Hi ElleJay! Until now I have been very quiet about saying much about MMA Fusion because I wanted everyone to experience it and form their own opinion without my influence.
It is a VERY different workout that focuses on using the core through balance and strength to spike the heart rate. Initially, during the learning curve (unless you are already familiar with MMA exercises), you will not get the heart rate up very high in the attempt to figure out what I am doing. Plus you will also need to develop/master the exercises and technique to get the right muscles to fire to keep you in your training zone. But don't give up. As you try, you will engage the core more and more, and as you hold that core contraction while moving/rolling/pressing through to your next move, you cardio conditioning will improve. I'm sure this DVD will be a love hate relationship for many who are used to my more traditional cardio offerings but it is a great workout within its own right and well worth the physical benefits it provides once acclimated to it.
MMA from the fighters standpoint focuses strongly on ground fighting. You need to be able to push an opponent off of you while on your back, jump to your feet to avoid or escape being pinned, tackled, or taken out, and be able to spin in multi directions on your back while defending yourself. You do spend time standing too of course, but the big difference with MMA sport fighting vs Kickboxing and Boxing is that you also fight much of the time on your back on the floor.
For our purposes, in a home exercise environment, it is very hard to reach the typical level of cardio output with MMA Fusion as with traditional standing high and low impact activity. This is largely due to the fact that we are not actually fighting and therefore don't have the fight/flight adrenaline pumping or the body weight of our opponent on top of us to create the resistance needed to spike the heart rate. But because MMA is becoming more popular and we are being more exposed to this type of training I wanted to create a workout that included the elements that you would see in MMA sport fighting and try to give it a cardiovascular advantage for our Shock Cardio series. Hence the workout before you.
I do believe as everyone begins to acclimate to this workout and gets better with the core training from floor to standing and vice versa you will not only feel better conditioned by this workout, but also be more open to this type of training and could quite possibly find yourself asking for more
So keep laughing ElleJay and don't give up because laughing is also an excellent core exercise and therefore a perfect modification for this workout
