Officially finished XTrain 90-day rotation!

Kellyro77

Kellyro77

Cathlete
Yaaaaaaay. I'm so happy I saw this through.

Today was my last workout. Next week I get a rest week and then I jump into that 12-week summer rotation I posted to the summer rotation board.

I'm partially wishing I'd taken some measurements beforehand, but I'm really trying to step away from focusing on numbers on the scale and even measurements like waist, hips, etc.; instead just taking note of how my clothing is fitting, and, most important, just how I'm FEELING. And I've been feeling really good. I know I've gotten stronger, at least, from the notes I took for the upper body workouts.

I'm really glad I pushed myself through this one. I've said lots of times before that I'm not a fan of HiiT, so all the focus on HiiT-type workouts really intimidated me, but I pushed through them. It was nice to see that my body can do them, even if I dislike them.

I was grateful for the undulating approach because I had a few missed days in the rotation, or, I ended up doing something else like going for a hike. None of that ruined the progress I made. I also had a couple rest weeks in between, too, and still, it didn't cause any problems.

I'm planning to do this rotation again after my 12-week custom rotation. I'll probably switch out a few things for a little more flavor, especially in the cardio segments. Like maybe inserting Intensity cardio segments in place of a Tabatacise day, and swapping in a different kickbox workout in place of Hard Strikes every now and then. And maybe replace a Legs day with Butts & Guts or something similar. Lots of options available. But I'll likely stick with those upper body workouts because they were effective!

Thanks for letting me gush! Have a great day!
 
Congrats!! Great to hear of your results & love your enthusiasm for Xtrain! I felt I made really good progress with UB weight work too with the Xtrain undulating approach, so I'm hoping the next series will allow for it too. Looking forward to reading about your progress with your Summer Rotation too...
 
I finally started up on my summer rotation that I posted in the rotation thread after having a rest week last week. I was amazed by a couple things:

#1 - XTrain really WORKED in improving not just my strength but my cardio endurance as well. Party Rockin' Step #1 usually has me huffing and puffing but this almost felt like an intermediate workout this time around. Woohoo! Yes, yes, I see the benefits of lots of HiiT, even though I really dislike it.

#2 - While XTrain was really effective, I cannot say how flippin' HAPPY I was when I started doing an intricately choreographed step workout that was NOT an XTrain workout. Change is GOOD! I had the biggest smile on my face while working out today.

Just had to share. Has anyone else felt giddy for change after dedicating three months to a limited program like XTrain?
 
Kellyro77, I haven't even tried to do a 3 month rotation, because I'm just not sure it would fit my personality. I really like having choices, so the idea of being dedicated to one rotation for a month is very intimidating to me. I admire your accomplishment. I have had that giddy feeling that you spoke of, but mine usually comes from finally being able to master some of Cathe's step choreography or making it through a challenging workout and feeling great at the end (when before it almost killed me). lol I've managed to make it through little one week rotations that I create for myself, but I keep eyeing the STS that I bought for my husband. I keep wondering if I have it in me to stick with something that long. Your last paragraph of your first post made me think that maybe I could stick with a longer rotation if I left room in it for a few changes or choices in it. Kind of a reward to myself each week - a free choice day instead of whatever is on the rotation, for variety. Anyways, congratulations on completing XTrain, making so much progress, and on being a motivator for the rest of us. :)
 
I had trepidation with starting my first 90+ day rotation - it was the 14-week STS weight training rotation. I actually put it off for years! I think the 1RM thing was a bit intimidating and, at the time, I seldom ever followed a "rotation", so I after a few attempts at doing 1RM's, I shelved it. When I finally did it, I surprised myself and actually enjoyed it, but by then I was used to doing month-long rotations. At the end I felt very accomplished and somewhat proud to have finished such a lengthy rotation, but I was also glad to be able to do other workouts - and that was with choosing my own cardio rotation! I have the STS cardio workouts, but I still substitute other cardio when doing STS - the easy thing when "writing" the rotation is the weight workouts are already planned, so I only need to plan cardio and I do it for one-month at a time.

When I did the 90-day Xtrain rotation, I knew I would substitute in cardio as I enjoy kickbox and couldn't imagine sticking with only Hardstrikes for 3 months. I also substituted some other HiIT workouts sometimes for AOLIH and Tabatacise. I even substituted the LB workouts from ICE or RWH sometimes. The thing I kept completely consistent to the 90-day undulating rotation was the UB workouts, however, I did add in 100 Rep Challenges & the Rear Delt bonus quite frequently. The UB workouts never got boring for me, maybe because I saw progression quickly and that was so motivating!

Of the 2 lengthy rotations, I enjoyed the 90-day undulating Xtrain the most, but with cardio substitutes! I do find it hard to commit to a 90+ day rotation ... in some ways it's easier as your workouts are pre-planned so there's very little decision-making, just insert & play. But in other ways I find it hard, mostly psychologically, as the decision and commitment means I have to limit my other options. But again, giving myself the option to change up the cardio really does help. And so does incorporating a 'break" week ... STS has planned "recovery" weeks so you can use other workouts those weeks and I found it refreshing both physically and mentally.

Now I mostly follow 1-month rotations, sometimes from Cathe's extensive rotations, and sometimes it's my own, but most times it's a "hybrid" of Cathe's and mine. I also find that when a month has 5 weeks in it, I give myself a "recovery" week from the month-long rotations and do some workouts that are different - sometimes it'll be a LIVE week that we've downloaded and/or workouts from other instructors, just to keep things interesting and fresh.

So Braille, give yourself options. You'll find yourself being able to finish a rotation if you want to. To me, a "rotation" gives me a period of time to focus on some aspect of fitness that month ... Cathe usually prefaces her monthly rotation with something like "... this month we're going to work on ...." So if you have some fitness aspect you want to improve, you can choose or develop a rotation with that goal in mind, like Kellyro77's Summer Rotation focusing on a unique undulating approach to weight lifting. Last summer I had an irritated ITB, so my summer rotation focused on rehabilitating that IT band and avoiding activities that would aggravate it while maintaining my overall fitness. The summer before I developed a "Short & Sweaty" rotation with shorter workouts, yet still intense, due to the summer heat & humidity. And if a month is too long to start with, stick with your weekly rotations with a specific intention, then maybe progress to a 2-week rotation. But I will say when I didn't follow a "rotation", I did what I mostly wanted, and mostly it was cardio. I short-changed myself by not having a well-balanced fitness rotation. I think my overall fitness has improved by having a monthly "plan."

Kellyro77 - please keep us posted as to how the Summer Rotation is going ... it looks tempting ...

Sorry for the long post ..:eek:
 
@Debinmi That's great you felt like STS didn't keep you locked in and you were able to add variety.

I agree with you that I think the workouts I loved the most from XTrain were the upper body ones, because, as you mentioned, they produced results.

The rotation I made will be interesting because for most of the strength workouts, there's not much prompting from Cathe to lift a certain percent of your 1RM... so... I'm going to have to push myself to go heavy, and I think there's going to be a lot of trial and error there. Especially as in most of her earlier workouts, she also tends to lift to tempo, and if you're going heavy that might be difficult.

Also, since I don't repeat all the strength training workouts regularly (like weekly), it'll be a bit more difficult to track progress, I think.

I think the key to this being successful for me is remembering to push myself instead of just sticking with what I know is comfortable. That said, the human body is just amazing and if I maybe don't get specific results, I know once I get back to a more focused rotation like XTrain I'll bounce back quickly.

I agree with the benefits of planned rotations, however. I, too, when left to my own devices and deciding what I "feel like" doing for the day will often short-change myself because more often than not, I'd rather do the easier workout, or just the one with the fun music. Or, as you said, either cardio or strength will suffer as a result because I'll end up favoring one over the other.

That's just me, though. As we all know, there's no one perfect approach to a health and fitness plan. The only one that's best is the one that each individual can stick with. For some that means rotations, others that means flexibility and freedom to decide day-by-day.
 
I finished my second week of my summer rotation.

A few great things to note:

I was not scared one bit to up my weights for PUB and PLB. In fact, I matched Cathe with most of the exercises with a couple exceptions. I exceeded her selections in PLB for leg press and dead lifts. In PUB, I had to go lighter on the overhead ("French") press triceps (I always have a difficult time with that exercise since it follows the shoulder work). And then during biceps I almost matched her weights, except that by the time I was on the heaviest (15lbs), I couldn't squeak out 8. Had to stop at 6, and then I bowed out down to 10 and 7.5lbs on my way back down the pyramid. I think I could have hanged with her if she took longer rests between the sets. But I'll try again next time!

I also made a conscious decision to increase my weights for Strong Body Stacked Upper and Lower workouts. That definitely ups the intensity of those workouts from intermediate to advanced. I had to do a shortened "timesaver" version of SBS Lower because my knee decided to start twinging. Took the message and gave it a break.

Finally, Step Moves, again, felt like an intermediate workout this time around. Definitely not breathing as hard through it as I used to!

This week my workout schedule is going to be kind of wonky. I usually work out after work in the afternoons, but our AC has decided to go on the fritz and it's just way too warm to workout in the afternoon. So, I'm doing workouts in the mornings... early ugh... until the AC is fixed. I hate early morning workouts (unless it's yoga). But the bonus is, of course, that it's done and I'm not having to will may way to do one after work.
 
Woo woo! It feels great to notice progress doesn't it?!

I agree with you on LITE's SBSS workouts... when I increase the weights used, they are NOT intermediate workouts anymore! Sounds like the XT cardio really helped to improve your endurance ... I love when improvements are so noticeable!
 
Braille said:
Kellyro77, I haven't even tried to do a 3 month rotation, because I'm just not sure it would fit my personality. I really like having choices, so the idea of being dedicated to one rotation for a month is very intimidating to me. I admire your accomplishment. I have had that giddy feeling that you spoke of, but mine usually comes from finally being able to master some of Cathe's step choreography or making it through a challenging workout and feeling great at the end (when before it almost killed me). lol I've managed to make it through little one week rotations that I create for myself, but I keep eyeing the STS that I bought for my husband. I keep wondering if I have it in me to stick with something that long. Your last paragraph of your first post made me think that maybe I could stick with a longer rotation if I left room in it for a few changes or choices in it. Kind of a reward to myself each week - a free choice day instead of whatever is on the rotation, for variety. Anyways, congratulations on completing XTrain, making so much progress, and on being a motivator for the rest of us. :)
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What helped me with STS. Rotation a few months ago was I did it with another gal, we’re friends on IG so we decided to do it together and keep each other accountable. It really helps. Maybe you can find some others wanting to do STS before the new one is released. It’s also easy fun doing it with A friend.
 
Finished up a second go-round of the 12-week XTrain rotation today. Doing a little mini celebration.

This time I changed up a lot of the cardio to add some more variation and combat boredom. I also threw in some occasional different LB and metabolic workouts to replace some of the leg workouts and a couple of the Super Cuts workouts. A couple of those were subbed with the new bonus heavy weight workouts from the LMR2 pre-sale.

I jumped into this rotation after many weeks of doing a predominant Lift, Move, Restore rotation as well as LMR/STS 2.0 rotation that was posted by Cathe earlier in the year.

My cardio capacity really suffered from sticking with predominantly LMR - I posted about this in a different thread to share my experience about LMR not being a great maintenance or progressive workout series, unless, maybe, you're starting from ground zero with no workout experience at all, or coming back from a long recovery due to an illness or injury.

LMR has its place - just not as a multi-week program for someone already in decent physical condition.

LMR did show up through this rotation, just as active recovery workouts on my active recovery/rest week.

Happy to say XTrain whipped me back into shape both with strength and cardio. At the beginning I really suffered through the HiiT cardio. Last week, though, when doing All Out Low Impact HiiT, I didn't start really huffing and puffing until the very end while doing the jacks on the sliding discs. That means I sailed through a good 25 minutes or so of low impact HiiT before I started to really get winded. For me, that is hella impressive and marks some real improvement.

Strength saw improvements, too. At the start I began with weights a couple increments below my prior marked weights from when I first did this rotation. I was able to work back up to my marked weights again by the end, with the exception of bicep work where traditional curls are used - my tennis elbow gets finicky with those, so I have to keep it kind of light - but I can heavy up with sweeper curls and hammer curls, at least.

This time I did log my weight before starting. It's not something I want to obsess over, but over the winter I certainly put on some pounds (and it wasn't muscle weight), so I wanted to track some progress there. I had no major expectations of major weight loss. In the long run, I'm looking for body re-composition being much more important that shrinking numbers on the scale. I did lose 4 pounds. Didn't take my measurements, though - can only go by the fact that my clothing is fitting better again.

Biggest benefit is the increased energy and the increased self-confidence that really only comes from knowing I can lift really heavy and slam my way through a HiiT workout.

I noticed that I was starting to get bored with the rotation by about week 8 this time - even with my subbing in different cardio, lower body, and metabolic workouts. If I do this one again, I may have to cut it down to an 8-week rotation.

My next rotation is going to be the 4-week rotation that mixes Strong & Sweaty with ICE since I recently got my hands on both of those series.

After that rotation, I'm going to look at doing a 6-week STS 2.0/cardio rotation from the STS 2.0 user's guide.

Thanks for letting me share and celebrate.
 
Congrats again! :)

Xtrain is such a great series. I also found it helpful to do some substitutions in the rotation for the cardio & metabolic workouts while keeping the intent of the rotation. My main focus with Xtrain is the UB strength workouts - I seldom, if ever, swap those out. The Burn Sets really help me focus on increasing my weights used. I also found the Rear Delt Bonus & the 100 Rep Challenges to be beneficial in seeing results.
 
Kellyro77 said:
Finished up a second go-round of the 12-week XTrain rotation today. Doing a little mini celebration.

This time I changed up a lot of the cardio to add some more variation and combat boredom. I also threw in some occasional different LB and metabolic workouts to replace some of the leg workouts and a couple of the Super Cuts workouts. A couple of those were subbed with the new bonus heavy weight workouts from the LMR2 pre-sale.

I jumped into this rotation after many weeks of doing a predominant Lift, Move, Restore rotation as well as LMR/STS 2.0 rotation that was posted by Cathe earlier in the year.

My cardio capacity really suffered from sticking with predominantly LMR - I posted about this in a different thread to share my experience about LMR not being a great maintenance or progressive workout series, unless, maybe, you're starting from ground zero with no workout experience at all, or coming back from a long recovery due to an illness or injury.

LMR has its place - just not as a multi-week program for someone already in decent physical condition.

LMR did show up through this rotation, just as active recovery workouts on my active recovery/rest week.

Happy to say XTrain whipped me back into shape both with strength and cardio. At the beginning I really suffered through the HiiT cardio. Last week, though, when doing All Out Low Impact HiiT, I didn't start really huffing and puffing until the very end while doing the jacks on the sliding discs. That means I sailed through a good 25 minutes or so of low impact HiiT before I started to really get winded. For me, that is hella impressive and marks some real improvement.

Strength saw improvements, too. At the start I began with weights a couple increments below my prior marked weights from when I first did this rotation. I was able to work back up to my marked weights again by the end, with the exception of bicep work where traditional curls are used - my tennis elbow gets finicky with those, so I have to keep it kind of light - but I can heavy up with sweeper curls and hammer curls, at least.

This time I did log my weight before starting. It's not something I want to obsess over, but over the winter I certainly put on some pounds (and it wasn't muscle weight), so I wanted to track some progress there. I had no major expectations of major weight loss. In the long run, I'm looking for body re-composition being much more important that shrinking numbers on the scale. I did lose 4 pounds. Didn't take my measurements, though - can only go by the fact that my clothing is fitting better again.

Biggest benefit is the increased energy and the increased self-confidence that really only comes from knowing I can lift really heavy and slam my way through a HiiT workout.

I noticed that I was starting to get bored with the rotation by about week 8 this time - even with my subbing in different cardio, lower body, and metabolic workouts. If I do this one again, I may have to cut it down to an 8-week rotation.

My next rotation is going to be the 4-week rotation that mixes Strong & Sweaty with ICE since I recently got my hands on both of those series.

After that rotation, I'm going to look at doing a 6-week STS 2.0/cardio rotation from the STS 2.0 user's guide.

Thanks for letting me share and celebrate.
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Kellyro77, always enjoy your posts and reviews! Thanks, and please keep sharing!!
 
Terina said:
What helped me with STS. Rotation a few months ago was I did it with another gal, we’re friends on IG so we decided to do it together and keep each other accountable. It really helps. Maybe you can find some others wanting to do STS before the new one is released. It’s also easy fun doing it with A friend.
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Good idea!
 
Lady Vol Fan said:
I never thought of mixing those but ICE has so many premixes that could be really interesting!!
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It's from the S&S User's Guide. Looks like it uses just the main workouts with occasional core bonuses added on, so none of the muscle meltdowns or blizzard blasts from ICE.

I was kind of wondering what a rotation might look like, one day, that subs in the Muscle Meltdowns for the Body Parts workouts from STS 2.0.

Maybe some rotation down the line. I've now got rotations planned all the way up through mid-November. Maybe around that time LMR2 will be coming out - not holding my breath, though.
 
Kellyro77 said:
It's from the S&S User's Guide
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I don't think I have ever looked at the guide! I bought the workouts individually. I need to download that guide...thanks for reminding me!
Kellyro77 said:
I was kind of wondering what a rotation might look like, one day, that subs in the Muscle Meltdowns for the Body Parts workouts from STS 2.0.
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Ohh that sounds like a goodie, too!
So many options with Cathe's workouts!! :cool:
 
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