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Cathe’s Boss Bands & Loops Review – Boss Loops: Glutes & Core
Boss Loops: Glutes & Core is a fun low impact cardio and strength workout, targeting the lower body and core, using fabric resistance loops. I rather enjoyed this routine, as it is a little different from Cathe’s usual lower body workouts and I liked the variety of moves. I also found that even though it is just over 50 minutes long, the time flew by and before you know it you are done!
Boss Loops: Glutes & Core is part of Cathe Friedrich’s new Boss Bands & Loops Series that consists of two workouts, on two DVDs, plus a number of premixes. The routines are aimed at advanced exercisers to challenge the muscles in different ways and are great for travel, as you only need the bands and loops to do the workouts. Each DVD contains a 50+ minute workout, one focusing on total body strength and the other on low impact cardio combined with lower body and core. Cathe also now offers her own brand of fabric bands and loops, hence these new workouts, and offers bundles with or without the DVDs. I didn’t buy her bands or loops, as the shipping costs were too high but I did buy a set of longer fabric bands from Amazon and I already have a set of fabric loops, which I frequently use with other workouts. So I can’t comment specifically on Cathe’s bands or know the exact strength of each but I guess they are reasonably similar and so that is what my review is based on.
This workout includes a variety of lower body strength exercises combined with low impact cardio intervals. The routine starts with standing work and then you move to the floor for lower body floorwork and core on the mat. All of the exercises use the resistance loop and so you are getting extra work for the lower body during the cardio and core moves too.
The first section is all standing lower body strength and cardio. The cardio intervals are all familiar Cathe low impact moves but with the addition of the loop, such as, line taps, lateral skates etc. (As a side note, she also jumps most of these moves so they are not entirely low impact, however, you can obviously modify completely to low impact, if you prefer). I will say I am not a huge fan of doing the cardio moves with the fabric loop, as it feels rather awkward, particularly as most of the time the band ends up around the top of your thighs and isn’t really doing that much but that’s just my opinion! This is especially so for the Spiderman climbers and it just felt a little annoying rather than useful. Overall though, there are only a few cardio moves and they are not done for too long so they are really there just to get your heart rate up a little bit, rather than to provide a real cardio challenge.
The standing strength work is mainly a number of lunge variations, which I was a little surprised by as I find them a little awkward with the band and was definitely expecting more squat variations to make the most of the loop around your thighs. However, in general the fabric bands are definitely much better for this type of move, as they don’t roll up the way the firewalker bands do and they also don’t break which is a definite plus! I did feel the work here but it wasn’t really challenging. The reps are also not too high and you do get rest breaks in between.
The next part of the workout is then on the floor, focusing on the glutes with moves in a tabletop position (on all fours), such as, pizza presses and hydrants before moving into clams shells and different variations of glute bridges. Cathe used a mix of light and medium tension resistance bands for these moves. I used a medium resistance loop for the majority of the moves and a heavy resistance loop for the bridge series so I was definitely starting to feel the work towards the end of this section. However, the reps are not that high – 32 is the highest - so although you will start to feel it, it was not completely killer like Caroline Girvan’s glute work! You get far more breaks in between and I was never reaching burnout on any of the moves.
The workout then ends with a short core section on the mat and again you are using the loop for all of the different moves. Cathe again only used a light resistance loop so I used a medium one, as otherwise I don’t think I would have gotten much benefit from this. I rather liked the variety of moves but I definitely felt the work more in my lower body than my core. Overall, this was definitely a more intermediate level routine when compared to say Caroline Girvan’s band work and although I did feel nicely worked, it did not provide the advanced level challenge I was expecting. Plus if you used lighter resistance, like Cathe did, for many of the moves I think it would be even less so.
One thing to note, is that unlike Cathe’s previous DVDs, both of the new workouts do not contain any bonus add-ons at all. I was rather disappointed by this, particularly as there are also only limited premixes too – eight per workout - and they are not very imaginative. However, I did like the Double Floorwork & Glutes option (Mish Mosh Premix 2) though, as that gives you the chance to do more floorwork, which I like!
Overall, an enjoyable, low impact, cardio and lower body strength workout that ends with a little core. This is also a good travel workout, as you only need a resistance loop for this routine.
The Workout – Boss Loops: Glutes & Core
Boss Loops: Glutes & Core is a low impact cardio, lower body and core workout consisting of a mix cardio and strength focused exercises using fabric resistance loops. The exercises include both standing and floorwork and ends with core on the mat.
This DVD does not include any bonus add-ons.
What You Need to Know
(Rating scale – 1= lowest & 5 = highest).
The Moves
Boss Loops: Glutes & Core is 51 minutes long. The workout starts with a 4 minute warm-up before moving into the first strength move. Cardio moves shown in bold italics below.
After the warm-up, Cathe starts the main workout with the medium resistance loop already around her thighs – there is no transition time for this so you may wish to have the remote handy to pause or just be very quick about getting that loop on!
Standing Glutes & Cardio
Side step / sumo squat / crossback lunge – medium resistance loop – 2 sets each side (4 reps of each)
Crab walks / lateral skates – medium resistance loop – 2 sets each side (4x crab & 16x skate)
Alternating rear lunges / rear lunge knee, rear lunge & stand – medium resistance loop – 12x alt, 4 & 4 reps w/ knee plus 2 sets (8x alt, 4 & 4 reps w/ knee) – 1st side. 3 sets (8x alt, 4 & 4 reps w/ knee) – 2nd side
Spiderman climbers x2 & 1 arm reach – medium resistance loop – 8 sets each side
Alternating forward reaching lunges (reaching forward & down) – medium resistance loop – 24 reps (alt 4 of each)
Woodchops / attacks (jumping) – medium resistance loop – 24 reps
Alternating forward reaching lunges (reaching forward & down) – medium resistance loop – 24 reps (alt 4 of each)
Woodchops / attacks (jumping) – medium resistance loop – 24 reps
Slow side lunge w/ shoulder mobility stretch (1 arm reach) / alternating side lunge w/ 1 leg abduction - medium resistance loop – 4x lunge w/ reach & 8x abduction
“Scoop water out of the pool” (line taps; scooping arms) – medium resistance loop – 32 reps
Slow side lunge w/ shoulder mobility stretch (other side) / alternating side lunge w/ 1 leg abduction - medium resistance loop – 4x lunge w/ reach & 8x abduction
“Scoop water out of the pool” (others side) – medium resistance loop – 32 reps
Glutes On The Floor At 20:58 Minutes
Pizza press / push kicks (1 leg kick outs to back) – light resistance loop (I used medium) & mat – 32x press & 16x kicks each side
Fire hydrants pulses – light resistance loop (I used medium) & mat – 2 sets (8x slow & 4x 3 pulses) each side
Straight leg lifts / straight leg up & over – light resistance loop (I used medium) & mat – 32x strgt leg & 4 sets up & over (1x slow & 2x fast) each side
Clam shell (leaning on knee; bent leg lifts) – light resistance loop (I used medium) & mat – 8 reps, 4 reps & 4 reps
Glute bridge abduction – medium resistance loop (I used heavy) & mat – 8 reps
Glute bridge pulses – medium resistance loop (I used heavy) & mat – 32 reps
Glute bridge abduction slow – medium resistance loop (I used heavy) & mat – 16 reps
Frog thrusters – medium resistance loop (I used heavy) & mat – 40 reps
Leg drops – medium resistance loop (I used heavy) & mat – 15 reps
1 Leg glute bridge - medium resistance loop (I used heavy) & mat – 36 reps
Leg drops (other side) – medium resistance loop (I used heavy) & mat – 16 reps
1 Leg glute bridge (other side) - medium resistance loop (I used heavy) & mat – 38 reps
Core On Mat At 36:40 minutes
Scissor pumps (scissor straight legs w/ pulse) – light resistance (I used medium) & mat – 24 reps
Butterfly sit-ups w/ abduction – light resistance loop & mat – 14 reps
Bike manoeuvre – light resistance loop (I used medium) & mat – 10 sets (2x 2 pulses & 4x singles)
2x Plank tap ins (tap foot to outside shoulder) & 2x plank step outs (step foot out to side & in) – light resistance (I used medium) & mat – 8 sets (2 of each)
Superman lat pull down (opening legs at same time as you pull down the arms) – light resistance loop (I used medium) & mat – 12 reps
Tabletop abduction (in bear hover; open & close knees while keeping knees off floor) – light resistance loop (I used medium) & mat – 12 reps
Bird dog – light resistance loop (I used medium) & mat – 16 reps & 8 reps (w/ knee)
The workout ends with a 4:30 minute cool down and stretch.
Premixes
Boss Loops: Glutes & Core has 8 premixes on the dvd.
(Premixes are extra bonus workouts included on the dvds that use the main workout as the backbone and then add, remove or change the order of elements to create a new routine. The premixes are also available on Cathe's On Demand streaming service).
Timesaver Premixes
Mish Mosh Premixes
Take Action
These workouts are available individually on DVD, download or through Cathe’s On Demand streaming service ($19.99 per month, which also includes access to all of the Cathe Live archived classes).
Check out my reviews of the other workout in this series by visiting my Cathe DVD Reviews page HERE. Alternatively go directly to the blog post HERE.
If you liked this workout, check out my review of Cathe Live: Legs Cardio & Core (#330) – HERE.
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