I can be clumsy sometimes, but I don't generally think of myself as uncoordinated or a klutz. There's only a few things in life that have truly made me feel completely uncoordinated.
Latin dancing was one of them.
Turbo Fire HIIT 15 is the other.
TurboFire is Chalene Johnson's workout video series, and the HIIT 15 video is meant to be a quick, intense workout. Chalene does three different one-minute "fire drills" - and you repeat each three times, for a total of nine minutes "on". The full video is about 16 minutes, which includes warm up, cool down, and active rests between each interval.
The moves are fairly simple - think jacks and squat jumps and jumping lunges - but the idea is to work to your full intensity for the full minute to get your heart rate really up, then rest briefly and repeat.
While I ultimately get a decent workout, I find it really hard to follow, especially the first few times I did it. Chalene walks you through what each interval is before the fire drill begins, but I've always found the explanation lacking. It's more of a verbal walk-through than a visual demonstration, and I guess I'm just a visual learner. She also has some weird timing on some of her movements - like when she says that you do three squat jumps, I always just assume you do them right in a row. But she does an extra hop between each, which always throws me off.
So I never end up actually on the same beat as her.
Full disclosure: My sister owns the Turbo Fire DVDs and has done the whole program. I have only done the HIIT 15workout on occasion, when I've wanted a quick, sweaty workout.
So, maybe it's different if you've done the whole program and are used to. I will definitely say that the more I've done it, the better I've gotten at it. And by the third set of each fire drill, I'm more in synch with the video than the first set.
But the first few times I did it, I felt like I was just randomly hopping around a lot and not really following her at all. Which is still a workout in and of itself, but probably not the most effective one.
In terms of the workout itself, I gives you a pretty good cardio blast. HIIT workouts - whether they be strength/cardio combos (like this one from the Fitnessista that I loved last week!) or just straight out cardio HIIT - usually make me feel like I'm going to puke (in the best way possible, whatever that means). TurboFire HIIT 15 definitely gets me breathing hard and sweating (but really, what doesn't get me sweating?), but I haven't felt like puking yet. So I don't know if that means that it's a bit of an easier HIIT workout than I'm used to, or if it just isn't a pukey workout.
However, I've never actually just done this video as a workout on it's own, and I don't know if I would ever just do this video and count that as my workout for the day, unless I was seriously strapped for time. I usually combine it with some sort of strength workout - if I do arms, I feel like I get more of a full body workout, while a legs workout really burns after this (my sister and I did this and TRX legs back to back and both wanted to cry).
I do generally love Chalene - she's always so happy and upbeat, but not in an annoying way, so it's kind of hard to hate her. I think I'll keep this video in rotation for when I want to feel like a baby elephant just learning to walk.
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