It’s Not a Popularity Contest

After last week’s IntenSati workout review, this week we’ll work out with plain old Intensity. What better way to do that than with “TV’s toughest trainer” Jillian Michaels, and her 30 Day Shred?

That’s right – I decided to try out the workout that all the popular kids are doing. Yes, it’s been a few years since Jillian Michaels was at the height of her popularity, but back then you couldn’t do a burpee without hitting one of her workout DVDs, and 30 Day Shred was the biggest of them all.

I freely admit, I went into this workout expecting to hate it. I’d seen Michaels on TV, yelling that puking was no excuse to stop running. This is not a style of instruction that motivates me.

My plan was to make this blog article all about doing what’s right for you, rather than what’s popular. What I failed to realize is that just because it’s popular, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not right for you.

Michaels’ attitude was not at all what I expected after seeing her TV persona. She was certainly not letting you get away with slacking off in this workout, but she did that without shouting. And that made it all the more motivating for me.

Even though she wasn’t running it like a drill sergeant, this workout was by no means easy. In fact, this workout kicked my butt. In the intro, Michaels explains that each workout is only 20 minutes, but it was non-stop and I was ready to drop by the end.

The DVD features three workouts, at three different skill/intensity levels. Needless to say, I did not ever make it past Level 1. I did watch Level 2 and Level 3 while marching in place though, so I could give a full review.

Michaels had two other exercisers with her in all the workouts, one showing the advanced version of the moves, and one showing the beginner version of the moves. For the most part, the beginner modifications were just doing the same exercise with a smaller range of motion.

The one thing that disappointed me was that there was no low-impact modification given for the cardio exercises in Level 1, and Michaels made a big deal about how there’s no excuse for not doing jumping jacks. It’s true everybody should be able to do some form of cardio, but there are certainly ways to achieve the target heart rate without both feet leaving the ground at once.

The workout mostly used fairly traditional exercises, but there were a few that were new to me (or at least new variations on ones I’d seen before). In the Level 1 warm-up, in addition to hip circles, she did knee circles. The often overlooked knee joint is particularly prone to injury, so it was great to see somebody paying proper attention to it in a warm-up.

In the stretching/cooldown segment at the end of each workout, she did that quad stretch where you bend your knee to bring your foot up behind you, and then grab the foot with your hand … only she had you grab the foot with the opposite hand. This made all the difference with balance and ‘reachability’ for me. Why doesn’t everyone do it this way? Bonus points to Michaels for making this traditional stretch (and my foot) more accessible.

Michaels’ instruction was relatively clear throughout the workout. It helped a lot that you learned one move and then did it for a full minute (or two or three). She gave plenty of information about good form, although sometimes it took her a while to get around to mentioning it. I’d like to hear about the right way to do it at the beginning, before I’ve managed to hurt myself by doing it wrong.

All 3 workouts follow the same circuit training approach, with 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of ab/core work in each circuit. Each workout has a 3-minute warmup, three of these 6-minute circuits (which were more like 7 minutes each), and 2 minutes of stretching at the end.

No wonder that 20-minute workout felt so long … it was actually a much longer 26-minute workout! Michaels packs a lot of exercise into that 26 minutes though; it’s a very efficient and effective workout, if you’re up for the challenge.

The moral of the story here is to not judge a workout DVD by its cover … or by its level of popularity. Try it out for yourself and see if it’s really right for you.

For me, although I had planned to hate 30 Day Shred, I ended up enjoying this week’s 7 Day Shred much more than expected. No one is more surprised than me that I’m giving it a 4-star rating.