Vee
Cathlete
I preordered Tracey's Walking Strong DVD. I got it yesterday (Feb 16). This is the fastest any DVD has reached me in India (Tracey mailed on Feb 6th and 7th).
I usually run on the treadmill for cardio. I do iTreads at Grace's Runner Speeds and for Cardio Coach I set my speed to 8.6 mph for the Level 4 sprints. (I wanted a challenging low impact workout because I notice pain in my feet when I wake up. The pain disappears in about 15 minutes.) I was not sure I would get a challenging treadmill workout without running. Boy, was I wrong. And boy, am I glad I got this!
I previewed the DVD as soon as I got it and fell in love with the workout. Tracey, her sister Bobbi and Jill (a personal trainer herself - a cancer survivor and a client of Tracey's - she gives a very touching and heartfelt testimonial at the end of the workout) demonstrate the workout. Tracey and Bobbi are on treadmills. Jill is on the floor showing a modifier for those who dont have a treadmill. Tracey does the advanced fitness version and Bobbi does a less intense modifier. The speed and incline settings that Bobbi and Tracey use are displayed throughout, at the bottom of the screen. The workout has a warm up and a cool down (as is to be expected). In between are 10 intervals of 5 minutes each. A few are upper body intervals where you hold hand weights and perform moves like bicep curls, lateral raises or upright rows while you walk (on an incline!!!). Some are hill climb intervals. My favorite were the lower body intervals, where you turn the speed really slow and work on an incline to do things like walking lunges and side lunges.
I dont have a treadmill at home so I converted the DVD to iPod format and synced it to my iPod Nano. I carried it to the gym today.
Here is Tracey, walking strong on my Nano:
You can notice the incline and speed settings at the bottom of the screen if you look carefully. I clicked this pic while the video was playing on the ipod nano.
I wear my Nano strapped to my wrist while working out, in a Macally iPod Nano band that can either be worn on the wrist or the arm:
This makes peeking at the screen for cues while working out, easy.
Here I am doing a walking lunge on the treadmill during one of the lower body intervals:
The workout is fun, fun, fun!!!!! You do nothing long enough to get bored with it. No activity goes on longer than a minute or so before there is a change. Tracey, Bobbi and Jill are enjoying themselves, laughing and chatting throughout. You cannot believe at the end that you worked out for an hour because time whizes by.
The upper body intervals kick butt because (I used 2 kg dumbbells) doing the upper body moves while walking really elevates the heart rate.
The hill intervals kick butt because Tracey walks at 15% (Holy Molly!) at speed 4. Her idea of a recovery is 30 seconds at the same speed at 8% incline. She says not to hold the handrail in a voice that makes you feel like you are cheating if you so much as lay a finger on the handrail. She does this at the exact moment when your fingers seem to seek the rail on their own. By the final hill interval it was "Yeah Right!" when she said not to hold the rail. I had to rest my hands (just the itsiest, and just for a few seconds each time) to get through it.
The lower body intervals kick butt too. Quite literally. She does a lunge variation where you raise your rear leg (that Bobbi calls a "dog at a hydrant" lunge and Tracey insists is a "like a ballerina" move).
I was sweating buckets. It did not help that I could not get to the towel during the upper body intervals because the dumbbells were in my hands, nor in the lower body intervals, when I was holding onto the rail for balance.
Here is me sweating strong:
The treadmill I picked did not go higher than 12%. I was most disappointed that I could not match Tracey's 15% setting. Yet I did not want to stop the workout and go find another treadmill that did 15%, so I decided to walk faster than Tracey to compensate. By the second interval I was glad my tradmill went no higher than 12%. By the third I decided I did not want to go faster than Tracey on speed. By the last few intervals, I was doing recoveries at Bobbi's settings on the hills and walking slower than Tracey on the challenges.
The workout is available in DVD format. Also as an iPod video download and mp3 audio-only download format at Tracey's website. (I converted the DVD myself instead of downloading). For those who buy the DVD, the ipod video and audio-only versions come free if you mail Tracey and ask her for a download code.
The video version works great on the ipod if you want to take it to the gym. If your treadmill console has a ledge and your earphone cables are long enough, you can keep the ipod on the tradmill console and watch it all the time as you workout. I was not sure if the moves would require the kind of mobility that may jerk the ipod off the console, so I stapped it on my arm. Next time I plan to keep the ipod on the ledge of the treadmill console. I use shure earphones that have humongously long cables. If you preview the DVD (not entirely but just in bits and pieces of each interval), you can rely on occasional peeks on your ipod (if you choose to wear it on your arm or wrist) and Tracey's verbal cues to get through the workout. I am not sure how well it will work as audio only if you dont watch the DVD at least once.
I am not self conscious and everyone at the gym is used to my rather unconventional workouts. I did notice more looks than usual today, especially when I tried doing Bobbi's fire hydrant version of the lunge-rear-leg-raises.
~* Vrinda *~
I usually run on the treadmill for cardio. I do iTreads at Grace's Runner Speeds and for Cardio Coach I set my speed to 8.6 mph for the Level 4 sprints. (I wanted a challenging low impact workout because I notice pain in my feet when I wake up. The pain disappears in about 15 minutes.) I was not sure I would get a challenging treadmill workout without running. Boy, was I wrong. And boy, am I glad I got this!
I previewed the DVD as soon as I got it and fell in love with the workout. Tracey, her sister Bobbi and Jill (a personal trainer herself - a cancer survivor and a client of Tracey's - she gives a very touching and heartfelt testimonial at the end of the workout) demonstrate the workout. Tracey and Bobbi are on treadmills. Jill is on the floor showing a modifier for those who dont have a treadmill. Tracey does the advanced fitness version and Bobbi does a less intense modifier. The speed and incline settings that Bobbi and Tracey use are displayed throughout, at the bottom of the screen. The workout has a warm up and a cool down (as is to be expected). In between are 10 intervals of 5 minutes each. A few are upper body intervals where you hold hand weights and perform moves like bicep curls, lateral raises or upright rows while you walk (on an incline!!!). Some are hill climb intervals. My favorite were the lower body intervals, where you turn the speed really slow and work on an incline to do things like walking lunges and side lunges.
I dont have a treadmill at home so I converted the DVD to iPod format and synced it to my iPod Nano. I carried it to the gym today.
Here is Tracey, walking strong on my Nano:
You can notice the incline and speed settings at the bottom of the screen if you look carefully. I clicked this pic while the video was playing on the ipod nano.
I wear my Nano strapped to my wrist while working out, in a Macally iPod Nano band that can either be worn on the wrist or the arm:
This makes peeking at the screen for cues while working out, easy.
Here I am doing a walking lunge on the treadmill during one of the lower body intervals:
The workout is fun, fun, fun!!!!! You do nothing long enough to get bored with it. No activity goes on longer than a minute or so before there is a change. Tracey, Bobbi and Jill are enjoying themselves, laughing and chatting throughout. You cannot believe at the end that you worked out for an hour because time whizes by.
The upper body intervals kick butt because (I used 2 kg dumbbells) doing the upper body moves while walking really elevates the heart rate.
The hill intervals kick butt because Tracey walks at 15% (Holy Molly!) at speed 4. Her idea of a recovery is 30 seconds at the same speed at 8% incline. She says not to hold the handrail in a voice that makes you feel like you are cheating if you so much as lay a finger on the handrail. She does this at the exact moment when your fingers seem to seek the rail on their own. By the final hill interval it was "Yeah Right!" when she said not to hold the rail. I had to rest my hands (just the itsiest, and just for a few seconds each time) to get through it.
The lower body intervals kick butt too. Quite literally. She does a lunge variation where you raise your rear leg (that Bobbi calls a "dog at a hydrant" lunge and Tracey insists is a "like a ballerina" move).
I was sweating buckets. It did not help that I could not get to the towel during the upper body intervals because the dumbbells were in my hands, nor in the lower body intervals, when I was holding onto the rail for balance.
Here is me sweating strong:
The treadmill I picked did not go higher than 12%. I was most disappointed that I could not match Tracey's 15% setting. Yet I did not want to stop the workout and go find another treadmill that did 15%, so I decided to walk faster than Tracey to compensate. By the second interval I was glad my tradmill went no higher than 12%. By the third I decided I did not want to go faster than Tracey on speed. By the last few intervals, I was doing recoveries at Bobbi's settings on the hills and walking slower than Tracey on the challenges.
The workout is available in DVD format. Also as an iPod video download and mp3 audio-only download format at Tracey's website. (I converted the DVD myself instead of downloading). For those who buy the DVD, the ipod video and audio-only versions come free if you mail Tracey and ask her for a download code.
The video version works great on the ipod if you want to take it to the gym. If your treadmill console has a ledge and your earphone cables are long enough, you can keep the ipod on the tradmill console and watch it all the time as you workout. I was not sure if the moves would require the kind of mobility that may jerk the ipod off the console, so I stapped it on my arm. Next time I plan to keep the ipod on the ledge of the treadmill console. I use shure earphones that have humongously long cables. If you preview the DVD (not entirely but just in bits and pieces of each interval), you can rely on occasional peeks on your ipod (if you choose to wear it on your arm or wrist) and Tracey's verbal cues to get through the workout. I am not sure how well it will work as audio only if you dont watch the DVD at least once.
I am not self conscious and everyone at the gym is used to my rather unconventional workouts. I did notice more looks than usual today, especially when I tried doing Bobbi's fire hydrant version of the lunge-rear-leg-raises.
~* Vrinda *~
