October: PIIT28

Read also: 2 weeks later, 4 weeks later

& PIIT28 review

   This month I'm turning to Pilates, but not as you know it. I've been following Cassey Ho for ages now and I have her Pop Pilates DVD and her Hot Body Year Round book, though I've not dedicated myself to either for a month. And though they're both excellent, I'm still not. Instead, I've decided to give her PIIT28 a go - that's HIIT + Pilates. HIIT is known as a great fat burner for the high intensity and the interval system, so matching this with resistance training like Pilates, which I've found is much, much harder than it looks, should provide an interesting workout.

   PIIT28 is a 28-minute, 28-day workout system using the HIIT method combined with Pilates moves, so I expect it to be difficult. The upside is that it's a new workout every day for two weeks, barring one day, which means each workout only gets used twice. Every day you work out for about half an hour and focus on a certain area of the body, meaning you can really max it out and then give it great time to recover before doing it again, and on the seventh day you rest completely. This means I'll be sacrificing my beloved Wednesday rest day and sticking with just a Sunday, but for a workout that, as I said, gives an intense focus then prolonged rest to each part of the body, it shouldn't be a problem at all.

   The PIIT28 package consists of a workout calendar, lots of videos, printables, bonus flexibility training and access to the PIIT Portal, which I guess must be some password-protected website and forum. I don't know, I've not checked it out yet.

   I'm looking forward to the idea of not getting bored from this. Last month's workout wasn't boring at all, but a lot that I've done in the past I've found gets quite dull after two weeks, but that's usually because I'm repeating the same workout two or three times a week, for four (or even five) weeks, meaning I run through the same thing at last eight times in a month and with such frequency, it's also easy to lose enthusiasm and start to dread a workout you know is hard. But this time, I don't think I'll have the opportunity to start mentally logging what is and isn't unenjoyable.

   So yup, this month's workout is Pilates HIIT and I'm quite looking forward to it. I don't yet know if the videos are of individual moves or if they're of full workouts - I hope the latter, but you know me: I don't like to watch these kinds of things through until the morning I begin it. It gives me too much time to overthink and I prefer to just get stuck in.

   In this case, my 2-week update will probably be more technical than usual because I'll be able to answer my own questions about the structure of PIIT28, as well as my impressions and struggles.