Kelly Coffey-Meyer
30 Minutes to Fitness
Kelly Coffey-Meyer
I am a huge fan of Kelly’s circuit workouts and 30 Minutes to Fitness is no exception. It differs from her previous offerings in that it is a split routine, you can lift a bit heavier, and the lifting style combines a controlled, explosive lift with full range of motion and a slower release. The idea with this style of lifting is that you recruit more muscle fibers and work the supporting muscles as well as the muscles you are targeting, while lifting slightly heavier.
I’ve always used this workout in its’ original form, i.e. as a split routine with standing abdominal active rests. I like it this way because I can either be finished in a half hour or add on some yoga or cardio. You’ll do a round of exercises for each muscle group, then a second set, then an active rest interval featuring standing abdominal work before moving on to the next round of exercises. The standing ab work is fun and feels aerobic to me. The DVD offers so many other great options and I look forward to trying them out in my next Kelly rotation. Instead of standing ab active rests, one of the premixes offers you ab work on the floor while another offers low impact cardio intervals. There is also a chapter with all the floor ab work strung together so that you can just tack it on at the end of this or any of your workouts. You can also choose one of the three full body premixes. How well would that work in your weekly rotation?! You could do the split at the beginning of the week and then wrap up your week with one of the full body premixes, leaving you so much time to fit in all the other workout genres that we’re always trying to squeeze in.
I would highly recommend this DVD to any intermediate/advanced level exerciser.
Chapters
Warm-up
Workout 1 Back, Legs & chest (includes standing abdominal active rests)
Workout 2 Biceps, Triceps & Shoulders (includes standing abdominal active rests)
Workout Sections
Warm up
Active Warm up (all 3 of the cardio active rests)
Workout 1
Workout 2
Abs (all 3 of the floor abdominals active rests)
Stretch
Pre-mixes
Workout 1 with floor abdominal active rests (30 minutes)
Workout 1 with cardio active rests (30 minutes)
Workout 2 with floor abdominal active rests (29 minutes)
Workout 2 with cardio active rests (29 minutes)
Full Body (1 rotation of each exercise; includes standing abdominal active rests) (38 minutes)
Mixed Full Body Blast (no active rests) (41 minutes)
Time-Saver Full Body (2 exercises, each body part with no rest) (31 minutes)
Audio Option
With music or Kelly
Workout Sections
Warm up
Active Warm up (a30 Minutes to Fitness
Kelly Coffey-Meyer
Chapters
Warm-up
Workout 1 Back, Legs & chest (includes standing abdominal active rests)
Workout 2 Biceps, Triceps & Shoulders (includes standing abdominal active rests)
Workout Sections
Warm up
Active Warm up (all 3 of the cardio active rests)
Workout 1
Workout 2
Abs
Stretch
Pre-mixes
Workout 1 with floor abdominal active rests (30 minutes)
Workout 1 with cardio active rests (30 minutes)
Workout 2 with floor abdominal active rests (29 minutes)
Workout 2 with cardio active rests (29 minutes)
Full Body (1 rotation of each exercise; includes standing abdominal active rests) (38 minutes)
Mixed Full Body Blast (no active rests) (41 minutes)
Time-Saver Full Body (2 exercises, each body part with no rest) (31 minutes)
Audio Option - with music or Kelly’s voice only.
Breakdown
Back, Legs & Chest
- Reverse Flyes
- Three part lunges, full set right leg, then left
- Push ups with planks
- Second set of the above three exercises
- Active rest, standing abdominal work; figure 8’s with dumbbells, chops with dumbbells horizontally across the upper body
- Bent over rows
- Full squats, then one legged squats
- Pushups
- Second set of all three
- Active rest, standing abdominal work; sanding crunch variations
- One arm row with twist (lawnmower)
- One legged dead lift
- Dive Bomber Pushups
- Second set of all three
- Active rest, standing abdominal work; plie squat w/side stretches to work the obliques
- Cool down/stretch
Biceps, Triceps & Shoulders
- Hammer curls with three part squats
- Standing triceps extensions to the side of the body
- Front & side shoulder raises
- Repeat all three
- Active Rest, standing abdominals; side crunches & twists
- Biceps curls, lifting to the side halfway up then away
- Triceps overhead presses alternating lifting in front of the head and behind
- Bent over lateral raises
- Repeat all three
- Active rest, standing abdominals; crunch variations
- One arm bicep curls
- One arm triceps kick backs
- One arm military press
- Repeat all three on the opposite side
- Active Rest, standing abdominals; holding a towel, reach up to the side, drop the towel, reach up, then down to pick up the towel. Hard to describe, but effective. Dropping & picking up the towel is to ensure full range of motion.
- Cool down/stretch
Instructor comments:
Helen K (antbuko)
November 11, 2008
This was the first workout in fitness instructor Kelly Coffey-Meyer's new 30 Minutes to Fitness series. Like the other DVDs in this series, 30 Minutes to Fitness Weights offers two separate splits-style workouts; when combined with the warm-up, each of these workouts is approximately 30 minutes long, perfect if you are short on time. However, additional options allow you to create a longer workout as well as to add in lots of variety (described below).
Kelly works out with two background exercises, one of whom shows modifications for some of the exercises. The Main Menu of the DVD lists the Warm-Up, Workout 1, Workout 2, Workout Sections, and Premixes; there are also audio options for working out with music or with Kelly's voice only. In her introduction, Kelly explains that the workouts are designed for heavier lifting. She recommends that beginners use 5 lbs., intermediate 7 lbs., and advanced 10 lbs. (note that these weight amounts are different than what is is listed on the DVD menu). I found these amounts to be about right, as I consider myself to be high intermediate, and I used 8 lbs. through the majority of both workouts, sometimes pyramiding up to 10 lbs.
The basic 3-minute warm-up includes marches, taps with reaches, side steps, and hamstring curls. Without the warm-up, Workout #1, which focuses on Back, Legs, & Chest, is 29.5 minutes long, and Workout #2, concentrating on Biceps, Triceps, & Shoulders, is 27 minutes long. Both workouts follow the same general format: a single exercise consisting of 8 repetitions is performed for each of the three targeted body parts. This round is then repeated once, and then you take an "active rest." The active rests are 1-minute periods of standing ab work; these are fast-paced and hardly feel like a "rest," but they're a fun break from the strength work. Two more strength rounds and two more rest periods follow, and then there's just a few very brief stretches to finish. Kelly moves quickly from exercise to exercise in both workouts--don't be surprised if your heart rate stays up the whole time. As always, she adds a lot of unique twists to to the exercises, such as hesitation holds, deadlifts with a twist, and some challenging push-up/plank moves. She also manages to sneak in additional strength work during the so-called rests (ie, one of the rests includes plies to work the legs).
The Premixes on this DVD provide a great amount of variety to the workouts. The first four premixes feature the workouts exactly as above, with the only changes being to the active rest portions. For the first two premixes, the active rest portions in both workouts are replaced by 2 minutes of floor abdominal work (exercises include leaning rows with lifts, knee tuck crunches, full sit-ups with arm reaches, frog-leg crunches, and side leg crunches). For the next two premixes, the active rest portions in both workouts are replaced by low-cardio segments, including simple moves such as v-steps, knee repeaters, side-steps, hamstring pulls, toe taps, and lunges. Each of these premixes remains about 30 minutes in length.
There are also three additional premixes as follows:
Full Body--1 rotation of each exercise (38m)
Mixed Full Body Blast--no active rests (41m)
Time-Saver Full Body Blast--2 exercises each body part w/no rests (31m)
As with the other DVDs in her 30 Minutes to Fitness series, Kelly did a great job in this video, which provides users with plenty of workout options; definitely recommended!
Instructor comments:
I really like Kelly, and I have enjoyed most of her workouts. I think that she is straightforward yet encouraging--she says "great" a lot here. :) Sometimes I feel that her cueing is a bit lacking when the choreography is more advanced, but since the only choreo here (for the low-impact cardio in the premixes) is pretty basic, I think she does a fine job.
Beth C (aka toaster)
January 30, 2009
