty of variety. Then you take a short break and do the same type of moves but with plie squats.

Next is chest...WOW, Cathe has you start out with 16 push ups, then you take a short breather and you go into a push up position but you hop up bringing your knees in towards your chest, hop back and go into a push up and then you go right into 3 down and 1 up and then you go half way down and hold, VERY tough set of push ups!!

Then you start with chest flyes lying on the step but Cathe has you hold the dumbbells different, like you're going a chest press only you take them out into a fly position (hope you can picture that). Then you go into chest press with the barbell, lots of variety on this move too......3 down and 1 up, 4 down slow and 4 up slow, down to the middle only and raise and lower but staying in the top half of the move and then you do the same thing but staying in the bottom half of the move.

Next is Back.....you combine barbell rows with deadlifts and then you do one arm rows doing 2 up and 2 down and also 3 up and one down.

Next is lunges, this is a KILLER lunge segment. You do tons of variations on the lunge move with a loaded barbell and then you do the same thing with dumbbells doing the low ends for a count of 7, doing that twice in a row....VERY TOUGH segment.

Next is shoulders. This segment is really fun, even Cathe loves it. You do a front raise with a 10 lb plate doing 1 up and 1 down, 2 up and 2 down, 3 up and 1 down, 1 up and 3 down and 4 up slow and 4 down slow...then you pick up dumbbells for side lateral raises using the same tempo's, then into a move where you are bent over and you raise the weights straight up behind you, Cathe stayed light on this move and used 5 lb dumbbells...then you do barbell military presses so you totally fatigue the shoulders.

Next is biceps and Cathe surprised me and only used a 15 lb barbell so I used my 15 lb bodybar and I think I could have gone to a 20 lb barbell so I'll try that next time. You do all the different tempo variations along with going half way up and back down, then you go all the way up and half way down and then you go back to the half way up and back down move so you are really on fire...you take a short break and go right back into it again. You don't use any dumbbells for the biceps.

For triceps you do the lying tricep extension with the same tempo variations only she adds in a killer move where you go down on one, HOLD for 2, back up on one, really tough move. Then you do tricep kickbacks with the 2 up and 2 down tempo and then 3 up and 1 down. Then you go back into the lying tricep extensions and do it all over again.

For Abs Cathe starts with 2 up 2 down crunches, then you go into 1 up, stop, oblique twist to one side, back to the center and back down, then 3 up and one down and you keep doing sets of each of these for a while. Next is lower ab crunches with upper abs added, lots of sets of those, then Cathe goes into the bicycle move, slowly, with a pause in between and then you do it even slower but you don't stop, very tough. Cathe ends with plank work, that gets me everytime but I think it was tougher since she added it in at the end instead of the beginning of the ab work. Then you stretch at the end. AWESOME workout!!!!!!!!

Dawn Henson

07/28/2001