22 Minute Hard Corps – Cardio 1 Overview
- Trainer: Tony Horton
- Cardio 1 Duration: 22 minutes! There is a COLD START which adds on ~10 minutes if you need to warm up first; and Core 1 (ab routine) is also 10 minutes. So on the long end, if you do everything, we are talking about 42 minutes.
- Cardio 1 Goals: This is a cardio routine. It consists of 7 moves set to a cadence. For me, the most-used (and worn out) muscle after this was my quads!
- Cardio 1 Required Equipment: None! A mat is nice to have but isn’t required; I didn’t use one. There is also a modifier version available.
22 Minute Hard Corps – Cardio 1 Moves
Some notes -Tony delivers this in under 22 minutes. It’s three rounds of seven moves, with varying repetitions (reps). Some go up and some go down.
- T Jacks – Simple jumping jacks. You alternate arms forward and arms to the side on each jack. Hands only go up to shoulder level. This move was definitely a “warm up” move.
- Bear Crawl – KEep your but down. Right leg and right arm go up simultaneously, then left arm and left leg go up simultaneously as you “crawl” forward and backward for a 5 count rep.
- Side Lateral Shuffle – Two shuffles to each side and the opposite hand comes down. This one was a burner. The first round was 30 reps – that’s a LOT of side shuffling!
- Forward Lunge Twist – Clasp your hands in front of you. As you lunge forward with your left leg, twist to the left and come back up. Then lunge with your right leg and twist to the right. Repeat, repeat 🙂
- Basic Burpee – A burpee but with NO jumping at the top. It’s set to the cadence so it’s down, back, forward, stand up. Lots of reps to start – 25 – so it takes a while!
- A Skips – A little tricky to explain. It’s like running in place but your leg that is down slides backward. So in the picture you can see his left leg and right arm are up. His right leg here is sliding backward, so you are “skipping” in place.
- Run Lunge Squat – Low impact move where you squat, the reverse lunge right, squat, reverse lunge left, squat, repeat. The last round has 50 of these (!!)
- BONUS ROUND – After you do all seven moves three times; there is a bonus round which is 22 Bear Crawls and 22 Basic Burpees.
22 Minute Hard Corps – Cardio 1 Day #1 Review & Thoughts:
This is a GREAT workout! to be perfectly honest I was a little skeptical of the whole 22 minute thing. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I’m a crazy busy mom so the idea of a 22 minute workout sounded awesome, but I know the results I have gotten with 30 minute programs before and I was just really wondering about how effective something timed in a 22 minutes could be.
Well, let me tell you that by the end of the 22 minutes I was completely huffing and puffing. In particular the burpees and the lunge – lunge – squat had me completely wiped out. From a difficulty perspective, I think this is definitely a little easier than the 21 Day Fix Extreme, but significantly more challenging than the original 21 Day Fix.
I have always loved Tony Horton though and his workouts. Nick and I did the original P90X way back in 2009 before we ever became coaches. So it’s really fun to get back in with him and run through this program. My goals for this program are to get into shape for the SUMMER! WE just got back from the SS Beachbody Cruise and had definitely indulged in food & drink, so it feels GREAT to get back into a routine of eating healthy and moving my body.
Some other notes about Cardio 1 –
- The cadenced pace of this program and set number of reps is really what makes it challenging. You can’t slow down when you are tired as you need to KEEP UP with the reps.
- The breaks are short (22 seconds) – so you don’t get a lot of recovery time in between moves. This is pretty obvious when you have to squeeze a SERIOUS workout into a short time frame
- So far it’s been LOW impact moves. SO many of the past programs I have done involved jump / agility moves, and this workout was low impact. So if you have knee issues or other issues, this is going to be a great program for you. (Note, I haven’t done all the workouts yet, but based on what I am seeing so far 🙂
- How cool that this entire program uses real VETS? Love how BB supports the military!
We also filled up our 22 Minute Hard Corps sandbag at Home Depot yesterday with some play sand and will get to test that out on 22 Minute Hard Corps Day #2 for Resistance 1.
22 Minute Hard Corps Day #1 Meals:
What I ate today!
- Breakfast -Chocolate Shakeology w/ chilled coffee, 1/2 a banana, 2 Tsp peanut butter
- Snack – Apple
- Lunch – Whole grain english muffin with egg and mashed avocado
- Snack – Banana
- Dinner – Salad with tuna, balsamic, tomato, and red onion
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