Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Workout Wednesday - Burpees



On Saturday, I finally took the plastic off my Jillian Michaels 6 Week Six Pack.  I have been wanting to try the video for a while now.  But I was worried that the DVD would be too difficult for my healing knee.  The DVD started with a warm up (like all of Jillian's dvds) and ended with a cool down. But the DVD was definitely different from 30 Day Shred.  Instead of doing circuits, the video does one long circuit and then repeats at a much faster tempo.  I loved the DVD because it had a lot of different moves but some were a little difficult to learn since they were not repeated over and over like 30 Day Shred.  I am sure I will get use to them since I plan on doing the DVD more often. 

Jillian suggests doing the DVD for 5 days a week for 6 weeks.  The DVD also has two levels so you do level 1 for 3 weeks and level 2 for 3 weeks.  I have decided to work this DVD and 30 Day Shred into my workout schedule which is changing again (see Friday's post).
6 Week Six Pack had some really crazy moves, but I struggled the most with burpees.  A burpee is bascially a squat thrust. 

The burpee is performed in four steps:
1.        Begin in a standing position
2.       Drop into a squat position with your hands on the ground
3.       Extend your feet back in one motion and assume the front plank position
4.       Return to the squat position in one quick motion
5.       Return to standing position (if you want to make it harder jump out of the squat position).
The burpee works cardio and strength at the same time as well as builds your core.  This exercise definitely is a killer especially when Jillian picks up the pace for round two.
Have you performed the burpee?

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