Hiit it, Strike it, Crunch it – A Fun Cardio Workout to Get You Moving!

Cathe Live Review: Hiit it, Strike it, Crunch it Live

Having one of those days... and just don't feel like working out? Try this fun and effective cardio workout to get that body moving and burn a few calories!

Hiit it, Strike it, Crunch it is a great cardio workout consisting of three sections – hiit (high intensity interval training) blasts, boxing / kickboxing and finally a tough core section. I was expecting this workout to be harder than it was but it is just a really nice and enjoyable cardio workout not an all-out sweat fest! I did sweat a little but after the hiit section it was fairly steady state kickboxing until the core section, which really worked my abdominals well (and I did start to really sweat here!) There was also a really cool move in the core section where, rather than just normal frog style crunches, we lifted our feet off the ground and crunched up from there. I really felt these!

(In case you are not familiar with Cathe Live - it is a streaming service offered by 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

The workout is structured into 3 separate sections after the warm up. The first section is 12:30 minutes and includes a number of different hiit blasts. These are a mixture of higher and lower impact moves and are generally not repeated (with the exception of moves 4. & 10. mentioned below). They move quickly from one to the next with little rest in between but as there are a number of lower impact moves included, you get a little time to catch your breath in some of those. The moves are done IMHO for the right amount of time – not too many reps but enough to get you breathing and feeling the work.

The next section is boxing / kickboxing. There is nothing very complex here and the moves are all easy to pick up. Cathe does not use weighted gloves for this section but does suggest home exercisers may wish to do so. (In future, when I do this workout again, I would definitely use them for this section, to increase the intensity a little bit more, as the punching is not too high rep and the blasts would be easy to do with the gloves on). I really liked this section, it was fun and the emphasis was more on boxing than kickboxing this time. This section lasted approx. 15 minutes and ended with a brief cooldown to bring the heart rate down (side steps with different arm movements etc) and a chance to grab a drink of water.

The final section, was a short 10 minute tough core section. I really felt this and it rounded out the workout nicely.

What you need to know

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

The Moves

Hiit it, Strike it, Crunch it is 47 minutes long. It aired on 1st November 2018. The workout starts with a thorough 6 minute active warm up and then transitions into the first hiit blast.

Hiit Blasts (these are a combination of high and low impact moves):

1. High reaching pop squats (180 jump turns)

2. Lateral skates

3. Half circle shuffle (shuffle around the mat which is laid out horizontally in front of you)

4. Wide mountain climbers (spiderman climbers) (2 sets)

5. Power scissors (plyo lunges at a slower pace) & scissors (fast alternating legs forward & raising arms up & down)

6. Knee off the side of mat & 6 knee raises - jumping (as if you were doing these on a step – so move to one side of your mat - hop & bring knee up and then jump raising the knee 6 times then change sides)

7. Pivoting apple pickers

8. Plyo jacks

9. 3 Lateral skates (alternating sides) & 1 jump up

10. Snowboards (2 sets) (facing to the outside of your room crouch down with one hand touching the floor and then jump up to change sides)

11. Explosive side to side lunges (reaching arms up in the middle)

12. Air squats with a jump - after each set of 8 you turn to face a different direction so to the left, back to the front, then to the right and back to the front

13. 20 Air jacks (these are tough but they are at a controlled pace so just do as many as you can!)

14. Hammer punch down & knee up (one side and then repeated on the other)

Boxing / Kickboxing

The workout then moves into a mixture of punching and kicking with a few blasts mixed in, including wide burpee with football runs, sumo squat jumps and squat with crisscross jumps. This section is more boxing than kickboxing so lots of punching drills – upper cuts, fast front punches, two front punches & 1 punch down etc. There are no jumping kicks or other really high impact plyometric moves, it’s more steady state cardio, such as, jack and jabs, step / cross / side kick, front kick / back kick / front kick / hammer punch down etc.

Cathe and crew then do a brief cool down and take a water break. They then set out their mats ready for the core section.

Core

1. Sit outs tapping opposite shoulder

2. Modified pike ups – lying on your back lift one leg and reach arms towards it then lift other leg

3. Pivoting child pose planks with a little hop to change sides (starting in straight arm plank swivel your knees in to one side then hop to change them to the other side)

4. Hip drops in elbow plank (in plank on elbows – drop hips to one side and then to the other side)

5. Bike manoeuvre

6. Crunch up and tilt to side, lie back and raise again and tilt to other side

7. Oblique side crunches – lying on your back, bend knees and turn them to one side then crunch up facing the ceiling (engaging the obliques)

8. Corkscrews – lift legs straight upwards & rotate to each side

9. Frog style crunches (with legs out to sides with heel touching – crunch up and down)

10. Frog style crunches with legs lifted off the ground (same as above but feet lifted a few inches off the ground). This one you will really feel!

Cathe then starts to move towards a cool down but suddenly remembers that she wanted to include planks! So she tells the home exercisers to add in a 1 minute plank at the end – so that’s what I did!

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

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 Cathe Live: Twenty Five.