Weight Loss Cardio Kick

VN:F [1.9.13_1145]

A 51-minute workout that combines cardio kickboxing and sculpting. It’s also divided into two 31-minute premixes. Violet Zaki instructs.

Intermediate exercisers, or ambitious advanced beginners. You won’t need a huge kickboxing background — the moves are pretty basic. For the sculpting segment you will need two pairs of weights, something in the 1 to 5-pound area. Stay very light on the lighter weights, as you’ll be using them for punches. If you’re closer to beginner, then punch without them.

I like Violet Zaki’s workouts because they’re effective and efficient. Take this kickboxing DVD — in a little over 50 minutes, you get in both sculpting and cardio, with lots of calorie burning power and without compromise. The first 20-minute workout segment (after the warm-up) is a series of alternated sculpting, weighted kickboxing and cardio segments. The sculpting moves are your traditional squats, lunges, bicep curls and the like (you use your heavier set of weights here), and then you move seamlessly into the weighted kickboxing drills (you use your lighter weights) or pure cardio kickboxing (no weights at all). The second 20 minutes is pure kickboxing drills, in which Zaki pours on a variety of combos to work up a sweat. Each of these two segments can also be done as part of a pre-programmed mix that, with warm-up and cool down added in, come to 31 minutes of exercise a piece. There is also a tutorial, but it’s actually not all that great — you get enough instruction in the warm up and throughout the routines to know how to do these moves anyhow. Zaki doesn’t have you doing anything fancy — she just wants you to burn calories, get strong and get toned with as little fuss as possible. And she does it with a smile on her face that keeps you from taking it all too seriously.