Sunday, March 24, 2013

Les Mills Combat: Combat 60 Live: Ultimate Warrior's Workout

Today I checked out the last program on my Les Mills Combat schedule, the Combat 60 Live workout. As the title conveys, this workout was filled while the Les Mills Combat team was doing a live workout in the UK. Similar to the other Combat 60 workout, the entire DVD clocked in at under the 60 minute mark -- this workout was closer to 50 minutes than a full hour.
Along with the Combat 45 workout, I would have to say the Combat 60 Live workout is my favorite from the set. I found it be probably the most challenging and enjoyed that they incorporated some moves I had not seen before. Like the Combat 45 workout, I felt this DVD offered more of a "true" martial arts feel and did the best job blending the most disciplines.
The fact that the workout was filmed live was kind of fun and did give the workout added energy. I found it to be rather funny that the workout was done with lights strobing, but the people at the live event seemed to enjoy it.
This workout included a lot of the punching and kicking sequences that were familiar from other workouts. There were a couple of stand-out sequences though that were different. My favorite was a very challenging Capoeira round. It was great to experiment with the very different and fluid movements of Capoeira, which I think are the most different from all the other martial arts we do in Les Mills Combat. The Capoeira sequence had us doing a lot of leg movements in a lunge and shoot lunge form. These were coupled with side kicks. All the moves were done with bent legs meaning that you kept all your weight loaded onto one legs for a very long time -- this really worked my legs.
I also really enjoyed that fact that we did a lot of Karate blocks paired with decoy switch jumps. This was a lot of fun. It was great getting to do a lot of Karate blocks in sequence (as supposed to just doing them as an isolated movement, as is the case in some of the other workouts). The decoy switch was a new move and a great addition.
There was a very excellent Muay Thai round with lots and lots of knee strikes. This definitely kept the heart rate up. Overall, this workout probably was the most challenging cardiovascular workout of the set. There were very few breaks and many of the moves were done at a fast pace. I think that the overall intensity of this workout was a little bit higher (probably because it was live) than some of the others. I definitely appreciated that it was a little more challenging.
The workout ended with a segment on the floor featuring around five minutes of push-ups and ab work, similar to what you see in the other Combat 60 workout (although this was a bit easier). We then went into a great cool down. This cool down featured a really neat Kata and some Thai Chi movements, which I found very interesting and relaxing. (It also made me slightly interested in Thai Chi.) This was a great addition to the workout and a fun change from the traditional stretches that the workouts finish with.

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