I've never made it through 30 days of 30 Day Shred. Never. Not once.
Whew, that felt good.
Reason? I have a bum knee and a bum ankle from years of percussive dancing. I had knee surgery on my left knee when I was a kid, and as a adult developed achilles tendonitis in my left ankle. (Why both on the left? I had a chiropractor tell me that my pelvis sits either higher or lower on my left side, and that's why the trouble. And he didn't say "either higher or lower", he told me which, but it's been a few years ago, and right now I'm blank on which...)
At any rate, there's something in particular about 30 Day Shred that flares my tendonitis in my ankle - I've always blamed it on the lunges in level one, but who knows what it really is. And we all know, there's two kinds of pain. There's pain that isn't so bad, and there's pain that sucks. And as much as I enjoy Jillian and being tortured by her on the daily, tendonitis is pain that sucks. So I made it 16 days (beyond halfway, which I think is the farthest I've ever made it...). It makes for an uneventful set of before and after pictures, but I made it as far as I could.
Now to the important part - my opinion.
If you're familiar with Jillian, if you've done any of her videos before, or if you've watched her on The Biggest Loser, there isn't much that's new here. The third level is the newest - it's the most plyo heavy of the three levels, so that's fairly unique to Jillian. She also does a weighted plank row (go in to plank, while holding your weights. Lift your arm with weights, put it back down. Lift the same side leg, put it back down. Lift the opposite arm, with weights. Lift same side leg. Repeat, repeat, repeat), which was new to her, at least in her videos I've got experience with.
I think this video's solid - good exercises, easy to keep up with, nothin' you can't handle (Even if you hate a certain exercise or certain kind of exercise, you're gonna do it at the most for a minute. Anybody can do anything for a minute, yeah?
Space; This one is pretty small apartment friendly, if you've got space to lay down wherever you work out, you've got space to do this.
What you need; Weights. Jillian's recommendation is generally 3-8 pounds, so stick with that. If you're bad, try bigger, but don't get excited. You shouldn't kill yourself for this. :D You should be able to comfortably keep up.
If you feel like mountain climbers are easier on a mat, use a mat.
And as always, a good pair of shoes, you shouldn't work out barefoot.
For the background dancer purists, this time you get Anita and Natalie, and probably 3 out of 5 reviews I read say what a "cheater" Natalie is, because every time Jillian turns around, Natalie stops. Shoot - these exercises hurt! I stopped too! :O
My pictures. Given that I didn't do all 30 days, I don't think these are that exciting. But I find myself saying that alot, so don't mind me. On a photography tip from a friend, I wore the same clothes for both pictures (or tried to, I realized afterward that I'd put on the wrong pants, but I got close!). She pointed out that changing my hair or style of shorts or whatever could create a visual trick that would make it look like I'd done better or worse than I actually had, so for the most authentic pictures, I should dress the same. Since authentic was the name of the game when I started all this, I went for it. Left picture is before, right picture is after...
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| From Drop Box |
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| From Drop Box |
I don't know what to say. I wish my reveal was more exciting, but for two weeks, what do you want, right? I guess I should just be glad it wasn't worse!
I switched gears and am trying some Bob Harper videos this stretch (mainly owing to the fact that I got some for Christmas, haha...) so my review next time is going to be massive (I'm actually doing a rotation of four videos right now, so it'll be a four parter...). It's a hard series of videos - I did Bob's Cardio Conditioning video, ONCE, and my hamstrings haven't been the same since. If I don't come out of this with some nice gams, I'm gonna lose it!
So, see you in February!
Video Originally Released March 18, 2008
