A month ago, gym buddies Candice, Allison and I embarked on what has got to be the most hilarious workout I have ever done. The Monkey Bar Gym workout of the day is definitely fun. Funny is one thing but calorie torching is another. So how good of an actual workout was it?
By the Numbers
Gym Buddy Candice accomplished the near-impossible by simultaneously losing weight (3 pounds) and losing body fat (down 1%). Any bodybuilder will tell you that usually you either drop bodyfat and maintain/gain weight (because you’re building muscle) or you drop weight but your bodyfat remains the same/increases slightly. It is quite a feat to do both at the same time. Go Candice!!
Gym Buddy Allison and I had very similar results: we both maintained weight and dropped bodyfat – yayyy! Because we had two different trainers “pinch us” it’s hard to say exactly how much bodyfat we went down but our best guess is that Allison dropped an impressive 3-4% and I dropped 2%. (Which effectively brings me to my goal %. Except that somehow I thought it would feel better once I got here. Humph. I’ll quit whining for now but perhaps I should do a post on never being satisfied.)
Conclusions
I love it!! One of the best workouts I’ve ever done. Besides helping all 3 of us get closer to our goals, it was also a riot. We seriously laughed every day (we were also sooooorrrre every stinkin’ day but the laughing is definitely more important). I’ve also never had so many people interested in what I was doing. Almost every day someone asked to join us or told us it looked really fun (and hard). Another bonus is that it is an excellent calorie burn for such a short period of time – it is almost always under 30 minutes and I burned between 300 & 600 calories per workout. You really can’t get better than that, especially if you are time crunched.
My fave thing about it is the change in my shoulders, arms and upper back – I can definitely see a difference & my new guns will be a great help in climbing that 5.11 rock wall😉
Make sure and let me know if you experiment with the Monkey Bar Gym!
Hi Charlotte, I’m officially de-lurking! I loooove your blog – I love reading about fitness experiments, so this blog just seems built for me 🙂 thank you for writing it with such humor and grace.
About the MBG, I tried it and l love it! I don’t do it every day, just on days I don’t make it to my boot camp class and as a sub for my weight training. I have to say – if I try to do this on the same day as cardio (running), I can’t even do it – my body just gives out! Amazing! So my question for you: did you do JUST the MBG workouts or did you supplement it with anything? I’m thinking of going on the plan full-time after reading about your success (that is, eliminating my running and boot camp and just doing MBG workouts.) what worked best for you?
Thanks again Charlotte! you rock! Oh, and I wish I had a friend to do it with me – but even my boyfriend is scared to try these workouts! although I really, really like that they include different levels of intensity.
Welcome Rachel!! Thanks for your comment – I sooo wish you lived by me. You sound like my kind of workout girl! I’m so glad you are liking the workout too. As for your question – we usually did supplement it a little bit. For example, on Mondays we usually did both Sunday’s and Monday’s workouts in a row. Because we’re um crazy like that? On the rest of the days we’d usually just walk ‘n’ talk after we finished (but at a pretty good clip on the treadmill). In addition to 5-6 days of MBG we also do 2-3 days of TurboKick, 1 day of Zumba & community volleyball. But I think just doing the MBG alone is an awesome workout. That’s hilarious about your boyfriend!! You sound like one fit chica;) Keep posting, girl! And if you have any experiments to suggest, let me know!