Cardio Athletic Kickbox

This is a nice kickboxing routine led by a very competent instructor, Eversley Forte. Eversley begins by explaining how to use your Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) as a gauge for your own intensity level while performing the workout. He then goes into a 5-minute instructional segment which explains each of the basic punches that will be used doing the workout; once you are familiar with the kickboxing moves, you can skip over this section.

The kickboxing segment begins with a lengthy (7-minute) warmup. During the warm-up, you will begin using some of the punches you learned; this section reminded me of the warm-up in Kathy Smith's Kickboxing Workout, as some of the moves are almost exactly the same. Eversley then moves into a 33-minute kickboxing routine. Like the title of the video suggests, the routine is very aerobic in nature, and exercises such as jumps and skipping rope (using an imaginary rope) are woven into the kickboxing moves. With respect to the kickboxing, Eversley focus mostly on punches, with only a few kicks included, although he does throw in a few basic kick-punch combinations. The aerobic/kickboxing segment is definitely intense, but you can modify the moves to reduce the impact, and Eversley frequently encourages you to take a break if needed. After getting your heart rate up, Eversley leads you through a 5-minute cool-down, and then he concludes the workout with a 5-minute abs segment performed on the floor. This short abs routine was surprisingly tough!

Unfortunately, this video included a bit too much traditional-type aerobics for my liking: I wish the workout had been more of a pure kickboxing routine similar to Kathy Smith's Kickboxing Workout (which is still my favorite), and I especially would have liked to have seen more kicks. Still, I enjoyed Eversley's style of teaching and would be likely to try another one of his workouts in the future.

This was the first cardio kickboxing tape I tried after doing Tae-Bo for a while. It's a solid, basic workout with intermediate intensity and a down-to-earth, engaging feel that might be a little cheesy at times but not annoying.

Instructor: Eversley Forte has an affable, mellow camera presence that manages to be both jokey and efficient. He is very thorough in pointers and especially in pushing safety and going at one's own pace with modifications for jumping jacks, hops and faux jump roping (there are no actual jump ropes). Even the setting is laid-back, with carpeting and planters. Very un-gym-like.

Other Exercisers: They look like normal, reasonably fit people, which can be refreshing and makes me relate to them more. Sometimes the lingering camera angles on impossibly bronzed and sculpted Baywatch bodies in videos like John Savidis' Kickbox 2000 bothers more than motivates. Eversley goes around and interacts with them, even teases them a bit, though they're pretty quiet.

Music: Cheesy canned workout music; the familiar tune has been featured in CIA videos.

Workout: Eversley does an extensive warmup (I usually fast-forward) and breakdown of the moves, lasting for about 15 minutes. Then he goes into simple jabbing and shuffling (modifications for low-impact are always demo'd). The jabbing is followed by cross-punching, then hooks. Then he puts it together for a combo: double jab, cross punch, hook, then four shuffles, slow and in double time. v Before you repeat this on the left side you do a squat sequence with kicks, only about eight of them.

After the left side arm combo, you do "shoeshine" drills, basically rapid-fire uppercuts. Then you do a series of four lateral squat-jumps, like a rabbit. Again he combines these into a four squat-jump-shoeshine-drill sequence.

After that comes foot stomps, designed to get you into a series of sidekicks, done at regular time, never doubletime. Then a knee-raise turning into a knee-raise punch combo on both sides. I sometimes do a roundhouse instead of a knee raise to increase intensity.

The final combo puts it all together, with double-jab, cross, hook, knee-raise, punch on both sides, separated by a "jump rope" section where you hop twice on each leg, then go into 4 back-and-forth jumps plus 4 jumping jacks.

The finale is a series of elbow jabs aimed towards the floor, with squat jumps to make them harder. Eversley gets really into it and looks like he's going to leap through the ceiling.

You have a brief cooldown and ab crunch section after that. The cardio workout is only 25 minutes but it's a good workout for when you don't have a lot of time or to add on to another short workout.