Body4Me

Hi Everyone.

Well, we just finished our first week of Bodypump 66 classes. So, what’s the verdict from the crowd ? They love it!

I’ve had some real positive feedback about the warmup track. It’s a nice upbeat song with a really good bass line. It sets the mood very well. The Squat track is awesome with it’s three big rounds. For me though, the real fun is in the Chest track. Now, do yourself a favour : Go heavier on the weights ! The track is designed to allow you to put a little more weight on the bar as we finish early on the bench to hit the pushups. For my first class, I used my normal chest weigths and it simply wasn’t enough. Since then, I’ve been putting an extra 2.5kg on each end and it really makes a difference. You need to overload the muscles in the ‘Get Down’ part to make the track work properly.

The Back track is the next big one. Four sets of clean & presses is a lot of work ! You really have to focus and pull together to finish the last few sets of triple rows in good form.

As I said before, I love the Tricep track. Again, the choreography works very very well. I like it that much, I wish the whole track were longer. I’m sure my participants feel otherwise about the dips at the end though :)

The next big track is the Lunges. It looks easy on paper, but, wow, does it hurt. You get a few dynamic lunges to warm up, then 32 proper ones to really hit home. Each Leg. Once again, I had one of my usually so well mannered front row ladies whisper some pretty harsh obscenities during the track. That’s when you know the workout is doing it’s job… :) I really like the lunge tracks from the last few releases.

For the shoulders, again, go with the heavy option. Towards the end, you have the choice to very quickly grab a bar instead of using the hand weights. I highly recommend that one. Don’t get me wrong though, the track is hard, real hard. The Arnold Press move tires out every part of your deltoids. Using the bar at the end though really makes you feel though you couldn’t have done another press if you wanted to.

The Abs track is another one of my new favourites. The song itself is really good, but the rolling side plank move is my new favourite. It’s another one of those things that looks easy on paper but is quite hard to do properly. Watch your hips! Lock them into place. The idea is that you move your upper body and use your obliques to stabilise and rotate. If you move your hips forward during the movement, you take all the work right out of it. Don’t worry, once you’re doing it right, you’ll know it :)

So, once again, BodyPump 66 is a fantastic whole-body workout. The use of body weight exercises throughout the class really gets in deep. The music is fantastic, the choreography is perfectly matched and workout is hard. If you have friends that think group exercise classes are the easy option instead of going to the gym ‘properly’, bring them along to this one.

Enjoy your workout.

BodyPump. One Tribe, One Bar, One Workout.

Kia Kaha!

It’s May,so it is time for the quarterly BodyPump workshops. We just had ours this morning. Once again, massive room, heaps of people and a concert style sound system. I so wish we had the same sound system at our gym. 20,000 watts worth of Bass would make a fair difference to the atmosphere :)

First Impressions of BodyPump 66… Wow! If i didn’t know better, you’d think we’d gone back to the mid 40’s in terms of huge workout intensity. This one is massive! The squat track is huge, the chest track hurts, the lunges burn and the shoulder track brings a world of pain. Yay :)

The theme for release 66 is: Heroes Made Here. The focus for this release is on tough sequences of work combined with functional innovations. There are lots of body weight exercises that target the main muscle groups as well as hitting the smaller stabiliser muscles.
As always, the official rundown by Les Mills Program Choreographer Glen Ostergaard can be found here.

If you just want to look at the tracklist for this release, please have a quick look around in Google. There are plenty of sites by now that have it. Like I mentioned in my previous post, Less Mills would prefer us to not post the track list until the release has been launched around the world, so i’m going to give you this preview without spoiling the fun :).

**Edit 09/07/2008: Now that the quarterlies are well and truly over, here is the tracklist for BodyPump 66:

01. Rain Down Love - Freemasons Feat. Siedah Garrett
02. Cisko Disco (DJ Radio Mix) - Rico Bass v.s Deejay Bonito
03. Get Up - Technotronic
04. What Hurts The Most - Cascada
05. Time After Time - Quietdrive
06. On Your Way To The Disco - Rogue Traders
07. Show Me Heaven - Micky Modelle vs Jessy
08. Where Are You 2007 - Paffendorf vs The Real Booty Babes Club Mix Paffendorf
09. Extreme Ways Bourne’s Ultimatum - Moby
10. Always On Your Side - Sheryl Crow

Here is a track-by-track preview of what you can expect from BodyPump 66:

Warmup: As usual, the theme of the song centers around ‘Love’. That’s ok though, because you’ll love this track as much as I do. Here we have a happy track with a good beat, good lyrics and a good range of exercises. Definite toe-tapper. By the time you’re finished here, you’re definitely in the mood for an awesome workout. This one is also really good for beginners as we do an introduction to quite a few of the moves in the 4/4 slow-motion mode.

Legs (Squats): You know this one. As the sizzler mentions, a lot of instructors may yell ‘Oooooh.. we’re half way there…’ way too many times :). It’s a great remix with a huge beat! Lots of slow work and lots of singles. I love the setup from the 3/1’s to the Singles. Energy ! Energy! Energy! By the time you’re finished with the bottom halves, it’s straight into the next round. If this one doesn’t make your legs burn by the end, I don’t know what will.

Chest: Oh my goodness.. The never ending Chest Track. Don’t worry, it does end eventually after about 5 and a half minutes, but if feels like forever because we’ve gone a bit heavier on the weights. This one feels straight out of the mid 40’s. Even the song is appropriate for an old-school workout. Funky beat and lots of work. We get familiar with the normal power moves and then we hit a new little innovation that will totally overload your muscles. The extra time under tension we get in this track will make a huge difference. Best of all, once you think you couldn’t possible lift another round, it’s time for push ups. Not just normal push ups either.. Evil Push ups ;)

Back: Peak Time! As usual, Cascada does not disappoint. Big track with a massive beat. All the moves you would normally expect, and at nearly 6 minutes long, you’ll know you’ve done some hard work by the end. This track is so long, in fact, that there is room for another round of Clean & Presses. That means your break is pretty much smack bang in the middle! Lots of rows too, normal and wide.

Triceps: I love this song! It’s a remix of the old Cindy Lauper - Time after Time song. The song fits the movements perfectly. We split our time between the bench and dips, so you can really afford to go a little heavier on the bar than you normally would. You’ll be too busy humming along to the music to notice the pain anyway :) We have a great new pull-over combo move that will really put some load into the triceps. A couple of rounds of presses, extensions and combos and we’re ready for the dips. You remember them from release 64, right ? How many this time ? Too many to count.. Well over 20.. Ouch!

Biceps: Rogue Traders hit us once again with a tough workout. It’s only 4 minutes long, but you’ll feel every second. The track is designed to keep your arms pretty much under constant tension the whole time. Good variety of moves including plenty of bottom halves with a short break towards the end. Watch out for the final round though. We finish it off with some real burners!

Lunges: Another remix. Huuuuge techno beat that kicks in as soon as we’re done with the stretches. We start off with some wicked backward stepping lunges off the bench and finish the log off with a nice long set of normal weighted lunges. Shake, rinse, repeat on the other leg :) Once again, we have the option of using the single pate to really utilise the core muscles. The lyrics work really well on this one. You just can’t help but smile during this track. It’s just a fun, uplifting song.

Shoulders: The first time I heard this song, I thought to myself…’This isn’t going to be pretty’. Let me assure you, I wasn’t wrong. There are virtually no lyrics. Just a big dance beat. It sounds almost robotic. Again, a workout straight from the early 40’s. Like any good shoulder track, we start with a big set of push ups before we step into a world of pain :). We hit some delt raises and then the real fun begins! You remember the Modified Arnold Press from a few releases ago ? Well, it’s back. With a vengeance. Not only do we do them both slow and fast, we also change the move slightly to get even deeper into the shoulders. Use your normal weights for this one and pray that you’ll make it to the end.

Abs: Beautiful, atmospheric sound by Moby. This one is not so much a normal Ab workout as a full-on oblique workout. The focus here is very much on giving you that nice V shape in your body. We’ve got a new move here, the Side Plank Roll. You may know this move from Body Balance. It’s basically like a side plank but then we thread the top arm under the bottom of the chest while keeping your hips in place. If it sounds hard, that’s because it is :) We finish the workout with nice modified oblique crunches. I really like this Ab workout. I think it’s it’s one of the best we’ve had in a while (with the exception of 65, which was also awesome).

Cooldown/Stretch: Nice slow duet by Sheryl Crow. The best part of this song is that the stretches really last a long time. We get plenty of time to relax and reward some tired muscles. Not much else to say about this one. It’s just a nice and relaxing song.

So, overall, another massive workout from the Les Mills team. Glen Ostergaard and the rest of the choreography team have done another great job. Once day i’ll have to make it over to New Zealand for a filming. The Bodypump 66 DVD looks simply amazing. These guys have built an absolute empire on fitness and it’s easy to see why. Solid workouts, fantastic music and constant innovation. Well Done!

Can’t wait to get into this release. With quality like this, I can’t wait for BodyPump 67. Bring it on!

The other big news is that starting with this release, Les Mills are introducing a new 30 minute ‘express’ class format. In this configuration, you do 6 tracks : Warmup, Squats, Chest, Back, Lunges or Shoulders and then Abs (Core). No cool down and we skip the Triceps and Biceps completely. The workout is focused on moving the major muscle groups and using the maximum calories possible for that class type. You will still need to cool down and stretch after the class yourself.

There has been growing demand for shorter classes that people can fit into their lunch breaks. I think these could also be fantastic as introductory classes or as a ‘warmup’ to an RPM/Attack/Combat class. By my way of thinking, anything that will get people in the gym to keep fit and healthy is a good thing. There is a good chance that a newcomer who has started with an express class will move up to the full classes. That has to be good. We still keep the 45 minute format as well though. This new class style is just another weapon in our arsenal against the growing ‘globesity’ problem.

Have an awesome workout. Let me know if you like it!

**UPDATE**: I’ve got a preview/review of the new BodyPump 66 release right here

Sorry all. You were probably expecting to find the tracklist for BP 66 here. It turns out that Les Mills are pretty keen to wait for all the states and markets to go through their release cycles before we post full lists. So, in the spirit of keeping it fair for the others, I have removed the list.

You’ll just have to wait for your local release :)
In the meantime, you can check out Glen O describe it himself here

**Edit 09/07/2008: Now that the quarterlies are well and truly over, here is the tracklist for BodyPump 66:

01. Rain Down Love - Freemasons Feat. Siedah Garrett
02. Cisko Disco (DJ Radio Mix) - Rico Bass v.s Deejay Bonito
03. Get Up - Technotronic
04. What Hurts The Most - Cascada
05. Time After Time - Quietdrive
06. On Your Way To The Disco - Rogue Traders
07. Show Me Heaven - Micky Modelle vs Jessy
08. Where Are You 2007 - Paffendorf vs The Real Booty Babes Club Mix Paffendorf
09. Extreme Ways Bourne’s Ultimatum - Moby
10. Always On Your Side - Sheryl Crow

Trust me though, it’s going to be a big one!

Hi Everyone. You may have noticed the blog being quiet for a few days… Well, i have good reason. Say hello to my brand new baby girl Annabelle.

She was born on the 28th of April at 3:25PM, weighing a healthy 8 pounds and 11 ounces (or 3.94 kilos for us metric folk)

She is our first and the whole birth from start to finish was a fantastic experience. My amazing wife handled the whole hard part in just over three hours. I spent my time by her side, playing the part of coach and cheer squad :)

Believe me, the lead up to it and the past couple of days have kept me pretty busy. I expect that life will settle into a nice little routine pretty soon though. Our little angel is already averaging a good 3 hours sleep at a time at night.

In non-baby related news, well, if you’re reading this then you probably already noticed the site graphics update. I’ll keep working on it over the next few weeks.

I’m also working on a preview of the new BP 66 release. That should be coming in he next week or so. Check back ever now and again. I can tell you already that there is a Bonus Track on this one…. Not telling you which body part yet though ;) You’ll have to come back for that.