I don’t think I’ve been so happy to see the arrival of a weekend since I started fitness full-time. This may have been my busiest week yet and I definitely taught the most classes that I have ever taught in one week – 18 between Sunday and today! That is insane.
I am determined that this weekend will be ultra-productive and I got off to a great start this afternoon. I kicked-off my organization rampage with a bang and got a ton done in the guest bedroom (AKA my closet) and cleaned out my car (including the trunk) and took it to get washed. Ahh…feeling so much better already. Nothing in the house is safe this weekend – I am going to be ruthless with the “trash” pile. 😉
Breakfast this morning was banana pumpkin oatmeal. I haven’t opened a can of pumpkin in months but it sounded good this morning. Oatmeal included oats, oat bran, chia seeds, golden raisins, pumpkin pie spice, salt, banana, pumpkin, milk and water. Topped with sunflower seed butter and Crofter’s Superfruit Spread.
I made a late lunch when I got home from teaching deep stretch and vinyasa flow classes. I made a panini/grilled cheese with apricot preserves, brie, apples and spinach on Great Harvest Whole Grain Goodness. I cooked it in a cast iron skillet with Kerrygold salted butter. Apples and carrots on the side.
BodyPump 80 Review
We launched BodyPump 80 at the Y this week and I am loving the release! It is challenging and includes new and fun innovations. I also feel like it is more cardio intensive.
Here is the track list…
- Warm Up: Resuscitate Me – September
- Squats: The Edge Of Glory (Glory Mix) – Red Beans & Rice
- Chest: Smells Like Teen Spirit – Ninth Immortal
- Back and Hamstrings: The Tide – Twilight
- Triceps: Till The World Ends – Britney Spears
- Biceps: Eye Of The Tiger – Altiyan Childs
- Lunges: Fading Like A Flower (Club Radio Mix) – Dan Winter
- Shoulders: Hands Up! (Sample Ripperz Remix) – Jens O
- Abs: Rolling In The Deep – Colourbox
- Cool Down: Fade Into Me – David Cook
Warm Up – the warm ups in BodyPump are pretty formulaic but this one does include a little more of a cardio focus with more single repetitions, especially with dead rows.
Squats – there are nearly 150 squats squeezed into this track. It’s heavy on the singles which are not only challenging but also drive the heart rate up. It’s broken into three sets of work. I don’t love the cover of “The Edge of Glory.”
Chest – the chest track is pretty standard but packs a punch at the end with 20 singles. It annoys me a little that the music is recycled from a shoulder track a few releases back.
Back and Hamstrings – this track sees the return of the power press combo where you clean and press and then complete three overhead presses before coming down and then it’s followed by triple dead rows and then a lot of wide rows. LOVE THIS! I not only got the cardio benefit from the clean and press power combo but my back was burning from all the dead rows and the long sets of repeaters in the wide rows.
Triceps – HARD! First things first, love Britney in this track. You start off with a couple of sets of work with the bar before moving into triceps pushups and overhead extensions. The triceps pushups in the middle are what really put this over the edge because there’s a set of 16 singles. I struggled to complete them all on my toes and I pride myself on my love for pushups of any kind! 😉
Biceps – there’s no break in the bicep track but it’s still relatively easy. Usually I struggle the most with biceps but I actually feel like I could go up on my weight here. I like the retro music selection and the choreography goes great with it.
Lunges – it’s hard to say whether lunges or shoulders are the shining star of this release. I think they are equally
Shoulders – just when I think they can’t make shoulders any more difficult, they do. This shoulder track might be the hardest one since I started teaching BodyPump (back on release 66). It’s designed to be circuit-style training. You start out with the bar doing overhead presses and then move to the plates for a variety of exercises including the new rotator press. Then you hit the floor for a big set of 16 pushups before repeating the plate work and another set of pushups. Then it ends with more overhead presses with the bar. Wow!
Abs – usually I find BodyPump abs to be pretty easy but I found myself shaking during the hovers and side planks at the end of this track. The holds are long and with tired shoulders, you have no choice but to use every ounce of ab strength that you have to stay in it.
Cool Down – I never study the choreography for cool down but I like the song! I’m always just so happy to be on the floor and stretching by that point that I love all cool downs! 🙂
For those of you who BodyPump – what do you think of BodyPump 80?
I teach BP as well and I do love the new release!
I LOVE Body Pump 80! I’ve been able to PILE on the weight because of how much fun these tracks are! My favourite is definitely the shoulders track….I actually got the song to use as the last track on my runs! SO MUCH FUN (and sweaty)!!! 🙂
I am loving 80. The Y here in Huntsville launched it a couple of weeks ago. I love the lunges they are a bit more exciting this time around. The solders track is the worst. It just kills me every time. Maybe one day it will get a bit easier. (said sarcastically)
Your sandwiches always look so good!
My gym just started offering BP in January and I am loving release 80! The shoulder track is definitely a killer, and I love/hate the lunge track. I can’t wait to see what the next release holds!
I actually LOVE how hard the lunges are!! I love the ab track too 🙂
Well this is what I did this week at my FIRST Body Pump class ever. The instructor was real nice and made sure I had light weights but the triceps and shoulders were still hard with the light. 🙂 Loved it and cant wait to go back… it’s nice to hear your thoughts on it since you teach it!
I agree, that sandwich looks and sounds delicious. Always have to make sure I’m not hungry while reading your blog!
I’m likin’ this track! The shoulder & ab track I felt like they really amped up and both are pretty difficult for me. Especially the shoulder…by the end I am dying! (But in a good way… 🙂 )
I can’t wait to go back to BP and try the new release !
You sure are busy 😉 Gosh, you’re like the Duracell/Energizer bunny!
I don’t really know what ‘program colours’ are, but when I saw the pic I thought it was so cute how your outfit completely colour matched your surroundings !!!
Have a great weekend!
I’ve been doing Body Pump on and off for four years and I can say without hyperbole that the shoulder track definitely has to be one of the hardest ever. I like the chest and bicep tracks because I’m a fan of those songs anyway, and I don’t find lunges too hard because lunges has always been my strongest track (lots of running probably helps with strength in that area?) I really don’t like the back track but I rarely do – power presses kill me and I’m always worried about overbalancing…I think the only back track I’ve ever liked was Pyromania – I miss it so much!
The other tracks are all ‘in the middle’ for me…pretty average. I do enjoy squats anyway but I’m always embarrassed in triceps because I can’t do a single tri pushup on my toes, yet can do over 50 guy pushups on my toes. So I look like a weakling!
Abs is the most challenging abs track ever – I always find them very easy but for the first time ever my abs actually hurt for days afterwards.
80 is a great release – one of the most difficult for a long time.
xxx
This sounds great! I hope my gym launches it soon!
BP 80, love the warm up as it’s longer, love the legs high intensity aerobic conditioning (and maybe a little crush on Matty T.) :), Certified in August so didn’t know chest track was a recycle, but see no reason for that when there is a plethora of great tunage at our fingertips…(thumbs down). Back– great cardio kicker, triceps…just when I thought I was strong as an ox…I cannot complete the 16 on the toes either…yet! Bi’s seem hard to me, I was surprised to read you found these easy. Lunges without words…literally. 🙂 Shoulders knocked it out of the park, but I’m missing the mac raises as we haven’t seen them since 78. Love, love, love the ab track and find it very similar to the intensity of CXWORX abs.
Totally random but just thought I’d share that I dreamed that you chopped all your hair off pixie-style – and it looked fabulous!!! 🙂 No idea why you turned up during my slumber (is that creepy? :shock:) but thought you’d find this funny. No BodyPump at my gym, we have a similar class but it’s only offered twice a week and I really can only make one of them. Sad. Wish someone would get trained in it and teach it. Hmm. 😉
I finally joined a gym with BP. I went this morning and it was packed and no room. I was seriously jealous of the workout they had. I will have to get there earlier next time. I learned my lesson. Thanks for the review. Now I will know exactly what to expect.
Hi there, I’m a BodyPump fanatic so I always love reading others’ reviews of the latest releases (especially instructors’ reviews). I agree that the shoulder track is one of the hardest ever… instructors have been warning us about the lunge track for months, so I went into it knowing what to expect but that shoulder track — yikes! I can barely get through that last set with the bar. The new lunge track is awesome – it’s a nice change from previous releases – and I like the warmup song (except it gets stuck in my head for the rest of the day). Overall, I absolutely love BodyPump 80!
BodyPump sounds really amazing! I’d love to give it a try one of these days!
I’m a runner who has started to add in yoga about 3 times per wk. I tend to gravitate toward DVDs and I used to go to the on demand channels on my tv for workouts. Or YouTube. They recently changed the exercise tv workouts and I’m not a fan on the new workouts. I like workouts more for strengthening so my question is have u ever thought about taping one of your yoga classes or one of ur own practices for the blog so we could follow along? If not, have any recommendations for YouTube?
Im loving your sneakers in this picture! What are they?
Smells Like Teen Spirit is dung by Nirvana not whatever band this site has listed.
it’s a cover of the song…so different artist.