Review of 30 Day Shred

The editor in me really wants to put a hyphen in that title!

Every bridal blogger ever seems to be doing this video. Really, that's almost not an exaggeration. After running into it again and again in my internet travels, I gave in and put it at the top of our Netflix queue. Mr. T was curious about it once I explained it to him, and he actually ended up doing the DVD first, before I could!

The DVD has three levels. You start with level 1 and work your way up...or at least, some folks do, I'm sure. We're still on level 1. It's only a 20-minute workout, which is genius. I mean, when you're coming up with reasons not to work out, who can argue with, "It's only 20 minutes, just do it!"? She breaks the 20 minutes into 4 5-minute segments: 2 minutes cardio, 2 minutes strength, 1 minute abs. The cardio is stuff like jumping jacks, jogging in place, jumping rope with no rope, and punching while in a squat position. The strength moves require hand weights, and are mostly compound moves using both upper and lower body: squats with bicep curls, etc. The side lunges with the anterior raises KILL me. I am shaking by the end of them! The ab work seems like a huge break. At the end of my first time I was panting, sweating, and red-faced, and I thought: "Holy crap, what have I been doing at the gym the last 5 months? Why was that so hard?"

So, it's a pretty intense workout. I'm just not sure it's enough. Is 20 minutes really enough? It's also pretty hard on my knees. I'm not sure if I'm just doing the lunges with poor technique, but I don't think I could do this one every day like Jillian recommends. It's nice to mix it in with my gym workouts, though. Mr. T is getting obsessed with it and has done it a ton. In fact, we decided to buy it and are waiting for it to arrive before Netflix can have their copy back!

Jillian is not warm and fuzzy at all, which I actually appreciated. After seeing a clip of her on the Biggest Loser, however, I've come to realize that she IS being warm and fuzzy on this DVD...for her!

Mr. T and I discovered that if we play the DVD on the computer there's enough room for us to both do the workout at the same time, so we got an extra set of hand weights and we worked out together twice this weekend. It was fun. Mr. T is much better at the strength stuff than I am, of course, but he's panting away just like I am! We bump fists at the end. Nauseating, huh?