Workout DVD #38: Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred

See the DVD cover | hand weights

Day 89

OMG! Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred is insane and Jillian is trying to kill me! I wanted to stop at about the 11 minute mark because it was really challenging my cardiovascular system – I was huffing and puffing! But then I realized I had only done half the workout! Man – this is intense stuff and I believe it is a results getter. Anyway I will definitely be doing more of it because it made me see that I need to up my workout intensity as I don’t think that after all these workouts it should have been quite so demanding on my body.

I did the workout, which clocked in at 27 minutes in all, and then I did the Turbo Jam 20 minute workout. It was hard to keep going through that – the workout is usually pretty easy but I was pooped! My muscles were like lead. It makes me think I need to seriously start noting all my nutrition because I am getting really tired after some of my more intense workouts, and I never used to. I have been feeling like an old person, not able to see any gains of late, but I think it is all about the eats – not the age.

Netflix writes:

Veteran personal trainer and martial arts expert Jillian Michaels can help anyone shed extra pounds with this challenging series of circuit training workouts that focus on burning calories, increasing endurance, improving strength and developing muscle mass. The popular coach from the fitness reality show “The Biggest Loser” leads three rigorous 20-minute routines, including warm-up movements and cooldown exercises.

So what was it that made this a killer workout? Basically you do the warm up – dynamic stretching and light cardio, then you do 3 sets of 3 minutes strength training, 2 minutes cardio, 1 minute abs, followed by the cool down. It all sounds pretty easy doesn’t it? It would be if you could actually rest, but you can’t. Jillian has you doing compound moves one after the other and then the cardio. Really the abs is the only part that seems like a slight break.

Jillian says it right though – what is the point of doing the 20 minutes without giving it your all? 20 minutes is not a long time for a workout so you really have to be squeezing in about twice the amount of work into that time to be able to see results. Calorie burn wise it burned about 220 calories in 27 minutes which isn’t too bad considering it is not a cardio workout per se. It did have me sweating plenty with a high heart rate for most of it though.

The instructions on the DVD say to do it every day and when level 1 becomes easy to progress to level 2 and then 3. I guess you should only do this for the 30 days otherwise your body will be wiped out. I mean you are doing total body strength work every day – not the norm.

I don’t know if I could keep doing it every day anyway as I would probably get bored. We’ll see how long I can keep it up.

Here are my stats:

5/5/08

48:05 [workout time]
19:22 [in aerobic zone 60% -80% Target Heart Rate]
148 bpm [average heart rate] – pretty high
177 bpm [highest heart rate]
406 [cals burned]