My workout with Art Carey!

Cathe Friedrich

Administrator
Hi Everyone! For all of you who are interested.....here are the details of the workout that I had with Art Carey. If you have been away and not sure how all this came about, here is a link to the article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that will fill you in.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/5409381.htm

I received an email last week from Art Carey asking if I was game for a workout with him. Like many of you, after reading his article I was a little leary of his intentions. We arranged to have a phone conversation to discuss this and after speaking with him I felt much more comfortable about us getting together. He was very kind and respectful on the phone and seemed quite impressed with the passionate feedback he had received regarding our workouts as well as home exercise videos in general.

So Wednesday March 19th at 12 noon was our scheduled workout. I had intended on doing the Boot Camp workout with him but after learning of a tight hamstring he was nursing, I had to quickly shift gears. I didn't want him to have any excuses as to why he couldn't work hard and felt that the kickboxing in Boot Camp would be too demanding on his hamstrings if he was going to execute some good quality kicks. So I quickly reworked the plan to the following fitness circuit:

60 Minute Class Content:

Warm Up: 10 minutes

3 minute cardio blast immediately followed by a 2 minute leg blast (4 cycles totaling 20 minutes)

3 minute cardio blast, right into a 2 min. upper/lower compound movement, right into 2 min. upper body only (3 cycles totaling 21 minutes)

Push ups…3 minutes

Core…6 minutes

Stretch


Side Note: It is important to mention that 40 minutes into the 60 minute class we had to stop due to the photographer’s arrival (Hmmmm, did he plan this, wink?) After finishing up with the photographer, we lost our momentum and decided to just continue with the core work and call it a day since I was VERY satisfied that my point was made }( .

THE WORKOUT....PLAY BY PLAY!!!

Allow me to be a little playful here;-),

I walked into the aerobic room not really knowing what to expect of this man who refered to me as "delicious bondage", especially since this reference appeared after I had spoken to him and felt he was a nice guy. So yes, there was a bit of pep in my step and might in my fight. Poor Art;( what was he in for?

Well after our introductions and all, he seemed once again to be the nice guy I met on the phone, perhaps even nicer in person. This immediately made me lower my guard some (but just some). He quickly made some calls out to a photographer (there was a mix up with the originally scheduled one) and we got started in the meantime.

He already warned me that he was not very coordinated so I asked how he would like to warm up (ie: treadmill, bike, walk outside etc.). He said do what you normally do. With that I started doing the traditional alternating reaches overhead while tapping the toes. Oh my, he was not kidding....the coordination was difficult to find;-). He was a good sport though and really really tried to keep it together but it was not working too well. I figued that with the workout I was getting ready to deliver a warm up was very important and I had to find a way to get him warmed up comfortably. He mentioned that he was a runner so I started doing light laps around the room. After a couple of minutes, he seemed to relax more and I did classic drills that football players would do in their warm ups. We did these patterns up and down the room. Again, not very coordinated but at least looking more comfortable at the attempt.

After about 10 minutes we worked into our first cardio blast (3 minutes). We did jumping jacks for a couple of minutes and then tried some jabs on the right side and then the left side while maintaining a shuffle with the feet. Well let's just say the JACKS went well;-). We immediately grabbed medicine balls and started doing leg presses. We did 16 per side for two sets. He was politely smiling but his legs were wondering when we were going to finish as they trembled a bit on each descend. We finished that and immediately loaded our barbells to about 50 pounds and did low ends. I'll give Mr.Carey some credit here. He was a little sloppy getting the count down but after mastering it he actually looked like he was confident and having fun. Go figure! We continued to do some non-stop blasts like this and some of the exercises we did were as follows:

Ice Breakers....a little trouble getting the arms and legs syncronized but I'll take it.

Speed Skaters...I think he was enjoying these until I told him he had to be in a deeper semi squat while doing them }(

Power Hops....Well we have ourselves an energizer bunny here. He loved these and was proudly displaying his abilities.

Power Scissors....Oh my dear Art, you must get lower than that.

Squat Thrust Climbers...okay I admit that I was impressed here. I thought I had him for sure on these and he watched me once and did it perfectly first try. High 5's are in order!

High jogs.....not bad!

Walking lunges along the room (18 walking one way, about face and 18 the other way).....again, the legs are not bending enough...thats when I had to crack the whip}(

Football drills....they look like fancy grapevines at very quick speeds, however, Art gave them an interesting new look....hmmm, perhaps a new video move in the making :p

About 40 minutes into the workout the photographer showed up and requested they we move to better lighting for some action shots. That was really no problem but unfortunately interupted the flow of the workout. I was satisfied though since Art had diplayed enough body language to let me know he was probably wishing that he had never referred to us as "morons".

After the photographer left, I wanted to test out his core strength. He actually did pretty well on the bent and straight arm planks. But he did have a lot of balance issues on the walking planks. So now I got the stability ball and was dying to have him try the V-Pikes. Guess what, to my amazement, Art pulled his butt right up to a peak:eek:. Ok, high 5's are in order once again. But I did find his weakness in the core and that was during the side plank hip raises and side plank rotational move.

After our session I congratulated him on a very good workout because he was an exceptional sport about owning up to his comments. We headed over to the diner to grab some recovery fuel and talk about ourselves. That was when I realized that the Art Carey in front of me is not nearly as hard edged as his writing makes him appear to be. I found him very warm, engaging, and personable and I actually enjoyed my time with him very much. Finally after a good while of chatting, he told me that the term "babe" is his trademark. So with that let me bring this to a close by borrowing a line from Sonny and Cher and saying.....

"Art, I Got You 'BABE' :7
 
Cathe............


YOU GO GIRL!!!!!!!!



Excuse my French, but thank you from all your Catheites for kicking his ASS! I love you girlfriend! Now he's more familiar with the phrase "don't start someting you can't finish"!
 
Oh Cathe -- This was so much fun to read! I love all of your evil smileys (and I always thought it was my imagination that you were trying to kill us in your videos :)) -- but I realize you were out for the juggler a bit more with our dear friend Art. :9

Thanks so much for the thoroughly entertaining play-by-play! -- Renee
 
It sounds like you two had a very tough workout that was lots of fun. }(

I think you proved to Mr. Carey that anyone can have a great time getting fit with home videos, and that these exercises can be challenging, and motivating if they are led by a great instructor.

Awesome job, Cathe!!!! :)
 
Great story

Cathe,

You are a wonderful writer! You were also very gracious to Art. Thank you for sharing the story. It will be interesting to read his take.

Art is one lucky guy to have a personal workout session with you!

Caroline
 
Awww, what a baby, I was hoping you were going to kick his butt with Boot Camp, that was my wish for him!! You rock Cathe, thats why you have such a great following! Maybe now he will have to write something positive about us. Still don't like the fact that he calls women "babe" how 80ish is that? so do you think you are on his hate list? hee hee, way to go girl!!

Patricia:7
 
RE: Great story

Thank you so much for the play-by-play with Mr. Carey!! It was truly enjoyable to read!! I do hope that you will post the article that he writes next Monday so that we can all get HIS take on the training session!! I might be nuts, but I sure wish that I could have been in his shoes! I would have loved a one on one session with you - no matter how sore I was the next day!!!!!!!! :D
 
Cathe,
You are a woman of class!
AND, with a serious sense of humor and fun, to boot (but WE already knew that)...
Thanks so much for sharing this experience with us!!!

:) :) :)
Kathy
 
Yaaay, Cathe! You are one classy lady!

I had a feeling he was just the type of guy who likes to stir things up a little. ;-)
 
Way to go, Cathe!! That was great!
(Wonder if he will be sore tomorrow?) }( Okay.... just kidding...

Linda
 
Wow - I didn't realize it was going to be a one-on-one workout; I thought he was just going to take one of your regularly scheduled classes. Please post a link to the on-line version of the article as soon as it's published. I can't wait!
 
Cathe, I love it I love it!!! :O)
Great great job!!!
I think it is fabulous that you were up for the challenge!

Seriously, floors are floors. It doesn't matter if it is at a gym or at home, it is all the same. It is the effort and (fabulous!) instruction of someone like you Cathe, that makes the difference. I think it was ignorant of him to be so close minded to home workouts! Hopefully he is wide open to new horizons now!

I applaud ya Cathe! :)
:)
 
WOW Cathe!! I would've loved to have been there. I was one of those who wrote to Mr. Carey and suggested he try your videos....I am looking forward to read what he writes. You're such a good sport...and a good writer, too. Did you give him any videos/DVDs to try at home (The Terminator comes to mind }( )
Barbara P
 
Thanks Cathe for keeping us inform on Art. Too funny. Im glad you gave it to him. I guess you can say he is all talk in the article wanted to look big! Did you get this on video?
 
You Go Girl!

Great job Cathe! I can't wait to see Art's next article.

Too bad about that hamstring. Did he have a Doctor's note?;-) It's a shame he missed out on the consecutive power kicks!}(
 

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