Cathe Live Review: Cardio Leg Party
Cardio Leg Party is a cardio / metabolic lower body workout. I really enjoyed this workout, as it combined a few low impact cardio intervals with straight forward lower body exercises, which worked my legs nicely. This is not a high rep endurance workout but is designed to have more of a cardio focus, as the weights are generally a bit lighter and the moves are done at a reasonable pace. Cathe moves fairly quickly from one move to the next but does give you a little more time to breathe, in between exercises, towards the end of the workout. My heart rate stayed nicely elevated throughout but I wasn’t drained or exhausted by the end.
The lower body strength work is generally familiar moves, for Cathe, and there is no pulsing for any of the exercises. None of the moves are done too long, with the exception of one exercise – straight leg pulses. Now normally I really like this exercise, as it has been done in Cathe’s previous workouts (Fit Tower workouts or other barre workouts), where you hold the back of a chair and pulse one leg straight out in front of you. However, in this routine Cathe has you holding a 10# dumbbell in each hand and you do 48 straight pulses and 48 with the foot angled to the side. I found this really hurt and not in a good way or in the muscle we were supposed to be working… Instead my foot on the standing leg was screaming and I actually had to pause for a second before continuing. Now after this exercise, Cathe does mention that during every workout you love one move and hate one move. Then she asks you to fill in the blank – love or hate for this exercise… so I guess I am not the only one who doesn’t like it! However, next time I will just do the move as she usually does it so I feel like I am actually working the right muscle group.
The cardio intervals are all low impact, except one – ball slams, which you could easily just lift on your toes, if you wanted to keep it all low impact, and are not too high rep. Most are using the gliding devices – jacks, swim lunges etc although some of them use the stability ball. This includes a move Cathe has done in a couple other workouts, including in Live: Cardio Core Blast, where she has you bouncing on the ball doing jacks and heel kicks – this is just plain fun and feels more like play than work!
The workout ends with hamstring roll-ins on the floor and is a nice way to finish off the workout and ensure all of the lower body muscle groups are worked, to an extent.
Overall, this is a fun cardio metabolic lower body focused workout that will provide a nice challenge without exhausting you. This is a great workout for a lighter or low impact day where you want to feel worked but don’t want anything too challenging.
(In case you are not familiar with Cathe Live – it is a streaming service from veteran fitness professional Cathe Friedrich, where she provides access to her live classes filmed at her gym in Jersey. Currently, there are over 240 workouts available in the archive, which you can access at any time and a new class is recorded nearly every week. More details are provided at the end of this article).
The Workout
Cardio Leg Party is a cardio / metabolic workout that mixes mostly low impact cardio intervals with a variety of lower body exercises using generally lighter dumbbells, gliding devices and a stability ball to get the job done.
What You Need to Know
(Rating scale – 1= lowest & 5 = highest).
The Moves
Cardio Leg Party is 50 minutes long and originally aired on 25th April 2019. The workout starts with an active 7:30 minute warm-up that really starts to get your heart rate up before moving into the first lower body exercise, using one 10# dumbbell. Cardio intervals are shown in bold italics below.
Squat press & squat twist – one 10# dumbbell
Circle squats – two gliding devices
Disc jacks – two gliding devices
1 Arm clean & press – one 10# dumbbell
Ball jacks – sitting on stability ball
Ball kicks – sitting on stability ball (kick alternating heels while bouncing on the ball)
Squats – two 15# dumbbells
Gliding mountain climbers – two gliding devices
Static lunges – two 15# dumbbells
Alternating slide back lunges – two 10# dumbbells & two gliding devices
Ball jump squats / ball slams – stability ball (jump squats & bounce the ball on the floor)
Step out sumo squats – one 15# dumbbell
Side slide lunges – one 15# dumbbell & one gliding device
High rep lunge taps – one 15# dumbbell (standing vertically on the floor – this is only to rest your hand on) & one gliding device
Rapid slide outs – one gliding device
Crossback lunges – two 15# dumbbells
Straight leg raise – two 10# dumbbells
Swim lunges on discs – two gliding devices
Calf raises – two 15# dumbbells (32, 32 & 24 reps)
Deadlifts – two 15# dumbbells
Warrior lunges – one gliding device
Diagonal lunges (slightly narrower than usual) – two 12# dumbbells
Fred Astaire glide style – two gliding devices
Hamstring rollins & hip lifts – stability ball (lying on the floor)
The workout ends with a 3:30 minute cool down and stretch.
Take Action
Try it today! Cathe Live is a streaming service available from Cathe.com – you can subscribe to monthly ($9.99 pm), six monthly or yearly plans and has over 240 live workouts in the archive for you to access at any time.
If you liked this workout, check out my review of Cathe Live: Cardio Leg Crush – HERE.
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