Are You Ready For Action? This Express Bootcamp Workout Certainly Delivers!

Cathe Live Review: Ready for Action Bootcamp.

This is an express cardio and strength workout from Cathe Live and it worked the whole body pretty effectively for such a short amount of time (38 minutes). I was definitely breathing heavy in places and I felt like it accomplished a lot very quickly. It will get that heart rate up, tone those muscles and before you know it you are moving into the cooldown / stretch. There is definitely no dread factor in this workout. It is fast paced with lots of variety and moves quickly from one thing to the next with just the right amount of breathing time in between.

The weights used in this workout are fairly light, by Cathe standards, and therefore, you may wish to increase the weights to up the intensity a little more. However, there are a reasonable number of reps for most of the exercises and because you are moving quickly from one thing to the next – you will feel the work even if you stay with the same weights as Cathe.

(In case you are not familiar with Cathe Live - it is a streaming service from veteran fitness professional Cathe Friedrich, where she provides access to her live classes filmed at her gym in Jersey. Currently, there are over 200 workouts available in the archive, which you can access at any time and a new class is recorded nearly every week. More details are provided at the end of this article).

The Workout

This is a bootcamp workout that consists of 6 rounds plus one bonus round at the end. Each round starts with a cardio blast, usually a hiit blast - one move that is repeated for the duration of the interval. No equipment is needed for the blasts except the first where you hold one dumbbell. The intervals are just the right length – not too long and not too short. After the cardio you then move into the strength exercises for that round – usually a compound move (using both upper / lower body) e.g. squat and overhead press. This is followed by an upper body move and a core move. The strength work is not too high rep and is generally straight forward reps rather than pulsing.

The workout ends with a bonus round. More details on this are given below!

What You Need To Know

(Rating scale – 1= lowest & 5 = highest).

The Moves

Ready For Action Bootcamp is 38 minutes long. It aired on 4th Oct 2018.

The workout starts with a pretty active 4:30 minute warm-up that even includes walk out planks! This section ends with jump ropes and then she moves straight in to the first move. (The weights given below are what Cathe used).

Round 1

• 4 lateral hops (4 slow (both directions) then 4 fast (both directions) - one 8#db held at the chest

• Squat press – first with two 8#dbs then with two 10#dbs

• 3 Hammer curls then curl press (3 presses) – two 10#dbs

• Straight arm planks with alternating toe taps toward outside elbow then bring in knee (and alternate)

Round 2

• Air jacks – 3 sets of 10 with a rest in between each set

• Static lunge with a tricep overhead extension – raising & lowering one 8#db (held horizontally in both hands)

• Tricep kickbacks – two 12#dbs

• Squat & knee twist with one dumbbell to one side then the other - one 10#db

Round 3

• 3 scuttles & raise inside knee, then kick, then knee

• Sumo squat with upright row – two 12#dbs

• Sumo squat snatch & jack - starting in sumo stance – snatch one 10#db up over head then place it on floor & jump feet in / out

• Wide mountain climbers (spiderman climbers)

Round 4

• Power scissors (alternating plyo lunges)

• Alternating back lunges with hammer curls – two 10#dbs

• W curls – two 10#dbs

• Walk out to plank then pushup (starts with 1 pushup and then next time 2 pushups – up to 7 pushups)

Round 5

• Lateral skates (reaching down higher & lower)

• Kettlebell swing to lat pulldown – two 10#dbs

• Rear delt flys – two 10#dbs

• Diagonal wood chops – 10 reps to one side then 10 to the other – one 8#db

Round 6

• Sprint shooters (16 reps per side) – beginning in runners starting position with fingers towards the ground then jump up whilst raising one hand to the sky

• Crossback lunges with lateral raise (crossback lunge then stand & do lateral raise at the top before lunging to the other side) – two 8#dbs

• Crossback lunge with lateral raise - as a continuous movement – so no pause at the top. Two 5#dbs.

• Iron cross (raise dumbbells to the front and open to the side) & shrugs – two 5#dbs

• Standing side bends – two 10#dbs in one hand (I used one 20#db)

Cathe then suggests that, as the workout ended sooner than she expected, you repeat all of the cardio blasts again (she obviously does say you can just go to the stretch if you don’t want to do so!) These blasts are each done for fewer reps this time, one after the next, with only tiny rests in between (except before the last blast where you get slightly longer breathing time).

Final Bonus Cardio Round

• 4 lateral hops to the side (no dumbbell)

• Air Jacks – 2 sets of 10 reps

• 3 scuttles / knee / kick / knee

• Power scissors (faster than before) – 20 reps

• Lateral skates

• Sprint shooters

The workout ends with a 3 minute cool down and stretch.

Take Action

Try it today! Cathe Live is a streaming service available from Cathe.com – you can subscribe to monthly ($9.99 pm), six monthly or yearly plans and has over 200 live workouts in the archive for you to access at any time.

If you like this workout then I recommend you try THIS ONE, too.

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