Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I found Iron Yoga at the library and I’ve been working out with it several times before I have to return it. Here is how it stacks up.

The workout video is VERY watchable. There is none of that irritating patter. The only thing the instructor says are directions about how to hold the poses correctly. This video is hosted by Anthony Carillo, who is a “nationally ranked Ironman triathlete.” I had never heard of him before watching this video, but the instructor doesn’t need to be famous. All the instructor needs to do is give me intricately clear directions and refrain from saying anything else. This isn’t a workout video that will ever need to be muted in order to be enjoyed.

I’ve been weight training for over two months, so I didn’t think this would give me much of a workout. In fact, I tried this with 3-pound weights because I thought I’d just take it easy the first time through, but it was very challenging. There were several times when I needed to set down the weights because the poses were very difficult with them. For now, I’ve had to use my 1.5-pound weights and I’ll increase the weight when I gain more balance.

It’s not the kind of workout that will burn a lot of calories, however. It’s almost an hour long and I burned about half the calories that I would have burned had I run on the treadmill that long. It’s great for developing balance, but not so good for burning calories.

According to my Nike Imara, these are the stats for my first workout:

Total Minutes: 56′:49″
Total Calories Burned: 274
Average Heart Rate: 109 BPM
Time in Moderate Zone: 37′:47″
Time in High Zone: 4′:50″
Time in Low Zone: 14′:12″

Evaluation:

I usually hate workout videos, but this is one that is challenging. There is no annoying chatter that becomes so irritating after several viewings. This is a workout that I’m willing to buy and after seeing the inexpensive price at Amazon, I was easily able to justify it.