Completed today a combo of Flex+Booty and thought I might share some impressions.
Flex was the first FB program I ever did, combining it at the time (January 2019) with independent workouts, which was great. This time, I wanted to challenge myself more, so I combined it with Booty (rnd 1). I work out 5 days a week, with an optional 6th stretching/yoga-day and one day of complete rest. So, I alternated weeks of 3xFlex+2xBooty and 2xFlex+3xBooty to maintain the amount of exercise that works best for me. It took some serious rescheduling, but it functioned very well, one week hitting the upper body more and the next one the opposite, and it was totally worth the calendar hustle :-) Only downside of this practice was that Booty has a recovery alternative on each middle-of-three days, which was then essentially cancelled as an option, but I didn't feel I was missing out. With this structure and taking extra rest as needed (DOMS, menstruation, etc.), I completed the combo in 5 weeks. Also, it's worth to mention that I started right after our summer holidays, which this year involved two weeks of staycation and another one in a cabin in the woods, during which I had consciously wound down my workouts quite a bit and tried to get exercise mostly from walks/hikes.
Of course, after about 3 weeks of lighter workouts, the start of Flex was "explosive", with Daniel's Guaranteed Muscle Burn workout that resulted in seriously sore shoulders and pecs, but that hardly came as a surprise. Same with the first serious strength routine of Booty (Day 3), which gave me the sorest hamstrings I've had in quite a while. Healing from these two, things started smoothing out; some soreness, but not the completely debilitating kind. True to Kelli and Daniel's write-up (see Day 17 of Booty), I started noticing the most significant changes in strength, endurance, decrease in DOMS intensity and duration, as well as increase in muscle tone and mass entering the programs' 3rd week.
Workout-wise, the weather has not been my friend this whole summer, temperature highs correlating with programs involving HIIT and more intense workouts, which meant I skipped several extra credit challenges and had to go low-impact in the first week or so, not because the muscles said 'no', but because I feared that otherwise I might spontaneously combust... As the days cooled, I started enjoying my workouts much more, even the ones that were more rich on cardio (I find non-HIIT cardio kind of boring). It was certainly great to see how my cardiovascular endurance increased, as evidenced best by the fact that even 1 min cardio intervals did not longer hamper my performance during lifting. Where lifted weight is concerned, by the last week I solidified the gains I've been building since spring, especially for moves hitting the shoulders and back. For the lower body that was held back due to a nasty bout of sciatica earlier this year, I'm still not back to my previous maximum for deadlifts, but I'm noticing a quite speedy progress; most importantly, complaint-free :-)
Cannot possibly write impressions on Flex without a mention to pushups, considering how they've been a nightmare for me since school time (I'm now in my 40s). I was already very happy with my gains the first time I did Flex, but this time I was stunned! In the best of ways. Sure I need to work more on range of motion and endurance, but all variations that came my way were possible, even if only for a few repetitions before I had to modify to an easier version.
Overall, I never saw a reason why the two programs shouldn't make a great combo, still, it was nice to actually experience how well they click into each other. Flex has little cardio and is mostly lifting, but the cardio components in Booty provide adequate challenge to the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, so the whole ends up being very well balanced. Did not add extra core work, but from my performance in difficult exercises where a strong core is a must (e.g., pushup variations, deadlifts), it looks like I got what I needed. All in all, this may have been my favorite FB program so far. I love Flex, since I love upper body strength-training, but combined with Booty it was nicely rounded out, and I believe I enjoyed it even more this time. I'll be sure to try it in the future with Booty rnd 2.
Long story short, loved the combo, loved the results; I highly recommend it! Thanks for reading :-)
FB Flex + FB Booty Complete
Hello there, Blenders!
Completed today a combo of Flex+Booty and thought I might share some impressions.
Flex was the first FB program I ever did, combining it at the time (January 2019) with independent workouts, which was great. This time, I wanted to challenge myself more, so I combined it with Booty (rnd 1). I work out 5 days a week, with an optional 6th stretching/yoga-day and one day of complete rest. So, I alternated weeks of 3xFlex+2xBooty and 2xFlex+3xBooty to maintain the amount of exercise that works best for me. It took some serious rescheduling, but it functioned very well, one week hitting the upper body more and the next one the opposite, and it was totally worth the calendar hustle :-) Only downside of this practice was that Booty has a recovery alternative on each middle-of-three days, which was then essentially cancelled as an option, but I didn't feel I was missing out. With this structure and taking extra rest as needed (DOMS, menstruation, etc.), I completed the combo in 5 weeks. Also, it's worth to mention that I started right after our summer holidays, which this year involved two weeks of staycation and another one in a cabin in the woods, during which I had consciously wound down my workouts quite a bit and tried to get exercise mostly from walks/hikes.
Of course, after about 3 weeks of lighter workouts, the start of Flex was "explosive", with Daniel's Guaranteed Muscle Burn workout that resulted in seriously sore shoulders and pecs, but that hardly came as a surprise. Same with the first serious strength routine of Booty (Day 3), which gave me the sorest hamstrings I've had in quite a while. Healing from these two, things started smoothing out; some soreness, but not the completely debilitating kind. True to Kelli and Daniel's write-up (see Day 17 of Booty), I started noticing the most significant changes in strength, endurance, decrease in DOMS intensity and duration, as well as increase in muscle tone and mass entering the programs' 3rd week.
Workout-wise, the weather has not been my friend this whole summer, temperature highs correlating with programs involving HIIT and more intense workouts, which meant I skipped several extra credit challenges and had to go low-impact in the first week or so, not because the muscles said 'no', but because I feared that otherwise I might spontaneously combust... As the days cooled, I started enjoying my workouts much more, even the ones that were more rich on cardio (I find non-HIIT cardio kind of boring). It was certainly great to see how my cardiovascular endurance increased, as evidenced best by the fact that even 1 min cardio intervals did not longer hamper my performance during lifting. Where lifted weight is concerned, by the last week I solidified the gains I've been building since spring, especially for moves hitting the shoulders and back. For the lower body that was held back due to a nasty bout of sciatica earlier this year, I'm still not back to my previous maximum for deadlifts, but I'm noticing a quite speedy progress; most importantly, complaint-free :-)
Cannot possibly write impressions on Flex without a mention to pushups, considering how they've been a nightmare for me since school time (I'm now in my 40s). I was already very happy with my gains the first time I did Flex, but this time I was stunned! In the best of ways. Sure I need to work more on range of motion and endurance, but all variations that came my way were possible, even if only for a few repetitions before I had to modify to an easier version.
Overall, I never saw a reason why the two programs shouldn't make a great combo, still, it was nice to actually experience how well they click into each other. Flex has little cardio and is mostly lifting, but the cardio components in Booty provide adequate challenge to the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, so the whole ends up being very well balanced. Did not add extra core work, but from my performance in difficult exercises where a strong core is a must (e.g., pushup variations, deadlifts), it looks like I got what I needed. All in all, this may have been my favorite FB program so far. I love Flex, since I love upper body strength-training, but combined with Booty it was nicely rounded out, and I believe I enjoyed it even more this time. I'll be sure to try it in the future with Booty rnd 2.
Long story short, loved the combo, loved the results; I highly recommend it! Thanks for reading :-)