Kellyro77
Cathlete
So I've finally tried this series and have done all the workouts a couple times - both in iterations where you do either only the cardio or only the strength or do them both back-to-back. I purchased it during her clearance sale.
I feel a little validated in my decision to not purchase this particular series when it first came out several years ago. I believe I primarily avoided it because I saw it used sliding devices for several exercises and I'm just not a fan of sliders. Also, the intensity of the cardio work looked a bit intimidating, and I can definitely confirm that her description of this series as "advanced" is pretty accurate.
Thoughts on the entire series as a whole:
Fun music - I saw earlier posts of people complaining about it, but I didn't have a problem with it. I enjoy EDM with minimal vocals, and most of the music selections felt appropriately motivating.
This is a great series for improving your cardio endurance - the cardio workouts are very HiiT-like with lots of intensity and very brief breaks. Fortunately they cap out at about 25-30 or so minutes so they're not a full hour of super intense moves. Most of the weight workouts I would categorize as endurance-based and are in a superset fashion, paced quickly and with very short breaks, so your heart stays elevated even during the weight work - and yes, I'm saying even during upper body weight work, my heart was working. With both Push Day and Pull Day, after the first workout I was thinking I was not a fan, but after doing them a second time through, I felt more appreciative of them understanding her superset approach and knowing that my heart was going to be working (instead of approaching these as a more slow & heavy UB workout.)
Not a fan of anything requiring sliders and I wish she'd made premixes that excluded slider moves. I'd probably enjoy the series as a whole much more if that were available.
The stretches at the end are kind of lack-luster and short. Not as short as the brief stretches at the end of STS 2, but I still felt the need to tack on a few extra minutes of more stretching after the end of each workout.
Overall thoughts on each:
Boxing Bootcamp - pretty straightforward. Nice mix of low and high impact moves without too much emphasis on either in particular. I didn't feel like there were any moves in there that were hard to follow or like my arms or feet were going to get tangled during punching and kicking combos. It'll be a nice addition to the rest of my kickboxing library, though I'm not sure how frequently I'll pull this one out.
Legs & Glutes - I enjoyed the weighted work but disliked the moves requiring a slider. I'd categoize this as an endurance workout - she keeps the breaks very brief, so my heart rate was definitely on the higher end most of the time.
Mixed Impact Cardio - my favorite cardio workout out of the entire series. Everything just felt fun, though I did NOT appreciate the burpees right at the beginning of the workout (but thank goodness I can say she got 'em out of the way and they didn't return).
Pull Day - Superset fashion for most of the moves with a fast pace and brief breaks=elevated heart rate the entire way through. Warning - towards the end of the weighted section of the workout you start getting all happy (especially if you did this following Mixed Impact Cardio), and then all of a sudden she pulls out the stability ball to hit your hamstrings. Not nice.
Shred Cardio - NOT my favorite or cup-of-tea. I did see earlier posts from people saying they felt the workout was too complicated. I disagree that the moves are complicated. But they ARE all "blast" fashion with a fast pace and lots of high impact moves. She gives you a little break about mid-way through with some lower-impact knee-repeaters, but that's about it - the rest of the time, if you want lower impact, you need to modify. It's a very demanding and intense workout that again has extremely brief rests between each step segment. I'd rather do XTrain Tabatacise than this workout. Probably won't be reaching for this one much at all, unless sometime down the line, my tastes change and suddenly I enjoy really intense step cardio. Too bad, because most of the time I enjoy step cardio - but usually it's the intricately choreographed stuff, not just endless high impact "blasts", etc.
Push Day - Same as Pull Day above - superset, fast-paced, endurance workout. I grew to appreciate this one after doing it a second time, as well. Again, the leg work at the very end feels like a nasty surprise - especially those high-and-tights.
Low Impact Cardio - Kind of "meh" about this workout, mostly because of all the slider moves thrown in. There's other low impact HiiT-type workouts I'd rather do. And am I weird in thinking Cathe's shorts in this look like men's boxer briefs? lol. I mean she rocks 'em with that amazing body of hers, but they just make me laugh.
Metabolic Conditioning - It's decent, but again, because of the moves depending on the usage of the sliders, I know I'd rather grab just about any of her other metabolic titles and do those instead of this one.
Bonus Core - Not a fan of this one, either. She stays consistent with fast pacing and brief rests between exercises in this core workout, too. I found a lot of the moves just kind of uncomfortable or difficult. I probably won't be pulling out the bonus core workout from this series much at all.
So, while I had mixed impressions of this series, I would definitely say if this was the only series you ever had of Cathe's, it would definitely whip you into some amazing shape.
I'm grateful that my soiree into this series was scheduled for only two weeks. I don't think I'd enjoy it for a full month, It'll be a great series to use maybe a week at a time in the middle of other workouts for the pure cardio endurance boost it provides.
I feel a little validated in my decision to not purchase this particular series when it first came out several years ago. I believe I primarily avoided it because I saw it used sliding devices for several exercises and I'm just not a fan of sliders. Also, the intensity of the cardio work looked a bit intimidating, and I can definitely confirm that her description of this series as "advanced" is pretty accurate.
Thoughts on the entire series as a whole:
Fun music - I saw earlier posts of people complaining about it, but I didn't have a problem with it. I enjoy EDM with minimal vocals, and most of the music selections felt appropriately motivating.
This is a great series for improving your cardio endurance - the cardio workouts are very HiiT-like with lots of intensity and very brief breaks. Fortunately they cap out at about 25-30 or so minutes so they're not a full hour of super intense moves. Most of the weight workouts I would categorize as endurance-based and are in a superset fashion, paced quickly and with very short breaks, so your heart stays elevated even during the weight work - and yes, I'm saying even during upper body weight work, my heart was working. With both Push Day and Pull Day, after the first workout I was thinking I was not a fan, but after doing them a second time through, I felt more appreciative of them understanding her superset approach and knowing that my heart was going to be working (instead of approaching these as a more slow & heavy UB workout.)
Not a fan of anything requiring sliders and I wish she'd made premixes that excluded slider moves. I'd probably enjoy the series as a whole much more if that were available.
The stretches at the end are kind of lack-luster and short. Not as short as the brief stretches at the end of STS 2, but I still felt the need to tack on a few extra minutes of more stretching after the end of each workout.
Overall thoughts on each:
Boxing Bootcamp - pretty straightforward. Nice mix of low and high impact moves without too much emphasis on either in particular. I didn't feel like there were any moves in there that were hard to follow or like my arms or feet were going to get tangled during punching and kicking combos. It'll be a nice addition to the rest of my kickboxing library, though I'm not sure how frequently I'll pull this one out.
Legs & Glutes - I enjoyed the weighted work but disliked the moves requiring a slider. I'd categoize this as an endurance workout - she keeps the breaks very brief, so my heart rate was definitely on the higher end most of the time.
Mixed Impact Cardio - my favorite cardio workout out of the entire series. Everything just felt fun, though I did NOT appreciate the burpees right at the beginning of the workout (but thank goodness I can say she got 'em out of the way and they didn't return).
Pull Day - Superset fashion for most of the moves with a fast pace and brief breaks=elevated heart rate the entire way through. Warning - towards the end of the weighted section of the workout you start getting all happy (especially if you did this following Mixed Impact Cardio), and then all of a sudden she pulls out the stability ball to hit your hamstrings. Not nice.
Shred Cardio - NOT my favorite or cup-of-tea. I did see earlier posts from people saying they felt the workout was too complicated. I disagree that the moves are complicated. But they ARE all "blast" fashion with a fast pace and lots of high impact moves. She gives you a little break about mid-way through with some lower-impact knee-repeaters, but that's about it - the rest of the time, if you want lower impact, you need to modify. It's a very demanding and intense workout that again has extremely brief rests between each step segment. I'd rather do XTrain Tabatacise than this workout. Probably won't be reaching for this one much at all, unless sometime down the line, my tastes change and suddenly I enjoy really intense step cardio. Too bad, because most of the time I enjoy step cardio - but usually it's the intricately choreographed stuff, not just endless high impact "blasts", etc.
Push Day - Same as Pull Day above - superset, fast-paced, endurance workout. I grew to appreciate this one after doing it a second time, as well. Again, the leg work at the very end feels like a nasty surprise - especially those high-and-tights.
Low Impact Cardio - Kind of "meh" about this workout, mostly because of all the slider moves thrown in. There's other low impact HiiT-type workouts I'd rather do. And am I weird in thinking Cathe's shorts in this look like men's boxer briefs? lol. I mean she rocks 'em with that amazing body of hers, but they just make me laugh.
Metabolic Conditioning - It's decent, but again, because of the moves depending on the usage of the sliders, I know I'd rather grab just about any of her other metabolic titles and do those instead of this one.
Bonus Core - Not a fan of this one, either. She stays consistent with fast pacing and brief rests between exercises in this core workout, too. I found a lot of the moves just kind of uncomfortable or difficult. I probably won't be pulling out the bonus core workout from this series much at all.
So, while I had mixed impressions of this series, I would definitely say if this was the only series you ever had of Cathe's, it would definitely whip you into some amazing shape.
I'm grateful that my soiree into this series was scheduled for only two weeks. I don't think I'd enjoy it for a full month, It'll be a great series to use maybe a week at a time in the middle of other workouts for the pure cardio endurance boost it provides.
. FitSplit, IMO, is about doing everything as fast as possible to shorten your workouts and still get everything in and burn a ton of calories in as short of time as possible. Most of the cardio is intense and Cathe said only one of the four was intended to be Hiit-like.