Focus On: HIGHX

Hi friends! Thank you so much for all of your awesome nap/sleep advice over on the Family page. I always appreciate your expertise!

For today’s Focus On, I’m going to feature a workout I recently had the opportunity to experience. The best part: it was led by the creator herself, Gabby Reece. 

During Blogfest, we were able to try out one of her HIGHX workouts, which had us cheering, sweating like crazy, and working HARD.

Here’s the workout breakdown: 

What to expect:

HIGHX is a 50-minute workout, which combines strength, cardio drills, flexibility/mobility and core work. The workout is performed circuit-style, and participants are split into groups. In each circuit, you’ll work for 3 minutes total. During the 3 minutes, you will likely have 2-3 exercises that you’re rotating between for 30-second blocks. For example, you may be doing ladder drills for 30 seconds following by Russian twists for 30 seconds, and complete 3 rounds of each for 3 minutes total. After you finish your 3 minutes, you continue onto the next station. Before beginning the workout, all of the stations are demonstrated so you have an idea of what to expect and how to modify or progress as needed. 

From their YouTube video:

HIGHX is revolutionary 50 minute high-intensity explosive training and conditioning program designed to maximize the body’s ability to incinerate fat, sculpt lean muscle, optimize the body’s hormonal and physiological response to exercise while improving overall daily and athletic performance.

A little taste of what the workout looks like:

 

Pros:

-You work at your own level. I love workouts that don’t prescribe a set amount of reps within the time block, which makes it truly attainable for all fitness levels. You complete as many quality reps as you can, and work at your own pace. The only person you’re competing against is yourself, and over time, you’ll be able to see how much stronger/more fit/faster you’ve become.

-THE MUSIC. I’m not sure if this is across the board, but the music she chose was so, so good with some crazy old-school rap and hip hop. It had been way too long since I’d heard T.I., and Katy and I had to take a little break to booty shake with our baby bellies hahah. 

-Safe, functional exercises. Sometimes when I take a new class, I’m surprised to see exercises/techniques that are either unsafe or don’t make any sense. I felt like anyone could complete these movements safely, and they provided lots of options to make things easier or more challenging as needed. 

(Friends that plank together, stay together)

-Focus on flexibility and mobility. The goal of flexibility training is to maintain full range of motion in your joints, and many of the exercises she chose were counter-exercises to our natural habits that can cause altered movement patterns and possibly injury. For example, we spend a lot of time hunched over technological devices and typing. There was an awesome chest opener to stretch these tight chest muscles, and we worked on building strength in our back to target these weaker muscles and improve posture. Some of the exercises included balance challenges, like slow leg kicks and single-leg work. Proprioception is SO important, especially as we age. If we continue to challenge our balance as we get older, it can help to prevent falls later on. 

-Circuit workouts burn fat, and go by quickly. Metabolic training is an extremely efficient way to train, especially fi you don’t have a lot of time to work out. Since the heart rate in continuously elevated, you will likely burn more calories by moving quickly from one exercise to the next with minimal rest. Also, you can’t get bored if you’re moving quickly!

-It was hard, but not unmanageable. I didn’t feel like the entire workout was set out to kill us. I feel like sometimes with group ex, it can be challenging to find that middle ground where class makes you work to your limit, but doesn’t leave you feeling totally drained. It really felt like a *perfect* workout.

Cons:

-It’s not available everywhere.. yet. Prior to Blogfest, I hadn’t heard of HIGHX, and from Googling around, I found out it just launched in 2015. I hope it gains popularity and continues to spread!

Have you heard of HIGHX before? How often do you circuit train in your own routine?? Is there a professional athlete that you truly admire?

Hope you have a wonderful night!

xoxo

Gina

More Focus On posts:

Zumba

Sparkcycle

BodyPump

Orangetheory

CORE40

Barre workouts

Turbofire

Flywheel

Shockwave