Monday, 19 February 2018

BarreAmped Bounce - 2 Weeks Later

   I've been using BarreAmped Bounce for two weeks, and it is pretty much as expected. Well, almost. The barre movements are very familiar, but in no way easy - seriously, when does that stuff ever not burn? But the inclusion of the trampoline feels like a gimmick the whole time through. It does provide an unstable platform which can challenge your balance in relevĂ©, but even then, since you'd probably be holding on to a bar even on firm ground, the trampoline makes little difference. The cardio intervals are also immensely tame and feel more like a breather - which is just the opposite of what a cardio interval is supposed to be.


   I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed. I did intend for this to be a low-impact month after 9 weeks of Killer Body, but I had hoped for a little bit more. I've had to draw on personal knowledge of cardio and the body to get the most out of the jumps, and had to look at the trampoline logically to apply it.
   Jumping is great cardio because of the effort you have to exert to launch yourself off the ground. The trampoline, being elastic, removes a great deal of that effort. So, naturally, you have to apply effort in other ways on the trampoline if you want to get anything for your time.
   Now, I suck at tuck jumps, which Jillian Michaels loves to force on you, but on the trampoline I get more height and a softer ground to land upon, giving me a little bit of forgiveness if I mess up. So in that case, I turn normal jumps into high knees, and anything more than normal jumps into tuck jumps or rock stars and get quads and hamstrings more involved, safe in the knowledge that I've got the height to really lift my legs as high as I can. This hasn't returned the explosiveness of a tuck jump on hard ground, but it's a hell of a lot more than just bouncing up and down.
   Only when I started doing this kind of thing did the cardio intervals actually have any impact on my heart rate, and even that was light.


   The barre sequences are quite similar to those on her original BarreAmped DVD, which is a little disappointing and only really serves to highlight the gimmickiness of the whole thing all the more. But those movements were never easy and at least I can rest assured knowing that I'm not completely wasting my time.
   In light of this, I'm going to do some research and write an article about rebounders and trampoline workouts, because I'm a strong believer in 'it's how you use it', and I know they can be effective. I just don't think this is it.

   I will continue to use this DVD for the next two weeks, as planned, but unless I have a personal revelation - which shouldn't be the case, since the DVD should be providing all the instruction I need - I don't see its effectiveness changing.
   But, I suppose, at the end of the day, it certainly still is a BarreAmped DVD, it fits well beneath the brand, and if I really wanted cardio and barre combined I'd be using her really quite effective BarreAmped Cardio Fat Burn DVD instead, which I used and reviewed last year.



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