Jillian's Body Revolution - Week 5

I figure it has been way too long without a post that  fits the "Planks" part o the blog....so here you go-
I mentioned 6 weeks ago (I am in week 5, took the week after Diablo as a rest week) that I started Jillian's Body Revolution program. I think the post was something about not really having a desire to workout, but that I was just going to make myself do it and hope my mind would follow and the desire to do it would come back....ring a bell???

Well, it took all of half a week for the desire to arrive!! It was a good reminder that I do really, really love to workout!  I did not realize how much I missed it as a daily part of my life (well, 5 days o week at least).

My thoughts on the program -

I will admit that I am not normally a fan of a 30 minute workout.  It just doesn't feel long enough to me. I feel like I'm just getting going and then it's over.  The first 2 weeks I did feel this way.  I also felt like it honestly wasn't much of a workout. The "cardio" was all low impact.  Coming off of doing Insanity, this felt pretty lame.  However, you can modify everything, as in add weight, alter the cardio to more challenging exercises, whatever you need to do to make it feel challenging, you can do it, so I wasn't bothered too much, plus I knew following weeks would get harder.

So for the first phase (there are 3 phases total) you do workouts #1 and 2 for two weeks, then workouts 3 and 4 for 2 weeks.  There is also one cardio workout that you are supposed to do one day a week, however I added it to 3 workouts each week to get a longer total workout time in. There are 4 circuits in each workout, some you go through twice, some 3 times. There are 1 minute cardio intervals in between the circuits. You work the front of the body in workout, back of the body in the next workout.  That system stays the same through the entire program. As I mentioned the first two weeks were very basic, easy workouts.  Weeks 3 and 4 definitely were more difficult/intense, but very doable w/o needing breaks or stopping to rest or anything (not nearly as intense as Insanity).

I started Phase 2 this week.  Same set up, you so workouts # 5 and 6 for 2 weeks, then #'s 7 and 8 for 2 weeks before moving on to Phase 3.  So far, workouts 5 and 6 are much more intense than previous workouts.  I did #6 today and was pouring sweat for the first time w/this workout program.   There are a lot of complex, combination moves.  I am seeing variations of push ups that I have not seen anywhere before (I love me some push ups and thought I had seen them all : ) as well as sit up variations ( weighted lat pull over/sit ups??? hard to do), stork rows (one legged bent wide rows), chop lunges (lunges holding a heavy weight swinging it like you are chopping wood, twisting as you lunge)...that's just a few of the things in workout 5 and 6.  Fun stuff !!
Did I mention planks?? Lots and lots of plank variations. Even push ups with side planks at the top.

So there you go, that is what I have been doing for the past  5 weeks.  I really enjoy the program so far, I suspect the next jump in difficulty level is going to be brutal, but knowing it's going to get harder makes you not want to miss any of the current level workouts because you know they are setting you up to be able to get through whatever is coming next.

I will do another update when I move on to Phase 3, which will be week 9 of the program.
I did not link to the program, however there is a permanent link to it on the left side o the blog.