Since going Paleo my family has fallen even more in love with our grill. Paleo and grilling just work well together. The past couple of years I've even been stepping outside my grilling comfort zone more and more. Grilling things I'd never thought to have grilled before and trying new flavor combinations. I have to say I'm pretty thrilled with the results of most of my flavor experiments. In the past I'd never have thought to grill fruit, but it's amazing. Grilling fruit and adding it to traditionally savory dishes? Brilliant. Oh yes, and? New rule: every burger recipe for the rest of forever must contain grilled pineapple. OK, maybe more of a guideline. It's a seriously delicious combination though. This Smoky Grilled Pineapple Burger is always a crowd-pleaser at my house. It's not only Paleo, but Whole30, glutenfree, lower carb, and clean eating friendly. I promise you won't miss the bun! paleo, grilled pineapple burger, smoky...
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| A while back I was ecstatic to receive Cathe Friedrich's XTrain Series for review purposes. As always opinions are 100% honest and my own. |
The XTrain Workout Series is a total body fitness program that combines heavy weights with intense cardio. If you've read FitViews for long you can already guess this was a match made in heaven for me.
The XTrain Series comes with:
- 9 or 10 (deluxe set) calorie crushing workouts
- 142 Premix Workouts
- 2 Bonus Core Workouts
- 5 Bonus One Hundred Rep Challenges
- Bonus Rear Delts Workout
- Bonus Barre Workout
- STS Full Color User's Guide packed with four rotations and detailed XTrain workout details.
- Free XTrain Online Tools and Workout Cards
My unboxing video:
Disc 1 Chest, Back and Shoulders
Equipment needed: Dumbbells, Stability Ball, Resistance Tubing.
Bonuses: Core #1.
100 Rep Challenges: Lateral Raises.
This workout is an upper body strength training workout with little rest between moves. You will do 8 rounds of: 1 set chest, 1 set back, 1 set shoulders with new exercises for each round (no repeating moves here).
Disc 2 Bi's and Tri's
Equipment needed: Dumbbells, Stability Ball, Resistance Tubing.
Bonuses: Core #1 and Core #2.
100 Rep Challenges: Bicep Curls and Flat Bench Tricep Extensions.
This workout is an intense upper body strength workout focusing on biceps and triceps. You will do 9 rounds of 1 set biceps, 1 set triceps. Again, different exercise for every round.
Disc 3 Burn Sets
Equipment needed: Dumbbells, Bench or Step with Five Risers per Side, Incline Bench or Step with Two Risers on Front and Five Risers on the Back, Firewalker Loop, Resistance Tubing.
Bonuses: Core #1.
This workout includes two upper body workouts. Chest, Back, & Shoulders and Bi's & Tri's. You will work each muscle group with 3 sets of 3 exercises (the final set a burn set to failure) and then move on to the next muscle group.
Disc 4 Super Cuts
Equipment needed: Dumbbells, Slide N Glide Discs, Dixie Cups, Firewalker Loop, Resistance Tubing.
Bonuses: Core #1 and Core #2.
100 Rep Challenges: Hip Thrusts.
Super Cuts is low impact metabolic circuit workout. This is on of my favorite discs. A little taste:
Disc 5 Legs
Equipment needed: Dumbbells, Stability Ball, Slide N Glide Discs, Dixie Cups, Firewalker Loop, Chair.Bonuses: Rear Delts and Barre.
100 Rep Challenges: Hip Thrusts.
This workout is a mix of standing leg work, stability ball work, barre, and floorwork.
Disc 6 Cardio Leg Blast
Equipment needed: Dumbbells, Step with Three Risers per Side, Dixie Cups, Firewalker Loop.
Bonuses: Core #2 and Burn Set Bi's.
100 Rep Challenges: Hipe Thrusts, Scarecrows.
Cardio Leg Blast mixes cardio, such as plyo moves, and strength moves using moderate (not heavy as in the other strength workouts) weights.
Disc 7 All out Low Impact HIIT
Equipment needed: Dumbbells, Step, Slide N Glide Discs.
Bonuses: Core #1, Burn Set Chest, and Burn Set Shoulders.
100 Rep Challenges: Scarecrows.
This workout is a High Intensity Interval Training workout that Cathe manages to still keep low impact.
Disc 8 Hard Strikes
Equipment needed: Dumbbells, Optional Boxing Gloves.
Bonuses: Core #1, Burn Set Tri's, and Heavy Bag.
100 Rep Challenges: Bicep Curls.
Hard Strikes is a boxing infused cardio workout.
Disc 9 Tabatacise
Equipment needed: Step with Two Risers per Side.
Bonuses: Core #1, Core #2, and Burn Set Back.
100 Rep Challenges: Flat Bench Tricep Extensions and Bicep Curls.
Tabatacise is an intense tabata workout that lets you work up from level 1 to level 5. Another one of my favorite discs, this workout is no. joke.
XTRAIN User's Guide
This guide is jam packed with useful info. It includes several different calendars (from 30 days to 90 days) for workout XTrain workout rotations, discussion on the science behind Xtrain (undulating calendars, HIIT, Tabata, heavy lifting, etc), detailed info on every DVD and the exercises in each, finding the right weight to use including a one rep max chart and testing, nutritional info, and more.
What I loved most about XTrain:
- Variety. XTrain is all about variety. Variety in the types of workouts included, variety in the exercises you do in the workouts, variety in the workout calendars included, variety of premixes... So much variety. I love it. I'm not sure I could ever get bored here.
- Intensity. Cathe is definitely not playing around here. This is a tough workout set. Which of course I love. From lifting heavy to tabata to HIIT to plyo this set is intense start to finish. Expect to work and expect to have some sore muscles. All good things...right?!
- Seperate Cardio and Weights. I don't mind working in circuits, but I feel like that has become such a trend in at-home workouts that it can get old. I really like that most of the workouts in this set separate the cardio and the strength. I love being able to focus strictly on lifting or strictly on cardio.
- Online Tools. The online tools available at cathe.com/workout/ are very cool. There's calendars, workout rotations, tracking, a one rep max calculator, and so much more. I love that all of this is available to enhance the XTrain set.
I do want to note that XTrain is definitely not for beginners. It is more of an intermediate to advanced workout. Also, it does require a little more equipment than some workout sets. However, I think if you're serious about working out at home it's all definitely worth it. As someone who strictly works out at home I already had most of it. I also found that I could work around what I did not have, such as boxing gloves.
I get a lot of emails with people who have finished Body Revolution, ChaLEAN Extreme, etc and are looking for what to do next to kick it up a notch. I would absolutely recommend XTrain for this (or to anyone looking to take their fitness and their results up a notch).
I plan to blog my way through either a 30 day or 90 day calendar sometime post-baby. I can't wait to share my results!
Final Answer:
I've never given a workout system 5 stars before, but I wholeheartedly bestow 5 stars on Cathe's XTrain. This set rocks. Period.
