December 25, Tuesday, HY: Transform :20 + Tri-Challenge + TCF.
Merry Christmas! It is Christmas and there is basically no difference today than there is with any other normal day. Christmas isn't really celebrated here in Japan so my daughter had school, and businesses are still open. I had the day off because I worked on Monday which was a national holiday. So I got today as a replacement holiday.
Today's workout was a test routine for the new Shaun T program, "Transform :20". I did a little intro routine a couple weeks ago, but that was not even a full routine, just Shaun T doing a few of the moves for about 13 minutes. This was the first routine in this 60-Day program. I did this first look routine of Transform :20 and this is what I honestly thought of it. First of all, I did the modified version because I don't have a step thing so that would have made the routine much more painful, I'm sure. That being said, I thought it was okay. It really didn't wow me. It didn't kill me. Personally, I am not a fan of the "do a whole progression on one side then repeat on the other side" style of workout. That was my one big complaint about the PiYo program as well. It was much better than the 13-minute sneak peek "phone video" Shaun T posted a couple weeks ago mainly because of the countdown clock and the progress bar. This time, I knew (sort of) how much time I had left on any particular move. That being said, it was a little weird because most of the moves didn't start right on :00 or :30 so you have to really watch to make sure of the starting point. Since the moves are one-sided, it takes a little getting used to when switching sides. Several times during the routine, I got confused as two which side I was doing and had to rewind the video, check the move to make sure I was, in fact, doing the opposite side, then restart. It especially happened on the more complicated moves. There was one move were you lunge, step up, then raise the knee on the opposite leg and the hand opposite that leg. So it was a mess this time around. I'm sure I would do better after a few run-throughs. Something that bothered me a little is the fact that the team doing the routine had all different forms, so it was a little weird to see so many different ranges of motion and styles. It didn't seem as uniform as Insanity or T25. The one thing that gave me the biggest problems was the lateral movement. The jumping and landing on a flat surface was hard enough, but add a step, I don't think my knees or ankles could handle it. I had to slow down and make sure I was stepping squarely on my feet instead of landing in an odd angle to keep a fast pace. It was not worth it to me to go at their fast pace and potentially land wrong and injure myself. In tennis, there is a lot of lateral movement, but that lateral movement is different because I can plant my foot at the end of the movement at a greater angle which provides more support. With these moves, there was little to no support on the fast lateral moves which for me, is dangerous. I much prefer moves like the "4-Way Heisman" because it is a lateral move, but it also provides ankle support because it also integrates vertical movement. Another somewhat odd thing is the "Transformer" 1-minute moves. There was no special emphasis put on them like in Chalene's TurboFire program when the progress bar changed color and the music amped up. This was just Shaun T talking for a minute. Besides, doing one move for a minute, in one case 30-seconds on each side, will burn no matter what program you do, so this isn't that original. What's more, they just seemed like something to bring the pain during the workout. Again, nothing special. This apparently was hyped as Beachbody's first Step program, but other step programs are just as, if not better, than this one. I've seen other trainers (non-TBB) use a step before and I didn't see anything original here. ***Bottom line: Transform :20, to me, is not as solid as any of the Insanity programs or even the comparable T25. It just seemed a little bit forced together and it lacked the fluidity that the aforementioned programs seemed to have. I don't really see this program being a solid standalone program it is something for me to do in a time crunch. To me, this is more of a supplemental program than a main or standalone program. It will be interesting to see what the other routines do. I've written this review based on only two routines, so it is just my preliminary thoughts.
Finally, was doing four challenges through a group my BB Coach started, Push-Ups, Burpees, Pike-Ups, and Pull-Ups. It was a hard decision, but I had to discontinue the Pull-Ups Challenge. Unfortunately, the pain in my left shoulder was too intense so I decided to rest it for the rest of the month and restart the challenge from January 1, 2019. So, instead of four challenges, QUAD, I'm now only doing three challenges, TRI.
I finished off my workout with a good Flow series.
In the end, I burned a nice 526 kcals. That is a good number for such a short workout.
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