Title: 10 Minute Solution: High Intensity Interval Training With Lisa Kinder (Anchor Bay)
What’s the goal: raise the heart rate with Tabata-style high-intensity interval training (or HIIT) in your living room.
Who’s it for: beginner to intermediate. The routines are fairly high impact with jumping and squatting.
Format: Five 10-minute workouts that can be done separately or together. Eachworkout segment has eight moves, performed for 20 seconds and followed by a 10-second rest period. Each move is done twice. Two of the five workouts are aerobics-based - HIIT 101 and HIIT Explosion - and they include moves like lateral jumps, bear crawls, single-leg burpees and high-knees.
Watching this I thought, “These are the sorts of things kids do for fun, and adults are making it into a workout.” I’m not saying you should bring your kids into this exercise routine, but Iam saying if you started this DVD in front of them, you probably couldn’t keep them away.
The other three workouts - Rock Bottom HIIT, Ab HIIT and Upper Body HIIT - target those body parts.
As expected, the Rock Bottom has squats, lunges and lateral moves. Upper Body is far more comprehensive than just pushups, requiring plenty of momentum-based body-weight moves. And when it comes to the Ab HIIT, well, I hope you like planks, because five of the eight moves will begin in plank position.
The DVD allows exercisers to play all five workouts in order or mix and match the selections.
What’s to like? Performing a strenuous move for 20 seconds is just enough to make you tired without exhausting you. Interval training often means a short spurt of demanding moves with an even shorter recovery period. It’s merciless and merciful. If you’re looking for intensity in your workouts, this will do it.
Lisa Kinder’s program is inventive and engaging - and kind of fun, in a terrible way. She offers modifications to curtail the jumping and hopping, but not on every move.
During nearly every 10-second recovery period, Kinder reminds exercisers to take a deep breath.
What’s not to like? Kinder doesn’t offer much of a warmup or cooldown. We only have 10 minutes, so she just jumps right in. The background music is of the electronic-techno sort, which isn’t distracting, but isn’t particularly great. As an exercise leader, Kinder is likable and encouraging during workouts, but outside of that, she seems a little stiff.
Necessary equipment: shoes and a mat.
Credentials: Kinder is certified as a personal trainer through the National Council on Strength and Fitness and through the National Exercise and Sports Training Association. She has a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from California State University. She’s also a bodybuilding competitor.
Price: $15
ActiveStyle, Pages 25 on 09/23/2013