If you’ve been following along you may know that I am a fan of at home workouts. It wasn’t always that way and I know the appeal of getting out of the house and finding your tribe at a gym, but life gets crazy! To be honest working out with a mask on is a HARD NO for me and at this point I’m scared to get into a contract with a gym to be told that I may need a mask and be stuck. I have so much going on right now that I also enjoy the flexibility of getting my workout in on my own schedule. I’m a big fan of taking a program and following the calendar to a tee. I like the structure of it and it’s satisfying to start checking workouts as done as I move through the program.
Last week I finished yet another one of these programs! It’s called Morning Meltdown 100. I will start by sharing that I did not bother with before and after photos for this program. I chose this one for summertime and I knew this wasn’t going to be a time when my nutrition would be perfect. We traveled quite a bit this summer and even lived in the keys for a month and a half. I’m always honest that when I’m away from home- one of my favorite things to do is try different foods and local fare and sometimes that just doesn’t fit into the nutrition program. I knew going in I wasn’t going to achieve any amazing results because the nutrition just wasn’t going to be there.
I chose this program for summertime because the idea behind it is to finish 100 workouts. While they do provide calendars you can follow, the trainer herself tells you to do the 100 workouts at your own pace. You can double up, or not and take rest days as you see fit. I felt this was a good fit for summertime because we would be traveling a bit and this way if I missed a day, it wasn’t going to completely derail me.
The program is broken up into 5 phases. There is a little bit of everything in this program! I found this was a good and a bad thing because it’s cool to try different things, however, you aren’t going to like everything so there were some workouts I was happy to say goodbye to. There are 20 workouts in each phase. There are 10 types of workouts so in each phase you do them twice. This does not mean that you repeat videos. One of the awesome things about this program is that it is 100 COMPLETELY different videos so you will not end up in one of those situations where you already know what to expect to a point that you know what the trainer is going to say. The 10 different types of workouts are as follows:
CARDIO MELTDOWN: You will sweat! This one says cardio in the name so you know it’s meant to get your heart rate up. It does involve alot of jumping because for at home workouts with minimal equipment, it’s really the only way to get your heart rate up. Personally I prefer running to doing something like this for cardio but I don’t have a treadmill and sometimes I workout before the sun is out or on the weekends, it may get too late on me and it’s too hot out. Some of these moves are awkward but I have to say they are effective and you do get used to them.
Upbeat Strength: As the name suggests, this is an upper body workout. I was definitely sore after but it didn’t have my dripping in sweat either since the focus is 100% on lifting. It’s a good complement to cardio meltdown if you plan to double up. If you are going to do this I recommend doing this one before cardio meltdown since you should always lift first and do cardio after for best results. I will say that one of my gripes with this program is that I didn’t really find an opportunity to lift too heavy. It was always a high rep count. I would have liked more of a mixture in order to lift some heavier weights.
Core Inferno: This is a great ab workout, however, if you do not double up with another workout this may leave you disappointed. It’s short and although she’ll throw in some plank jacks and things like that, you aren’t going to break a big sweat or get that endorphin rush after.
Total Body Badass: While this is likely one of the ones I was sorest after, it is definitely the one I was happiest to say goodbye to! I think it’s a bit of a barre based workout which is not my thing. It is meant to be done with light weights, however, you will get sweaty with this one since it combines the weight lifting with pulsing and plyometric moves. The moves in this one are EXTREMELY awkward. I don’t think I would be willing to take my iPad to a gym if I was staying in a hotel or something and do this workout because I’m pretty sure anyone else in the gym would think I was nuts doing some of these moves! I am sure it’d effective though but definitely not my thing!
Freestyle Flow: Every 5th workout is a Yoga/Recovery workout. I am not a big fan of yoga, however, I’ve learned doing these programs that recovery workouts are important for muscle recovery, mobility, flexibility and even balance! All of this will help you have better form which will allow you to life heavier. I always doubled up when I did these. I would do whichever was the more intense workout first. I actually grew to love these workouts and I learned that I don’t mind yoga so much if I’m already sweaty. I definitely need to try hot yoga sometime! Back on the awkward moves though, I should mention that the warm ups were awkward and I could have done without them. I loved the stretching and even the balance portion though and I really did think it helped with recovery!
LIIT Cardio: This one is similar to Cardio Meltdown except that it’s 10 minutes shorter. It’s great if you’re in a time crunch because it 20 minutes you’ll be dripping in sweat. It was a great compliment to Freestyle Flow if I was doubling up.
Downbeat Strength: This was likely my favorite one! As the name suggests, it’s a lower body workout. For 30 minutes you focus only on legs and even though it’s strictly lifting, since the legs are such big muscles you will still break a sweat! As I said earlier, my only gripe was that I did wish there were some parts with a lower rep count to be able to lift heavier. There was also one phase that had a movement that was really taxing on the shoulders and given that this was leg day, I would have preferred to have been burning out my legs, not shoulders.
Fight Club: I had mixed feelings on this one. In some phases it felt like a great workout and I was dripping in sweat and in others It didn’t seem as intense. It’s worth mentioning though that when I ended it dripping in sweat I was in the keys where I would workout outside. It’s a boxing type workout with an emphasis on the core. I liked that it was something different and something I had not really done in the past, however, as with many of these workouts, it did have awkward moves at times. I also found that sometimes it required a bit of coordination which is not something I am a fan of when I’m working out. I want to zone out and destress. It’s not a time when I want to concentrate so much.
MeltCon: I take it back! Downbeat strength was not my favorite…. MeltCon was! I loved this one! It takes 10 moves from all of the intense workouts and you do them each for 1 minutes with no breaks. You then get a 2 minute break and you do it again. This is a great total body workout and definitely a sweaty one that gives the endorphin rush!
Re-Vibe: I can’t say this one was very different from freestyle flow. I had the same feelings on these two.
When I started this program it was summertime which meant less craziness. There was no homework to worry about and while the kids still had dance and baseball, we did not have baseball games. Since I had more time and flexibility, initially I was doubling up on workouts. In the keys though and especially once we got back to reality and school started again, I was just doing one workout a day unless I had one of the yoga workouts. The yoga workouts are only 20 minutes so I’d find a way to get them in. Core inferno I would also try to double up on something with, however, towards the end even this one I was doing on it’s own.
Speaking of doubling up, one of the things that was annoying about doubling up was that each workout obviously has a warm up and a cool down so especially when I was short on time, it felt like I was wasting time in between the workouts when I’d stretch out to then jump into a warm up for another workout. I would have preferred longer and more efficient workouts, however, one of the appeals of the program is to have the ability to make a choice between a short workout or a longer one. I guess I could have also fast forwarded through these parts when I was doubling up but the cool downs and warm ups were geared towards the muscles worked in the particular workout. I also wanted to see every workout through. Workout 100 is 53 minutes (it’s the only one over 35 minutes long!) and I really enjoyed it since you were in it the whole time. Nonetheless, a close to an hour workout may not be feasible for everyone who is looking to at home workouts for their convenience and flexibility.
I found that many people do not finish this program. I can’t say I got bored because the videos were completely different and there was so much of everything that I don’t think it’s a program you can get bored with but I guess at a certain point I did feel ready to move on to something else. Of course, knowing that many don’t finish made it that much more satisfying to mark off workout 100 and to be able to say that I finished every single workout!
Finally, I wanted to mention that this program is for any level. It has a large cast which allowed the trainer to have two cast members modifying moves for anyone who is a beginner or needs low impact workouts.
I am definitely happy this was my pick for summertime! It offered flexibility so I never felt like I’d totally blown it if I did not workout one day. It’s also not one of the more advanced programs and since in the keys I work out outside in the heat, I need something during that time which isn’t going to make me pass out! haha
It’s not perfect (awkward moves much) but I definitely recommend giving it a shot if you are looking to start working out at home. I love talking about this stuff so if you have any questions about it, please reach out!
Before I go though- can we talk about this shot a second? I’ve seen others get this shot and I just couldn’t figure out how! This was the best I could do. Most of the photos my timing was way off and I just look like a crazy person! hahah I guess I get an A for effort!
Expectation 
Reality
Thanks for visiting!
-Jenny
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