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Review: The New Dailyburn

by Pamela | January 12th, 2012

Before the holidays, I set a goal for myself: maintain my fitness while having time for friends, family and preparation for 2012. I had done well in my pursuit, keeping my weight and workouts in check. My editorial calendar and business goals for 2012 were also done. I was ready to loosen up a bit, have a good weekend with my family and focus on a new workout the day after Christmas.

Big mistake. Monday morning after Christmas I woke up with no idea what to do. No plan, no workout goals and, honestly, little motivation.  Yet the workout was on my calendar that morning so it had to be done.  I couldn’t take hours figuring it out. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was waiting on me!

I thought to myself, I need to reset. I usually take a rest week the first week of January, but I also knew I wanted to make a push before heading to SXSW again in March, add a little muscle drop a little fat.  New plan: take a rest week and use the time to formulate a new plan for the 10 or so weeks till SXSW.

But wait. I had a big day on Christmas. I ate more deviled eggs than I probably should have and at least 3 vegan banana blueberry muffins.  I needed to move.

Inspiration hit as I was eating my protein pancakes. Dailyburn recently revamped and created a new workout site (with the original site now labeled Dailyburn Tracker). I had done one of their workouts on Christmas Eve to try something new and found it enjoyable. Why not spend the week just working out with Dailyburn, I thought? Try something new everyday, test drive the new site and chronicle it all for you.

So here is my unsolicited review (I do blog for Dailyburn Life, but this was completely my own idea) of the New DailyBurn.

• Monday: I chose KIT with Judi Stettler. KIT stands for Kickboxing Interval Training. It wasn't as challenging as I had hoped. The asparagus vs. burger chant wasn’t terribly motivating, either. I don’t like burgers and I really do love asparagus.  I needed to push a little farther to compensate for a day off and the overindulgence of Christmas. I added the glute workout with Anja Garcia. Loved it. 10 minutes of booty lifting intensity.
• Tuesday:  Cardio Sculpt was up. With Judi again and itt was okay but I didn’t feel a lot of sculpt. I did get an aerobic workout, which was really my intent all along.
• Wednesday: Complete Kettlebell Circuit had been calling me all week. This was the day and I got a new trainer, Corey Storey. At first I wasn’t sure I would like him. I found his accent bothersome. I loved the extended yoga stretch at the end and it is an awesome beginning kettlebell workout. I may use what I learned to help my clients perfect their swing.  Warning: Use a lighter kettlebell for the YAW press or do the military press.  Trust me.
• Thursday: Rest day. Everyone deserves a rest day.
• Friday: It was an amazingly sunny and warm (at least for December) day. I decided to take a walk and follow up with some Restorative Yoga. It was 16 minutes with Corey Storey. His shirtlessness bothered me but his voice was so soothing at the end I almost feel asleep in corpse pose.
• Saturday: Powerball Strength with Anja Garcia. It started strong but sort of fizzled out at the end. It felt light on legs, which was surprising since most of her workouts are great for the glutes.
• Sunday: Back to Cardio Ball with Anja Garcia, the first Dailyburn workout I had tried on Christmas Eve. I didn't have a medicine ball at home but a dumbbell worked just fine. It was just as good as the first time, but I wondered if I had already run out of cardio options.

That was my week with Dailyburn. Overall, I like the idea of having multiple and seemingly appropriate workouts available every day. Anja is my favorite, maybe it’s our kindred Latina spirit. The workouts all have modifications. If you don’t have the equipment indicated in the details, don’t worry. There are always options for you. Same thing for fitness levels, there is always the basic, the beginner and the advanced option in each workout.

I do worry about there being a lack of a plan. It would be an easy for a beginner to do multiple strength workouts in a row, opening them up to the burnout or injury. The nutrition piece, in my opinion, also leaves something to be desired. For example, I indicated when I enrolled that I am a vegetarian yet the daily food suggestions always include meat.

When I asked, I was told that more specific nutrition recommendations would be coming.  I also don’t understand why workouts don’t track to the old site. Not only do they not track they aren’t even listed for me to do as a manual entry. Hence, nothing in my workout log for that week.

For variety and originality, I give it an 8. For structure, only a 4. The workouts are great, but look elsewhere for nutrition. Anyone else tried the New Dailyburn?

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