I was just reading in SandMan's Blog how Maggi went to karate (kyokushin) to lose weight, and soon found herself saying " Ya know? I wanted to do Karate to help me get in shape but now I want to get in shape to do Karate" and she did. Maggi went on to lose 131pounds.
I started playing tennis at 240 pounds. At 5'6", it was not pretty, but I didn't care, I loved it. Because of my bad shape, I developed tennis elbow. I wanted to play tennis more than anything though so I looked up how to fix tennis elbow and found that weight training helped. It seemed silly to just train my elbow so I did a whole body program. I went through several, not finding my fit until I got ChaLEAN Extreme.
Mind you. I wasn't dieting. I had already dieted myself up to the 240 pounds. Seemed that every time I did a "diet" I would get heavier in the end. So when I did ChaLean, i wasn't watching what I ate. It wasn't about losing weight, it was all about playing tennis. (my weight loss came later, Maggi already told my story of weight loss and kyokushin). Still I lost inches and I was more active throughout the day. Later when I was all about dropping pounds so I could fight better, ChaLEAN helped.
What I liked ~ PROS
ChaLean Extreme is a great workout for women and men. The stories and setting seems to be for the girls and in every video is the token guy. I will tell you right now, do not let the long blond hair extensions fool you, this workout is killer and a guy will definitely see just as many benefits as the gals, if not more because guy are made to show more muscles.
There are three months of weight workouts. The workouts are about 35 minutes total, with a 5 minute warm-up. Three videos for each month, Monday Wednesday and Friday. By the time you can repeat the dialog and inspirational phrases just before Chalene says them, the workout changes up to three different workouts.
Chalene tells you that "muscle burns fat" and it is very true. There are ten exercises in each video. Each exercise is designed to hit the upper and lower body. For example a bicep curl while doing a sumo squat. These exercises are done slowly, sometimes it is a ten count up and a ten count down.
Each exercise is done for one set, but don't worry, you will hit that muscle group again, but you will have a different exercise, working it different. In the first month the sets are 10 -12 reps to failure. If you can do 12 reps, it is time to up your weights so you can only do ten next time.
The same concept of failure continues with the next two months but the number of reps change. The second month you are to lift very heavy weights for 6 - 8 reps. and then the third is back to the 10 - 12 reps. The third month the videos are longer, about 45 minutes total.
These weight workouts are worth the money.
What I disliked ~ CONS
On to the cardio. Well the cardio is not my favorite. It made me feel uncoordinated. To be fair, I don't enjoy too many cardio videos. Seems like a lot of these are designed by dancers, and I am no dancer. I can do combinations, like left jab, right hook. Those are commands I understand. I shall not ever sash-shay. Just me and my opinion. I don't think they are bad videos, just that they aren't for me.
Summary
I LOVE ChaLean Extream and have done three rounds of it. It is totally worth the money. I switch out the cardio with videos from P90X, jump rope, biking, or the kinect. I have just started my forth time. I don't these constantly but work other stuff in between.
