Fighting Fit, Fighting Fat

Harvey Walden IV
Year Released: 2003

Categories: Floor Aerobics/Hi-Lo/Dance


This is a a very straightforward and decent workout. It's not going to be a favorite of mine, but it will be a keeper. It's a high- intermediate interval workout divided into 3 parts. Every exercise is done for 30 seconds within those 3 parts, with the parts going from "basic" to "intermediate" to "advanced" (but some of the exercises don't ever change that much).

The warm-up, 8 minutes consists of lots of marching (march shallow, march wide, march low is the first set, there are two other brief sets ). The setting is a room decorated with vaguely military-esque trappings. Two women and one man, who act appropriately grim. Harvey wears a broad-brimmed hat and a constant scowl as he keeps telling you something about" bag of chips" and "this will separate the men from the boys and the women from the girls" and exhorts you, "I know you're not just sitting there."

In each of the three 15-minute "circuits" you do basically the same moves. Jacks, arm circles (the least interesting and effective of the lot), wide pushups, "diamond" pushups (for the triceps), ab crunches (from basic to clamshell to bicycle), squat thrusts, squats, lunges (from forward lunges to the more "advanced" back lunges), jab-jab-uppercut- uppercuts, side lunges, fast jogs, skip ropes, cross-country skis, "supermans"). The main different between "advanced circuit" and the other two is that you jog in between moves rather than march.

It's not complex or creative in choreography, but it gets the basic job of getting your heart rate up and sweating a bit in 45 minutes. I'm somewhat advanced as an exerciser, so cardio-wise this wasn't killer, but it was fine for getting in a feel-good-enough workout. Strength wise, I found it more difficult throughout the 3 circuits to keep doing pushups without going to my knees. But 30 seconds of everything makes it all fly by. This is primarily a cardio workout.

Instructor Comments:
To me he's like a male Jillian Michaels...he puts on that "drill sarge" demeanor and you're not sure how much of it is an act, but no matter, because he pulls it off well. He yells "Suck in that gut" so many times that I'll never forget it. But he's charismatic, natural-seeming and very competent at cuing. He plays the drill sarge role quite well.

acey

08/13/2006