I watched a bit of a 1-hr group class at the gym this morning while I was doing my HIIT cardio ritual. The class is listed as 80% cardio/fat-burning, 20% strength but I would consider it to be general conditioning: calisthenics with an intense cardio format. Like we did in school. Good stuff to squeeze once a week into the daily exercise program, and more often if you don't do weight training (which you should).
If you did something like this 4-5X/wk, with nothing else, your cardio fitness and physique would definitely improve after 6 months, but your strength and muscle only slightly.
At 6 am, the class was packed (about 40 people) with about half men, half women. Quite a few grey hairs in there, at least a quarter but it's hard to tell with the women because no women seem to go grey around here - it must be the water. I'd say ages 30-75. They say "All levels welcome." My trainer thinks those classes are BS, but I thought it seemed like an excellent and varied workout, high intensity with no lowering of heart rate and blood pressure and only light hand weights. The only rests I saw were on a 15 second count, or planks.
There were many sorts of body shapes in there (but no serious fatties, and no muscle-heads) and many levels of fitness but all did their damndest to keep up the pace set by the trainer. Here's what I saw from my jump-roping view:
They began with about 5 minutes of stretches, and warm-ups with things like sumos and slow jogging in place.
Then most of the routines were about 30 seconds each and some were repeated in a circuit: Air squats, jumping jacks, straight-arm planks, push-ups, high-knee jogging in place, step-ups, calf-raises, mountain climbers, jumping burpees, air squats with overhead press hand weights, sit-ups, supermans, air squats with forward hand weights, heavy ball floor slams, heavy ball throw and catch, fast standing twists with heavy ball, wall sits, lunges with hand weights, kettlebell swings, kettlebell walks and kettlebell shrugs.
I thought it was a fine, pretty intense hour of cardio-calis and I think I will find a way to fit that into my schedule, altho 6 am is late for me, because mixing cardio and calis is time-efficient and the group is motivating. Plus the classes are free for gym members. Yes, you could do it all on your own - but probably wouldn't.
Nobody walked out of that gym room with a sprightly step - all beaten up good. That's a good sign. If it were easy, that would be bad. I would have been dripping and dragging too. Well, I was anyway after doing my own routine. Good way to begin the day with a good head and a peaceful soul.
