Netflix Instant Workouts: 10 Minute Solution: Kickbox Bootcamp

Note: To fulfill my exercise resolutions, I am trying every single workout program that Netflix Instant Watch has to offer.  Join me each week as I try out a new program.

This week, I had hoped to revisit my childhood dream of being a Power Ranger by trying out Netflix's sole kickboxing offering.  Unfortunately, I got my butt kicked battling imaginary Putty Patrollers.



Kickbox Bootcamp offers five 10-minute workouts: Basic Training, Ultimate Buns and Thighs, Arm and Shoulder Sculpter, Fat Burning Blast, and Washboard Abs.  The intent of the program is to give the viewer flexibility - if pressed for time, one could do just one 10-minute workout, or customize it by mixing and matching workouts.  However, Netflix Instant Watch just streams the workouts back-to-back, making it one long, intense workout.  Which is fine.  I did the whole thing without dying.  Though there were parts towards the end where I wished I were dead.

Basic Training is basically Kickboxing 101.  While teaching basic punches and kicks, the instructor also incorporates a lot of cardio moves, like imaginary jump roping.

Ultimate Buns and Thighs involved about 50 trillion lunges and squats while holding hand weights, which pretty much turned my legs into jelly.

Arm and Shoulder Sculpter also involved some hand-weight exercises, but then turned into doing punches while holding hand weights, and I'm pretty sure more lunges and squats were involved, but I can't really be sure because at this point I lost all lucidity.

Fat Burning Blast is where the Bootcamp part comes in, and involved lots of agility exercises, as well as this thing where we ran in place, squatted, dropped into a plank, did some leg moves or whatever, jumped back into a squat, to a stand, back into running in place - over and over and over again.  At one point, the instructor asked, "Are you ready?" and I found myself moaning, "For the love of all that is holy, NO!"

Washboard Abs was by far my favorite section as I got to lie down.  Don't get me wrong, it was very difficult, but at this point, I was rejoicing whenever we did a move that did not involve bending my legs.

This was by far the most difficult video I have done yet.  For days after this, my legs would not function properly...which is why I only worked out once last week.  I knew that I was supposed to, but I just hurt all over.

So would I do this again?  I know that I probably should, but I'm not a masochist.  Maybe I will be more inclined to do this again when I'm more in shape.  I think that for the time being, I will stick to cheesy dancing and Pilates.

Netflix Instant Workouts: Pick Your Level Weight Loss Pilates

Note: To fulfill my exercise resolutions, I am trying every single workout program that Netflix Instant Watch has to offer.  Join me each week as I try out a new program.

Pilates seems like a very popular form of exercise.  However, I have never tried it before.  I thought that this would be a good time to try it out.  I was surprised to find out that pilates is actually very similar to the warm-up exercises I did in ballet and gymnastics when I was growing up. 

This video has three different 10-minute segments: standing, side-lying, and mat Pilates.  The standing segment involved lots of lunges and  squats.  The side-lying segment involved a lot of leg exercises, as well as core-strengthening exercises.  The mat Pilates involved push-ups and crunches.

I chose this particular pilates video because it was the highest rated and because it it included a beginner level.  As you can probably tell by looking at the cover picture, the video offers three different levels of difficulty.  At first, I thought they would be separated into several programs.  However, it turns out that they are all in one video.  The video features three women showing the moves in different levels of difficulty.  Each move starts out at the beginner level, then advances to the intermediate level.  You have the choice of staying at the beginner level or following the intermediate instructor to do the move in the next level of difficulty.  It then becomes more difficult, and the video shows the third woman doing the move at the advanced level.  Then the video split-screens so that you have a good view of all three women and you can choose which one to follow. 

I'm realizing as I'm writing this that I'm making this sound a bit confusing and complicated, but it's actually very easy to follow.


The nice thing about having all three levels in one video is that you don't have to do the entire program at one level.  If you're feeling up to the challenge, you can move on to the next level, or if you're feeling tired by the end of the video, you can stay at the beginner level.

I actually thought the beginner level was too easy and mostly performed the exercises at the intermediate level.  The second time I did it, I tried a few moves in the Advanced level.  I probably could have done them all at advanced, but as I'm fairly out of shape, I wanted to stay a bit cautious, as I didn't want to hurt myself.

I loved this program.  This was probably the first one so far that I looked forward to doing a second time.  My body felt really good after doing the workout.  Well, maybe my body didn't feel good, as I definitely felt it the next couple of days, but my body ached in that way that makes you feel good because you know you just did something good for your body, you know what I mean?

I would absolutely do this again.  I'm actually thinking about incorporating it into weeks when I'm trying out a program that is mostly cardio.  The program is also nice for busy weeks, as it's only 30 minutes long.

Netflix Instant Workouts: Crunch - Cardio Salsa

Note: To fulfill my exercise resolutions, I am trying every single workout program that Netflix Instant Watch has to offer.  Join me each week as I try out a new program.

This week, I decided to try out the first of several "Crunch" dance workouts that Netflix has to offer.  Though Crunch Cardio-Salsa was released in 2003, it seems like it's at least a decade older.  The opening segment, in which the instructor excitedly invites you to dance with her while the camera zooms manically in and out of her face while her seven neon-clad back-up dancers gyrate in hyper-speed in the background, reminds me of early 90s MTV. 

The video was broken up into seven segments: 1) warm-up, 2) salsa combination, 3) merengue combination, 4) merengue salsa combination, 5) samba combination, 6) latin funk combination, and 7) cool-down.  I'm not sure if the instructor presented authentic moves, but if she did, boy, oh boy, do I suck at samba.  I'm not sure how all the dancers did it, but I felt like I was limping around the living room with a broken leg.  The video breezes through these segments fairly rapidly, so the workout went by quickly.

I appreciated that the workout was fairly heavy on the "cardio" half of the title.  It incorporated a lot more aerobics moves, like lunges and knee-lifts, than the previous dance workouts I had done.  I didn't really mind this, as I felt like I was getting a better work-out.  While the workout wasn't too intense, it was a lot faster-paced than the "Dance Off the Inches" workouts.  The dance moves were also a bit more complicated and involved than the other videos, and there were a couple of times when I got lost and fell out of sync with the video.  This got better the second time I did it, and I suppose that if I were to do it again, it would be easier to follow. 

One thing that was completely unnecessary and made things complicated was the live drummer in the background.  There were times when I was struggling to figure out what it was that I was supposed to be doing when the video would randomly cut to the dude, drumming away.  They also sometimes cut to the back-up dancers, some of which are doing the wrong moves and fumble in correcting themselves, which made me fumble as well.   

Would I do it again?  I would probably do this video before I did any of the previous two.  If anything, I would just do it again to see if I can get all the routines down without getting lost.  However, I'm not crazy about it, and I'm looking forward to trying the rest of the programs.

Netflix Instant Workouts - Dance Off the Inches: Fat Burning Jam

Note: To fulfill my exercise resolutions, I am trying every single workout program that Netflix Instant Watch has to offer.  Join me each week as I try out a new program.

I know what you're thinking, and I would have to agree - wouldn't it be great if we could burn fat by eating jam?  Sadly, this workout video did not involve any peanut butter sandwiches.  I should sue for false advertising.

I thought that since I had so much fun with Tummy Tone Party Zone, I would try out the other Dance Off the Inches program offered by Netflix Instant Watch.  Like the other program, there were three different sections, but the third section was another dance routine instead of a bunch of crunches.  Another difference that I enjoyed: the instructor and back-up dancers interacted more with each other, making jokes that resulted in stilted, awkward laughter.

I am not even sure if I can attribute a dance genre to the first section.  It mostly involved stepping side-to-side and swinging our hips.  I suppose this is the type of dancing that occurs at a "jam" (An aside: whenever I mention "jam",  for some reason, it makes me visualize A Night at the Roxbury).   Despite being ridiculously easy, it was much faster-paced than the other program, which I definitely appreciated. 

For the second section, we did a dance routine that apparently involved going "south of the border." (What if we had been in Canada?  Then would it be an American dance routine?)  This section started off with a "spicy march", which sounds like an oxymoron, but makes sense if you think of it being done at football halftime show by a trombonist who ate one too many chile rellenos.  While the routine did incorporate more Latin-based moves than the last program (for example, the mambo and cha-cha), it was still pretty vanilla. And when I say vanilla, I mean that one move involved walking in a circle and shimmying as though you were trying really hard to lose a game of limbo at a retirement home's tropical-themed party.

The third section was a jazz routine, and I imagine that this section might have been a bit more difficult for those who hadn't gone through the step guide section (which, like with the last program, didn't show up until the end).  This section involved a lot of sliding and turning, which is not easy to do on carpet.  It also involved a lot of hopping while raising your arms, like the Easter Bunny having a religious moment of transcendence while on acid.

Would I do it again?  I actually got really into it and had some fun (but then again, I tend to take the attitude that it's not worth doing anything if you don't do it wholeheartedly).  However, in the end, it was a bit too repetitive, it was too difficult to slide around on the carpet, and all the hopping was hard on my weak ankles.  Still, though, I'm glad I did it at least for one week.

Netflix Instant Workouts - Dance Off the Inches: Tummy Tone Party Zone

I never really had a problem with exercise before college.  I was in tumbling and dance classes from when I was very little up until I left home for college.  In college, I tried exercising through walking and tennis, but tennis never really stuck (I have terrible hand-eye coordination) and while walking was better than nothing, it wasn't really keeping me in shape.  After I got married, David and I got gym memberships and I started working out on the ellipticals.  It worked well enough - I have very weak knees and ankles, so I felt like I got some good exercise without any strain on my body parts.  Unfortunately, we cancelled our gym memberships a little while ago when our schedules got crazy and funds got tight.

I thought that a fun and cost-effective way to meet my twice a week exercise resolution would be to try every single workout video on Netflix Instant Watch (we already have a Netflix account, so we're not paying any extra).  Every week, I'll try out a different video and report on the experience here.

There are currently 31 offerings in Netflix Instant's "Workouts" category, with a couple of them offering more than one "episode".  Some of them are broken down into five 10 or 15 minute segments.  I figure if a workout is not broken into parts, I'll go ahead and do the entire thing, even if it's an hour long, like the yoga videos.  However, if it's a week where my schedule is a bit crazy, I might try a workout video that is broken into segments and do either three 10-minute segments or two 15-minute segments for a 30-minute workout.  If Netflix doesn't add or take away any of their offerings, this gives us a minimum of 33 weeks and a maximum of 40 weeks of workouts.  I'm not sure what I'll do for the remaining weeks of the year, but I have some time to figure it out. 

I decided to kick off this series with "Dance Off the Inches: Tummy Tone Party Zone", because with a name like "Tummy Tone Party Zone", how could it not be fun?  Plus, I'm a sucker for anything dance-related.



After a brief warm-up section set to techno Mario Kart music, the program launched into a cheesy disco-like dance workout.  Every time I did a body roll, I wished that I had thought to close the blinds to our apartment window.  Despite - or maybe because of - the cheesiness, I found it impossible to keep myself from smiling the whole time, mostly because of my awareness of how ridiculous I looked.  Plus, the instructor kept insisting, "Remember - this is a party!" So, of course, I had to comply.

The instructor also incorporated the word "funky" into every sentence:  "Get funky!", "This is our funky two-step!" "Make it funky!"  Then, she'd ask her back-up dancers (for lack of a better word), "How are you doing?" And they'd say, "I'm doing funky!"  So not only was this program fun, it was also educational - I hadn't realized that there had been a 70s renaissance in 2005.

The next section was a Latin-based dance workout that was slightly faster-paced, but just as cheesy.  The instructor told us to "Make it spicy!", which is hard to do with the most white bread, vanilla "Latin" dance moves in existence.  It involved a lot of pointing at nothing in particular and miming bursts of sunshine.


Kind of like this.

After a short cool-down section, there was a section of core-strengthening exercises - aka, crunches and lots of them.  This was probably my favorite part, as I could definitely feel the burn in my stomach.  However, I think I hurt my neck a little bit from craning it to look at the screen to see how to do "crunch pulses" without looking like a broken marionette having a seizure.

Although the program is supposed to be 55 minutes long, the workout section was only 35 minutes long.  The last 20 minutes was a step guide, so you could learn the dance moves before doing the workout - it probably would have been more helpful if it had come before the actual workout section of the program.  Even without the step guide, it was really easy to catch on to the dance moves, as they were very simple and basic.

Would I do this again?  I actually had fun doing it, and the crunches section seemed fairly helpful.  The dance workout was a bit too slow-paced and easy, but I started to work up a little bit of a sweat once I started exaggerating all the movements.  I think I would get bored if I did it regularly, but I might occasionally revisit it if I'm in the mood for cheesy, easy exercise.