I Am Now An Honorary Action Hero

Pop Quiz!
Q: “So what’s up with the paper plates?”
a. Redecorating. Don’t you think our little Dixie plates with the orange flowers add a nice punch of color to the Y?

b. Why should the kids have all the crafty fun? We’re making sheep puppets today! We got the cotton balls from the first-aid box.

c. Having an imaginary picnic. It’s our new “air” diet. We’re losing weight like crazy. They warned us though that hallucinations are a possible side effect. Good thing that’s not happening, right Batman?

d. I’m too cheap to buy a Val-Slide but I still wanna be an Action Hero(ine).
see end for answer.

Results
The Valerie Waters’ Action Hero Workouts were a good burn but we didn’t see a huge change in our stats since we were just changing out one strength routine for another. I imagine if we’d done her whole “Red Carpet Ready” book, we’d probably have seen some differences. Allison’s body fat % went down a hair. Mine went up a bit (I blame hormones. Bad month for the estrogen in this household, I tell ya.) All our measurement stayed the same.

What I Liked
1. The “val-slides” (or paper/plastic plates in our case) were a nice change of pace. The moves were novel and interesting. Fun, too!

2. It was a really good burn. As long as we kept moving quickly through the circuits, our heart rates stayed up most of the time. We were pretty sore too, especially the first week.

3. I really liked how her moves incorporated balance along with the strength. Plus just about every move made my abs sore!

4. Suzanne Sommers will be glad to know I no longer need her thigh master as this workout rocks the legs & butt!

What I Didn’t Like
1. They are l-o-n-g! Several of you agreed with me here. Today Allison and I busted through it as fast as we could and finished the whole thing (all 9 circuits!) in 46 minutes. But we were really pushing it and probably lost some form. On average it took us an hour to an hour & fifteen to complete. We ended up taking it down to two days a week because of how time consuming it got.

2. Boring. I suppose if I had actually bought her book then I would have had more workouts to choose from but let’s just say that Allison and I did a little celebratory dance of joy when we finished. It doesn’t help with the monotony that you repeat each circuit three times.

3. She hits most of the major body parts (better than the Ballerina workout for sure!) but it was still lacking in a few areas. For example there was only one shoulder exercise and it only hit the top delt. (Is that actually a body part? I say that I like I know what I’m talking about but in reality I’m pretty clueless about muscle names. Except glutes. Because that’s just fun to say.)

4. No cardio recommendation. We stuck with our same cardio schedule – daily, with guilt – since we had no other guidance.

Conclusions
It’s a good workout. Plenty hard, nice variety, I’ll definitely keep it on file when I feel like changing stuff up. I particularly recommend it for lower body and core work. Special shout-out to Gena, Sagan and AT22 for giving it a whirl & for your feedback! KellyT and Colleen get good commenter points for chiming in despite not trying the workout. You guys are the best!

Quiz Answer: “e” – all of the above. We got asked that question at least five times a day so we had ample opportunity to use all of those answers. The best response was when I said we were having an imaginary picnic, the woman asking didn’t even blink before answering, “So what are you eating?” I guess crazy attracts crazy.