Alrighty everyone, here are my FIRST impressions of Country Heat!
(Click here for an overview and general details on the program)
Country Heat – Country Swing Overview
- Trainer: Autumn Calabrese
- Country Swing Duration: 30 minutes, with a brief warm up and cool down!
- Country Swing Goals: Like all the Country Heat workouts, this is a cardio dance routine. I haven’t done the other workouts yet (waiting on my kit to arrive!) but in this workout you are doing various stepping and arm movements for the 30 minute duration. As expected, it’s a good workout, but not intense like a dedicated fitness program is.
- Country Swing Required Equipment: A big fat zilch , nada!
Country Heat – Country Swing Dance Moves
I won’t go into every dance move, but I will give you an overview of how Autumn brings the moves in with the music.
Each Country Heat workout video has 6 country music songs in it, which are rerecords from the original artist.
These are the songs in Country Swing:
- John Cougar John Deere John 3:16 Artist: Keith Urban
- Kick the Dust Up Artist: Luke Bryan
- Young & Crazy Artist: Frankie Ballard
- We Are Tonight Artist: Billy Currington
- That’s My Kinda Night Artist: Luke Bryan
- Crash and Burn Artist: Thomas Rhett
There is definitely a pattern to the workouts. Everything is done on an 8/8 count.
There are 22 moves total in this workout:
- The Mosey
- Side Mosey
- Heel Digs
- Toe Digs (see my video below!)
- Country Swing
- Tumbleweed Roll
- Clodhopper
- Lasso
- Grapevine
- Honky Tonk Turn
- Footloose Feet
- Booty Shakes
- Gospel
- Ride the Horse
- Mambo
- Charleston
- Box Step
- Skips
- Squat Heel Tap
- Grease Step
- 2 Timing Hop
- Skate
The base move that bridges everything together is just a side step with a clap to the beat. Autumn demonstrates the move while we do the base move, then we all do the move together. Each “round” consists of doing the first move, then the second move, and then combining them, before moving on to the next two!
Country Heat – Country Swing Review & Thoughts:
Honestly, I’m really excited about this program! Our challenge group is kicking off on Monday and what I LOVE about this program is how accessible it is, but that you can still scale it and make it more difficult depending on your abilities. For example, the squat heel tap move you can really go deeper for each move to get some extra burn, or you can stay higher to make it easier. You can basically “embellish” any move above with some extra arm or exaggerated movements and make it harder also!
Autumn also does a great job explaining the moves and I never felt lost or out of sync with what was coming next, and trust me when I say I’m not dance or musically inclined 🙂
They actually even have a 20 minute “Country Heat Move Breakdown” video, but I didn’t even watch it, and I had no problem, so I don’t even know if it’s necessary. I’m guessing workouts later in the program will transition between moves much quicker. This country swing routine though is extremely accessible and easy to follow along.
Here are two clips of me doing Heel Digs and Toe Digs from the beginning of this Country Swing workout, along with my daughter who is watching along 🙂
I’m especially excited because even my Mom wants to do it with me, and she hasn’t wanted to try any of the programs yet, so I am really excited for her! (YAY!)
The other thing I really love about this program is that the music is just so awesome! Last night my husband was playing through some of the songs from the Country Heat Song List and I knew almost all of them. This isn’t your typical twangy 90’s country music- this is the top country music from the top artists. It’s just a lot of FUN!!
My husband went to do the 21 Day Fix Extreme yesterday and my 2 year old daughter Kiersten was annoyed with him because she wanted “Da dancing workout” instead, LOL.
So, who do I recommend the Country Heat program for?
I think this is a great program for a bunch of different groups, including:
- If you LOVE Country Music, but don’t really like working out
- If you are a NEWBIE to fitness!
- If you love country music but are a fitness maniac, this is a great program to throw in during recovery!
- Anyone who just likes to dance and have fun; where working out doesn’t feel like working out at all!
If you’d like to join our next challenge group, fill out the form below and I will be in touch! You guys are going to LOVE this program! I’ll be sharing more from the other routines as we do them!
More details on Country Heat
Click HERE to Get your Country Heat Challenge Pack!
