ZCUT #1

For Valentine's Day boyfriend got me a whole slew of healthy-themed things off my Amazon wishlist, one of which was Zuzana's 'ZCUT Power Cardio' DVDs. Since there are a whole buncha things I wanted to accomplish this evening, not least of which was get to the grocery store AND cook dinner, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to check out my new workouts.

I was first introduced to Zuzana a maybe a year ago (ish?) when she was still part of the bodyrock.tv crew -- I can't remember who or what pointed me in that direction, but I became a tentative fan. BodyRock's whole thing is at-home, short, super intense HIIT-style workouts. Exactly up my alley; lord knows I hate spending more than about 6 seconds doing any one thing. Plus, these people were CUT. Clearly what they're doing is working. Probably. I hope...

So I really wanted to be a 'bodyrocker', but I had some issues with their system. As bodyrock grew in popularity, their workouts changed -- they went from being primarily body-weight, no equipment needed workouts to needing to have some weird-ish things on hand. They were still at-home workouts, but your home had to have a sandbag, a dip station, some weird ball... basically a bunch of things I didn't feel like purchasing and couldn't be found in my Gold's Gym. I tried to fake it for awhile, using dumbbells instead of a bag and that sort of thing, but I wasn't really 'getting it'. Apparently several of the hardcore bodyrockers felt the same and they were always suggesting going back through the archives.

And here's where I really fell out with bodyrock -- their website archive was a DISASTER. The search function was nearly non-existant and the filtering was a joke. And what was filtered was usually a lie -- using a sandbag does not mean equipment-free! So I gave up entirely. Sorry bodyrock - I wanted to love you, but it just wasn't meant to be.

So how did Zuzana's DVDs end up on my Amazon list if I stopped visiting her website? Well, I can think the Fitnessista for that. Apparently sometime last year Zuzana and her man Freddie broke up and there was a thing and blah blah moral of the story she's no longer with bodyrock and is now doin' her own thing over at zuzkalight.com. And part of her new thing is this DVD set, which the Fitnessista bought and reviewed favorably. And since it appears to harken back to the early days of bodyrock, where things were fast and furious and devoid of accessories, I figured I'd give it a try (especially if someone else bought it for me!).

The workout is comprised of a 7 minute warmup followed by a series of exercises done for time. While I won't go into exact details because I don't want to infringe on her product, the exercises involved were burpees, jump tucks, burpees, jump lunges, burpees, crab kick-ups, burpees, low jacks, burpees, and more burpees. Fucking burpees.

Pre

Energy Level [1-5]: 3

Sore Areas: Enh.

Yesterday: A sad excuse for a cardio workout.

Environment: Indoors, at home. Dog looking at me like I'm crazy.

Workout
Warmup: dynamic 7:00 [squats, lunges, pushups, etc]
Equipment: None!
Work Time: 10:00

ZCUT #1 - total time: 9:43

Post
Energy Level [1-5]: 4
Stretch Time: 0:00
Total in-Gym Time: 0:00!

Day After
Sore Level [1-5]: 2
Sore Areas: Quads, a little

Comments
I kept up! I didn't think I was going to since Zuzanna is super fit, but while she owned me on the many (many) burpees I managed to catch up during some of the other moves. Those crab kicks are maybe one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do -- my shoulders at not flexible enough for that shit.