Just started...a little skeptical...

lizziegs

So I just started the Body By You women's YAYOG program. I like it and will continue it but am skeptical as to how much of a workout it is. I did a 12 minute warm up (the warmup from insanity so I was definitely huffing) and then the first day. My HRM said I burned 180 in the 25 minutes it took to do both of those things. I guess because it's strength training I am not going to see a high calorie burn and just trust that it is doing the job. I also didn't need the full two minutes on any of the excercises. Is that because I am still doing the first few levels? WIll it take longer to do them once I get into the higher numbers? And what kind of cardio and/or warmup do people do either before the workout or on off days? Thanks!

SolanumSunrise

I just finished cycle 1 in the Body By You program. I would still consider myself a beginner to exercise, I've been doing it on a regular basis since December and started pretty low on all the exercises. I started Body By You in April, and found that because my joints were the limiting factor for a lot of the exercises, I didn't tax my large muscular groups enough to need the full time allotted on the exercises. Now that I've gotten farther along, I do need the time for the upper body exercises. For cardio I walk some every week day, and do 30-60 minutes of zumba or Jillian Michaels on off days. For warmups I've just been doing the one suggested in the book.

Cadori

I just started this week too. I don't need the full 2 minutes either, but the highest I'm on is level 7 for bending. I'm sure once I get further I'll need more time, or at least really need that bit of a rest between sets to accomplish the second set.

I'm doing C25K on off days.

Vailara

I found it quite tiring, particularly the let me ups and the push ups. I didn't find the let me ins taxing at all, and noticed a big difference when I moved up. The bending exercises seemed particularly easy and I just kept adding weight to the last exercise (there are exercise you can move on to on the website, but I wanted to make sure my balance was good). I've stopped for now, because I was having difficulty with the one-legged squats, so have gone back to the gym to do back squats. I'm still including pressups and some let me ups in my programme, though.

Yogi_Carl

I think you are right - as it is strength training you won't see a very high calorie burn - while you are working out - but you can expect to see the same sustained calorie expenditure over the 24 or so hours after your workout.

Also, because you are not working with weights, some exercises will feel too light - for example, Let-Me-Ins - but if you really focus and squeeze the back and bicep muscles in the contraction part of the exercise, you will feel you have definitely worked those muscles after the session.

Especially in bodyweight exercising you need to bring in an often forgotten part of strength training, that of really contracting intensely in the contraction part of each exercise to engage as many muscle fibres and as much of the nervous system as you can each rep.