PUSH.tv: week three

This week I graduated from my first PUSH workout to my second. I was very curious going into it about how the two would differ.

For one thing, I received these resistance bands in my PUSH package; you know, those long, thin, stretchy sheets of some wonder-material (they always make us think of the movie Ski Patrol…). They weren’t used in the first workout, so I thought maybe in this one…

Well, no. It may very well be that they’re actually for the cardio or the ski workout that are also on the DVD and that I haven’t tried yet. (It may also be that they’re really just for tormenting your cats, which is the main thing we’ve been using them for…)

Fun resistance bands aside, I was pleased with the second workout. PUSH did a very good job of making it a natural progression from the first workout. There were two segments that were repeats, a bunch of new and different exercises, and (my favorite) several segments that were “upgrades” of segments in the last workout.

For instance, in the first workout, there was a segment called “Forward Stepups,” where you put a step on its highest setting, kept one foot on the step, and moved the other from the floor to a knee-raise above the step. There were a bunch on one side, a bunch on the other, and then a break, before doing a set on each side again.

In the new workout, the segment is repeated, but there are no breaks, and you hold your arms in the air the whole time. It’s a small change, but it makes the exercise more difficult while still keeping it doable. Similarly, we’ve moved from knee-pushups to full-body pushups using the step to make the transition gentler.

I really like these incremental changes in difficulty, because I feel like I’m making noticeable progress, but I don’t feel overwhelmed. As I mentioned yesterday, I think these workouts are improving my health and fitness ability in general, and that’s a very good result for a practical girl like me.

My only gripe with the second workout (beyond my general list ) was that there seemed to be something wrong with the video on a few segments. I’m not an A/V geek, but I’d say that the frame rate was too low; Jessica seemed to be having a bit of a strobe effect. I only noticed it on two or three segments, but it was pretty distracting.