P57 was the first barre workout I tried--I bought the volume 1 set without knowing that people approach barre differently than other strength training. I had some experience with live classes in Pilates, ballet and yoga as well as traditional gym workouts. I used as heavy of weights as I could (and didn't always do all the reps). At that time I had 5, 7 and 10 pound weights and would start with the 10 then drop when I couldn't do another rep with good form. Like I said, though I knew it was a mind/body type workout and applied what I learned from pilates, yoga and ballet, I didn't know about the small weights people typically use. Since I was treating ti as traditional strength training I only did P57 three days a week with cardio on alternate days. I had really good results with this and my legs looked really good. I got strong enough to do full on pushups for the first time in my life. I know my weights were low for traditional weights, but I was new to strength training again and never really stuck with strength training more than a few months.
I think barre can still work if it is only a few days a week. The only time I have done barre daily was a few weeks ago when there were free classes at the local barre3 studio (I went 6 days in a row). I don't see myself doing barre daily long-term because I am too much of a variety hound. The closest was when I alternated barre with TA, pilates and ballet workouts, I ended up doing some similar exercises daily but the overall emphasis was different with the different workouts. I could see P57 working really well alternated with cardio, lighter barre, or TA.
I never had any barre bulking or exercise bulking that I noticed. when I do challenging workouts I weigh a couple pounds more but I have never noticed it causing a tighter fit in my clothing. When I did the 6 Barre 3 workouts I gained a couple temporary pounds, but my jeans were fitting a little looser by the end of the week despite the gain. It was likely water swelling but just not in the waist (where my jeans felt looser). I think spinning and P57 would be too quad heavy--at least for me. It might be great for you. But I prefer dance and kickboxing (or drill) type cardio that involves a variety of movement paths and angles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andtckrtoo
Hi All -
A few years ago I did P57 as a rotation for a few weeks and noticed my thighs getting bigger. But I was doing P57 daily - following their rotation. I've been doing TA for a while, but as I have had knee surgery and really need to build up the muscle in my quads and hamstrings, I pulled out P57 again. First this I noticed was that after years of TA, P57 wasn't the killer workout I thought it was. The second is that when I finished I felt wonderful. I haven't felt that good after a workout since I did a round of yoga. Weird.
So, my question is - has anyone done a rotation of P57 that is not daily? I'm thinking of rotating cardio (Zumba or other dance, kickboxing, spinning...) and P57. Does anyone do that?
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