Most Notable from 2016

At the end of previous years I have done a “best of” post.  Since I didn’t do many reviews or blog posts at all this year, I’m just going to tell you the awesome things that I did discover this year.

1. Grokker – A streaming workout/yoga/lifestyle website (can also find on Roku) that you pay a monthly subscription for.  They do have free workouts but most of them you can already find on Youtube.  A year ago January 2016 was when I first signed up for Grokker. They offered me a New Year trial for around $1.00 and I tried it and loved it.  I maintained my subscription until about July when I noticed I wasn’t utilizing it as much as I had been. That doesn’t mean it got any less great however.  There are a variety of workouts at different levels and as I mentioned before some awesome yoga practices.
2. Les Mills On Demand – I’ve known about LMOD for sometime now but it wasn’t until about October/November that they offered a free one month trial that I took a bite.  WOW!  I would have to say that this is probably my favorite find of the year.  I love the BodyCombat, BodyPump BodyAttack and CXWORX workouts so far and have gone through just about all of them.  I love how they are set to music tracks and that is what sets it apart from a lot of other workout systems.  The music just gets to you and keeps you going. I also love the trainers.  They also offer GRIT workouts that are intense and utilize HIIT, Sh’bam dance fitness and BodyBalance/BodyFlow (think yoga/pilates).  The only complaint I do have about this is that I don’t feel that they give new workouts often enough and then I’ve done them all and I’m the type of person that wants fresh.  I still have a lot of GRIT workouts to keep me busy well into next year though.
3. DailyBurn – DailyBurn has changed from my previous reviews on this site.  I am going to guess that they were sold because they are no longer in California and operate in New York City now.  They still have the old programs but they do not put those out that often anymore.  What they do have to offer is DailyBurn 365 and give you a fresh workout everyday, thus DailyBurn 365.  The intensity of those workouts is from beginner to medium so for those wanting a BlackFire degree of intensity, you may be disappointed.  Every day they rotate trainers and I’m finding that I really like each one and also like the host J.D.  One new program they did just release in December is a Spartan training workout.  It looks intense and right up there with BlackFire.  I’m looking forward to digging into that for 2017.  There are also a couple of Men’s Health and Women’s Health workout systems that were added between the time I let my subscription lapse and when I picked it back up again at the end of this year when they offered me a month to go back for seventy-five cents.
4. BeachBody On Demand – and then there is BOD.  I still maintain my subscription to BOD but with all of the other workouts above, I have been using it less. They continue to offer new workouts and workout systems and have released to On Demand favorites like 21 Day Fix Extreme and Insanity Max 30 along with Focus T25 and The Master’s Hammer and Chisel.  They also give sneak peaks to new systems like Core de Force and Country Heat.  Considering they are constantly updating, I’m going to maintain my subscription for now.

There you go for 2016. If you have any questions about the above streaming workout brands, let me know.  If you haven’t already discovered any of these, I hope I gave you some new options for 2017.

Daily Burn Black Fire by Bob Harper (w/ Anja Garcia) Workout Program Review

Just when I thought Daily Burn couldn’t get any better they went and pulled out the big gun! That big gun is none other than Bob Harper.  Everyone knows who Bob Harper is from The Biggest Loser to his own workout DVDs and books.

I have to admit when Daily Burn released Black Fire at the end of 2014 I was at the tail end of my Live to Fail rotation.  I viewed Black Fire and I was afraid.  It looked tough.  It looked intense.  And I have to tell you that it is ALL THAT and more!

Black Fire is a 60 day program that utilizes scoring in their high intensity workouts (although 2 do not).  This is what pushes you and motivates you.  It allows you to see how strong and fit you are becoming because at the end you will enter your score into the computer and it will track it for you (a nice feature of Daily Burn).  Black Fire uses very little equipment.  Bob will recommend dumbbell weights for men and women and you will also need a box, a medicine ball and a dowel.  I’m sure you could modify if you didn’t have these things.

Black Fire has 12 workouts total (and rest/recovery workouts if you follow their calendar) that include:

• Bodyweight Tabata: In this workout you will go through four body-weight moves, eight rounds per move. 20 seconds of work; 10 seconds of rest.  You will get a minute of rest between tabatas.  Write down the lowest score for each move and at the end you will add up all of the lowest scores of the 4 moves and that is your final score.
• Weighted Tabata: Like Bodyweight Tabata you will have four moves, eight rounds each for 20 seconds on, and 10 seconds rest.  The difference here is that this workout is weighted.  Let me tell you this weighted tabata is NO JOKE! Scoring is the same as the bodyweight tabata.
• Sweet 16:   This workout has 2 moves (8 rounds each).  That’s it.  Two moves.  Easy peasy right?  WRONG!  The moves are a long jump and no wall balls (this requires a medicine ball that you throw up in the air and squat catch and release into the air repeatedly).  The goal is to get 16 reps in the allotted time.   If you do, you get one point for that round.  At the end you add up all your points for your final score.  There is no rest in this workout, however, if you finish all your reps before the end of the allotted time you can rest.
• OTM Air Force Style: In order to get a point in this workout you need to do 12 reps in one minute.  If you finish all the reps before the end of the minute, you can rest.  At the top of each minute you do 4 burpees.  That is what OTM means – ON THE MINUTE.  You need dumbbells & a dowel (for an overhead squat). This workout is the hardest even though it isn’t touted as such.  You could use this workout for a leg day, it is very leg/butt intensive.
• Cyclone 15: This workout has 3 different movements in a round. – V-ups, dumbbell swing and the goblet squat.  You get one point every time you complete the amount of reps Bob has allotted for each movement. The faster you go the more rounds you complete. You will need one dumbbell.
• Strategic Endurance: If you follow the Daily Burn calendar this will be your first workout of the series.  In this workout you have three movements that you complete for 2 minutes each.  You have to complete three rounds.  The movements are burpee to box run to burpee, dips and situps.  You count all of your reps and at the end add them all up for the final score.
• Triplet Ladder: This is my favorite of all of the Black Fire workouts.  It has a dumbbell snatch in it and I love dumbbell snatches.  I can complete this workout barefoot.  In this workout you make your way up the ladder by completing a rep for each movement and then increasing the rep count the next time you get back to that movement.  You keep going until 15 minutes is complete.  You can have your own rest time in there but you may not get as many rounds. Your score is the amount of rounds you make it through.
• Power 10: This is touted as being one of the hardest of Black Fire.  Certainly not the easiest by far (none of them are easy) but I also don’t think it is the hardest.  This workout has four rounds of 10 exercises that you cycle through 30 seconds each and there is no allotted rest time. You are able to get a rest though in the way that the workout is set up.  You score with your lowest number completed.  If you get to the end of a movement and you hit that low number already any extra time remaining you may use as a rest.  For scoring you add up all of your lowest numbers of each exercise for the 4 rounds.
• ABC 1: Anja Garcia whom we all know from the Inferno programs leads this workout.  A – Agility; B – Balance; and C – Core.  There are 5 rounds of 4 moves done for 30 seconds with 15 seconds of rest.  You get a full minute to rest between moves. These moves are bodyweight intensive.   Scoring is your lowest number for a round of each movement. You will add up all 4 of the lowest numbers for you final score.
• ABC 2: This is set up just like ABC1 but with 5 moves that are different from ABC 1.  And these moves are a bit more challenging that ABC 1.
• Gymnastics Strength 1: Utilizing her gymnastics experience, Anja leads these workouts too.  This workout has two rounds of six exercises each for one minute.  There is NO SCORING for the gymnastics workouts. I found that Gymnastics Strength 1 was more challenging that #2.
• Gymnastics Strength 2: This is set up like GS1 except there are 5 moves instead of 6.  I thought GS2 was kind of fun. Again, no scoring.

I have to disclose that I have not followed the Daily Burn schedule.  I have been cherry picking which workouts I want to do each day depending on my energy level.  I have to be honest, it took me a while to work myself into Black Fire. I started with Sweet 16 and really enjoyed it, then I tried the Triplet Ladder since I like “ladder” workouts and was familiar with how they are set up. Incidentally it wasn’t until I joined a Black Fire/Inferno group on Facebook that I was able to motivate myself to keep going with the workouts.  After joining the group, I found a lot of folks in the group aren’t following the calendar either and are creating their own programs. Some are combining Black Fire with Inferno.  (Shout out to the Black Fire & Inferno Fitness Challenge Group on Facebook.)

I think Black Fire should be renamed Butt Fire.  A lot of the workouts are squat intensive and I can tell after about a month of doing these workouts that my butt has already lifted a little.

Daily Burn really has a winner here with Black Fire, Bob Harper and Anja Garcia!  I would rate the workouts in this program 5 stars for sure.  Ten if I could.  Black Fire is SOLID!

And the Winner Is! Best of 2014! Inferno HR from DailyBurn

At the end of every year I name what I think was the best workout system or workout DVD that I reviewed that year.  This year I have to go with DailyBurn’s Inferno HR workout program led by Anja Garcia. 

Right before I engaged in this program my workouts had become stale.  They felt like a chore and I was just uninspired.  DailyBurn Inferno HR brought back the excitement and endorphins that I had enjoyed previously.

See my review from June 29, 2014:

DailyBurn’s Inferno HR is one of their latest program offerings. I reviewed DailyBurn previously on my blog (see here:  https://mistransformation.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/review-of-dailyburn-personalized-fitness-websiteservice/ ) and mentioned the classic Inferno program and how much I liked it.  I like that the women in the workouts aren’t merely there for T&A.  Women are the leaders and the trainers.  It’s nice to watch the boys struggle with this one.

In this latest program, Inferno HR turns up the heat and then some.  Once I completed the first HR workout the endorphins kicked in big time.  It was a rush I had been missing.  Boy am I glad to be back at DailyBurn!

Inferno HR is led by Anja Garcia.  Who else but Anja could bring us something this intense?  Inferno HR is designed to be used with a HeartRate monitor that you can purchase through DB and link it to an app that monitors you while working out. You use your computer/roku, etc. to do your workout and then you are monitored on another device such as your tablet or smart phone.  It looks like a really cool feature and the market isn’t exactly flooded with programs such as this.  I did not use the HeartRate monitor feature myself, but sort of judged how I felt on my own and even took my heart rate manually when possible.  I know this wasn’t as accurate but I wanted to see how I liked the program before I invested in it.  If I do another round, I may buy the monitor.

In Inferno HR there are 4 separate workouts and they are all structured differently.  That is why I liked this program so much.  You were getting something different with each workout.  It wasn’t the same mundane thing all the time.

The zones described below are where your heart rate is.  Zones 0/1 being the lowest and zones 4/5 being the highest.  Zone 5 is the max.

Body Blast  – Two exercises 30 seconds of work/30 seconds of rest each maintaining zone 4 – then combining the moves for 1 minute doing 4 reps each move working to zone 5.   (41:45 total time

  Metcon Challenge Three blocks of exercises maintaining zone 4 then 1 minute of Core work in zone 3 and a 1 minute zone 5 cardio challenge.  (52:32 total time)

Tabata POC – Tabata round is one exercise 8 times through with 20 seconds of work/10 seconds of rest working to zone 5 – –  5 exercises 50 seconds of work/10 seconds of rest times through maintaining zone 4– repeating protocol with new exercises.   (51:21 total time)

Build & Burn – Four blocks of  3 rounds of exercises maintaining zone 4 the whole time. (54:06 total time)

You get three active rest days per week total including mobility, yoga and foam rolling.

Anja is a great trainer and likens the workouts to being like your own video game when you can view your heart rate while you are working out to stay in your zone.

After completing the first round of HR I was able to fit back into a pair of my jeans after gaining a bit of winter weight.  I am following this with a round of Classic Inferno and am continuing to get a bit leaner and feeling strong.  I cannot wait to get back to another round of HR.    If these Inferno workouts do not sound like your cup of tea, DailyBurn offers many more programs from True Beginner to Kettlebells, to Tactical Training, Dance and Yoga.  At $10 a month, DailyBurn is a bargain.