so what exactly am i lacking?

[mommacody]

i am able to keep up with cathe for the most part and i enjoy most of her blasts (on all dvds). some of the ones that she says are the harder ones, i find enjoyable and not as hard as others. i can do tuck jumps till the cows come home, but can't manage to squeeze out more than a couple of plie jacks or air jacks. what will help with these, besided doing them more often? i can't pinpoint if it's power in my legs that is missing? cardio endurance? basic flexibility to make the leg movements comfortable to do?

any suggestions are appreciated

 

[kariev]

you hit it on the head: the only way to get better at them is to keep doing them. Plie jacks and Air jacks are plyometric exercises that require power from the legs. Your body will eventually build up to do all of them in a workout but they are not easy. They require strength so you can increase the weight you are doing squatting and lunging and you may see improvement there. good luck

 

[SRP]

I found that for good air jacks, I really have to put my whole body into it. I don't only concentrate on the jump - I throw my arms into the air and really lift as much with the upper body as the lower.

Foot position is important for me in the plie jacks. I make sure I get my feet as close as possible to the same position I use for a plie squat, so that I can go down deeper. That means really concentrating on the landing.

 

[fit_fairy]

ITA with Kariev. Just doing them helps. But I also find going heavier on squats and lunges etc helped me. To go heavier on squats and lunges in most of Cathe's videos, I have to slow down the tempo and do fewer reps than Cathe. Took me a while to get used to that, but it has worked. My balance is much better too.

Catherine

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[Aquajock]

I also totally agree with Kariev. I've found that any nosebleed drill that Cathe cooks up that brings me to muscle or cardio failure (or close to it) the first time (airborne jacks, extended plie jack intervals, the dreaded squat-thrust climbers in Boot Camp, the fiendish Blast #5 in Drill Max) are the ones I make part of my must-do each week until I absolutely master them. Just try to do one more rep each time you do blasts containing your demons, and do them at least once a week, and I promise you you too will conquer them.

GO FOR IT!

A-Jock

 

[maggiethecat]

I agree with all above, just posting to say that I think it is interesting how different people are! I can do plie jacks, etc - they're tough but don't kill me. I ENVY anyone who can do tuck jumps til the cows come home OMG they KILL me x(
So true though, that they have gotten much better for me (I can do them, at least) since I started making myself do them A LOT.

 

[kathryn]

I find that people are just built differently, so some can do one type of move more easily than another. I have no problems with plié jacks, but I can't do a full tuck-jump for the life of me. I think it has to do with height, proportion, type of muscle dominance (fast-twitch vs. slow-twitch), and who knows what else.

You may not be exactly 'missing' anything, just not built to do certain moves as well as others.

For moves that my body doesn't seem made for, or plyo moves that just don't work for me 'as-is,' I always break down the moves into their components (ie: air jacks combine a vertical jump with a jack move) and find a substitute that contains at least some of the components (ie: for air jacks, I either do plié jacks or plyo squats).

 

[Sunshine 1528]

Great points Kathryn.

Could be so many things . . . the important thing is to keep moving and try to do something similar in order to get a similar workoutout as Cathe is doing.