Starting today, I began incorporating my running with attempting my new Tae Bo 24/7 Boot camp. Let me first say that I ran Day 4 and Day 5, 2.5 miles each day. The running is getting "easier", but it is never easy. My foot is healing, or the pain is becoming more bearable, or who knows. I weighed today, my first legitimate weigh in since before the holidays. I dropped 3.5 lbs since last Thursday. I am now at 269, which is still way too much more than I want, but hopefully this will keep me motivated.
Now back to what you are interested in, if you are in fact interested in anything of this. I purchased Billy Blanks Tae Bo 24/7 boot camp. It is Tae bo from the late 90s and early aughts, but incorporates bands that are connected to the gloves and straps that go around the shoes. Let me first say that any exercise program will help get people in shape, anyone. This, at first glance seems to be a little bit of a gimmick to sell an "updated" version and help Billy make more money. The box comes with a DVD set and two sets of gloves and two sets of bands (I am guessing because they break quite a bit).
Starting the exercise program out, the first disc is an introduction disc. Billy starts off right away with the different punches that he wants to incorporate. You learn each punch, with both hands and then goes into the kicks. After learning each punch and kick, Billy goes into some cardio workout with each punch and kick, giving you many different combos and actually gets the heart rate up and got me to breathing heavy. By the end of the basic disc, I was sweating good and breathing pretty heavily. One thing that Billy does at the end of the workout is asks you to disconnect the bands from the gloves and the straps and then do the punches and kicks without the bands connected. After doing this, there was a difference, the bands to help, but really even without the bands, it would be a decent workout.
Now for the negative aspects of this. I did and have done martial arts throughout my life, and the main one that I was successful in, did the best was Tae Kwon Do. I had to put in 4 years of Tae Kwon Do and I was still not an expert by any means, but I knew how to do my punches, my stance, my kicks. Billy attempts to teach you all of the ways to kick, punch and stand in 2 minutes. It is not as serious as tae kwon do, but form is everything. If someone's form is bad, it is possible to get hurt and Billy takes no time to teach form. He jumps right into the workout and there are no other references to form in the DVD or materials that come with it. The only other negative aspect of it that I can see from the first disc is that Billy goes extremely too fast. He puts these combos in and then expects you to do them and have them down right away. It will take time to get them down and I am sure once I start the more aggressive training disc, it will be even quicker.
I can say that I felt my muscles in my shoulders and my legs really straining and I am sure I will be very sore tomorrow. That all being said, I am also running and walking my dogs for a total 4 miles or more. I am excited to do the next disc, but these discs do lack better instruction, better examples and Billy Blanks seems to not be as articulate as he was, stumbling over himself in the instruction and not keeping it consistent. If these discs were combined with Insanity and Shaun T's instruction, they would be better, but for the time being, I will do the month long program and document my progress. The tag line something about feeling the difference in one day and seeing results in 7. I am sure there will be something to that, but I am adding the extra running to it as well, so this should be interesting.
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