Les Mills COMBAT Kick Start 30

BOOM! Encouragement!!
Whew!! I LOVE Les Mills COMBAT Kick Start 30. Honestly, I think 30 minutes is a perfect length. It's long enough to get in there and kick tail without completely wearing yourself out. I feel like I can push hard, and I'm not watching the little count down clock on the video.

I was so excited for LMC to come out because I discovered my love for punching and kicking and other martial arts moves when Kenpo X turned out to be my very favorite P90X workout. Since I don't have a martial arts background whatsoever, I really worked on my form during Kenpo X. The COMBAT program comes with a Basics DVD which is a MUST. It reviews in detail the technical components of the moves and gives you a brief explanation of their disciplines of origin. It helps the whole thing come together in your mind. We did the Basics DVD with our fit club prior to doing the first LMC workout and it really helps. In fact, I learned even more the second time around, so it will serve as my form review for sure.

So I've done Les Mills COMBAT Kick Start 30 a few times now before progressing into the rest of the program. I not only wanted to practice them from a form standpoint but I think to be able to really put speed and intensity into it without injury I need to have some practice. At almost 48 years old I'm very protective of my knees!

In Kick Start 30 you spend time on jabs, crosses, uppercuts, hooks, front kicks, front knees, back kicks and sequences of those. There's also some shuffling and other foot work and a jump kick. The time goes by really fast and I was drenched. I burned about 350 calories during the 30 minute workout - not bad! This time my form, balance, coordination and speed were better.

Do you like martial arts-style training? How have you incorporated it into your fitness regime? Tell me about it! If you haven't and you'd like to try Les Mills COMBAT, you can pick up your copy here and join me in the trenches!
Les Mills COMBAT Program
Les Mills COMBAT Challenge Pack

Exerciser or Athlete?

"Athletes don't exercise, they train. Athletes don't diet, they eat. Exercisers are reactive— they're slaves to the scale and the treadmill. Athletes, on the other hand, are proactive. It sucks to be an exerciser, but it's a blast being an athlete." - Charles Staley

Do you realize that you don't have to be on an Olympic team, or any team at all for that matter, to think and train like an athlete? I think what sets an athlete apart from an exerciser is the overwhelming drive for improved personal performance, the thrill of competition (even with oneself) and the relentless pursuit of pre-determined and ever-morphing goals.

The thought that I can train like an athlete is revolutionary for me. My mother in particular loved watching sports but to my knowledge neither of my parents played one, so it wasn't encouraged in my childhood. I never played an organized sport. I didn't have a natural inclination toward one either. I pretty much couldn't do anything reliable with a ball. I didn't run track because I was afraid of hurdles. To this day my adult, married children still laugh when I run. When they were little I was doing well to get a frisbee airborne. Now I'm very excited when I can throw my dog's tennis ball without it hitting a tree and bouncing back on the patio in my face. Need I mention this is very confusing for a golden retriever? However, I had strange little glimpses of some sort of dormant ability toward something. I loved playing neighborhood kick-ball, rode my bike for hours on end, climbed trees, actually liked running ladders in P.E. and figured out in junior high that I could dance. So I ended up on the pom squad (before the era of gymnastics, of course). About P.E., yes, I was the last one chosen. But in late high school I figured out that I loved lifting weights and I spent hours in the gym, even though nursing school somehow derailed that. Okay, for full disclosure I can't leave out the fact that I was an eighties aerobics queen, big hair, leg warmers and all. This is not where I will be posting a picture. Moving right along...

Fast forward. After a few short stints of fitness effort through the years, my husband and I finally hit the gym for good about 4 years ago. He was athletic in school and early adulthood and has a competitive streak. I still compete with myself, although I do work and play well with others. When we started up again, we thought and performed like exercisers. We hit the gym, did our workouts, tried to eat better and hoped for the best. Now, four years later, we're training and thinking like athletes and we challenge each other daily, because we're still a work in progress. We plan meals together, call each other out on sloppy eating habits, discuss our training daily and work hard to meet our goals so we can reach the next level. It's not easy, but it's very rewarding. Exercising can be mindless and unfulfilling, like miles on a hamster wheel; another task on your perpetual to-do list. However, training challenges you. It pushes you much farther than you ever thought you could go. It helps you realize that you can set a goal and reach it, and then set another.

Tomorrow will you exercise or will you train like an athlete?

Are You Working Out or Training?

Here's a quote from a recent newsletter regarding essential strategies for lean body development, from Athletic Body System (Bryan Kavanagh and Ian Graham).

"One thing you must realise is that you need to stop working out and start training, as there is a big difference between the two. People who train do so with a true purpose, a detailed plan and they know what they want and how to go about achieving it."

Deep down I know this, but sometimes I just need it to pop me in the face again. If I'm not concentrating, I tend to workout. When I am in focus, I train. Goals may be more virtuous than New Year resolutions, but they still don't help us if what we're actually doing everyday is not in sync with them.

We've all heard it before but seeing that quote helped me re-focus. I've certainly spent my fair share of time in the gym working out. The first quarter of the year is almost over! Time to review those goals and make every effort count as true training.