After a week at home and messing up my diet plan with copious amounts of alcohol with my girls, a massive steak brunch followed by oozing sticky toffee pudding with my dad, and a delicious meal at Las Iguanas for my mum's birthday - which most certainly included a massive slice of a chocolate covered birthday cake for dessert - it's safe to say I fell off track but, I had an awesome time and it was all totally worth it ;)
This week is No. 7 of my M10 program and with only a week left to go I wanted to try and catch up with how I should be if I hadn't indulged at home so, I stuck in some extra cardio in Sunday and used it as an excuse to try a fitness class at Virgin Active - for even extra cardio this week.
A while ago I saw an article online for the best new fitness classes - one of these was a class called Animal Flow. It looked cool and I immediately knew a person who would be really interest in checking it out - my boyfriend. Within moments he was watching video clips of the different movements involved; like bear crawls and frog jumps. The following week we added them into our circuit routines as warm ups.
Zuu is a body weight workout created by mimicking primal movements of animals. It's a mix of cardio, stability, flexibility, functional and strength work, from core, to lots of upper arm and thigh power. It's a great way of increasing mobility and you'd be surprised how tough it really is!
Zuu is very similar to Animal Flow and creates a workout using primal movement patterns in high intensity blasts - in just 20 minutes. I saw they had the class in Virgin Active and was curious to see if I could pick up anymore moves for my own workout routines.
I arrived there early Monday morning. We all gathered into a circuit as the class teacher continued; "Zuu is all about team work and motivating each other - I wanna hear all of you!" We started off with frog squats - she counted us in and, within a blink, all of us were counting with her - a minute of this and my hamstrings and quads were already burning. We then tried a number of other moves in quick sprints; from bear crawls, to donkey kicks ( which the teach made look very easy - almost springing into a handstand with her legs kicking back), to a variety of press ups.
The class was really fun and it made everyone laugh... but also moan in pain! 20 minutes doesn't sound like a long time but, believe me, it's plenty!
Here's Zuu's top primal movements to add to your workouts with advancements to bring out the animal in you:
Bear crawls: On all fours, step off with your right foot and left arm – crawl, keeping your knees off the ground. The full-body demands will have you howling and dog-tired.
Change it up:
1. Bear crawl backwards.
2. Wide leg; try and reach your foot to the same hand with each step.
3. Add kick-throughs;
On all fours, lift your right leg and left hand. Rotate your leg beneath you and kick it out. Return and repeat to the right.
Frog jumps: Stand with feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, arms by sides. Lower into a deep squat and place palms on floor between feet and spring forwards reaching yours hands out and landing softly into the starting position.
Change it up:
1. Frog jumps backwards
2. Long frog jumps - the same but reaching as far as possible.
3. Instead of jumping with feet wide - change your feet to a narrow position with knees together and arms outside of the legs and jump (Monkey jumps).
Crab crawls: From the crab, step off with your left foot and right arm, switching sides and keeping your hips an inch off the floor. Remember to go forward, not sideways.
Change it up:
1. Crab crawls backwards
2. Crab crawl sideways.
Lateral traveling ape: Place your hands to the side of your feet, lift your hips and kick your leg out to the side, landing with the other leg. Alternate sides.
Press ups: Traditional press ups.
Change it up:
1: Get into a traditional push up position. When you move toward the floor, bring your right knee to your right elbow, keeping it off the ground. Press back up to starting position and alternate sides. Once you mastered this try it traveling - move one hand forward on the floor whilst bringing the same leg up to the hand and the floor next to it, push and do the same with your opposite side.
2.Hindu Push up; Adopt a standing position, with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. From there, bend over and place your hands onto the floor, keeping your arms and legs straight as you do so. Keep your head naturally aligned with your spine, looking towards the floor, or back towards your feet.
GO BEASTMODE!
GO BEASTMODE!