Rock Hard Body By Jake: Total Body

I'm sure you've heard of Body by Jake before. I mean common the guys been around for forever! One thing that people associate with his name, is a good quality workout! Jake is known for making programs that work and get you results. Exercise TV and Jake have teamed up to give you 3 awesomely tough and effective workouts. In the next 3 reviews I'll be going over each program for you and how I felt doing such hard and physical workouts as a disabled woman.

Total Body Workout is taught by trainer Marco Reed, who you can follow on Twitter if you want. Marco is no nonsense in his training, he pushes you and pushes you hard. If you are looking for working hard and being in and out Marco is your man. He's tough but not unlikeable, which as you know is very important to your training. He starts out by doing the exercises with his group then stops to do some instructing and joins in for the last 20 to 15 seconds or so.

This workout is 40 minutes of intense training. It is made up of two 20 minute sets of exercises, each one is done for 45 seconds with 15 seconds of rest time in between while Marco demonstrates the next one. You will need a set of dumbbells to complete this workout to it's fullest. The first 20 minutes is made up with lots of push-ups and weighted anaerobic exercises:

"is exercise intense enough to trigger anaerobic metabolism. It is used by athletes in non-endurance sports to promote strength, speed and power and by body builders to build muscle mass," Wikipedia.

So you are doing lots of jumping (with weights) and ab work with the push ups. After you complete all the exercises Marco has you go through them backwards before moving on to the last 20 minutes of the program. The last 20 minutes were almost easy in comparison except for the Burpees which ended with an explosive jump just to make them that more painful.

I thought that this was a great workout for intermediate to experienced people. Given my disability I had to do a few alterations in order to complete the workout. When doing weighted jump squats I had to keep my arms at shoulder height, I had to stay on my knees for the push-ups and I had to completely omit the last burpee in the last 20 minutes (although I did jump rope in it's place). Things to note about this program:

• There is no warm up or cool down so you will have to do them on your own
• Marco skips a few of the exercises in the reverse section of the last 20 minutes in order to finish within the given time. So it's up to you if you want to do them or omit them.
• Marco also gives you no modifications for any of the exercises. I'm sure if you want to give this a shot you can figure out a way to do them but it's at least nice for the instructor to have a non advanced option.

Overall this is one hell of a workout! You will sweat, you will cry and above all you will get into shape if you stick with it! Stay tuned for the review of Rock Hard Body By Jake: Xetreme with Steve Maresca!

~Fitness Mama