PiYo Sweat

I don't usually do Beach Body workouts, but I got this whole set at a used book sale CHEAP, so I decided to try it. Sweat is 38 minutes long (note that times given online for ALL the PIYO workouts are incorrect). Like all the PIYO routines, it is broken up into segments, with an on-screen countdown clock announcing each new section. I have briefly described each and provide times below.

Warm-up, 4.5m. All of the warm-ups in PIYO are very similar and consist of moves such as standing side stretch, rear lunge, standing forward bend, and "PIYO cross."

Heat, 6m. Here Chalene flows through multiple sun salutations, adding on her own touches.

Lower Body, 11m. This section includes moves such as lunge to knee lift and moving warrior poses (up/down).

Plank & Core, 6m. This includes a lot of 3-legged dog work, planks, and variations; it's very tough on the shoulders.

Power, 4m. This section focused on plie squats and included some burpees, although there was an option to modify (which I did).

Stretch & Strength, 5.5m. This last section was mostly push-ups; there are some stretches, but the LAST move of the workout is actually a push-up, which I DID NOT LIKE AT ALL.

This was NOT one of my favorites in the PIYO set, mainly for the reasons I mentioned above--i.e., I found it too hard on the shoulders, and I didn't like that there was no real cool down. I did like the lower body work, and I like the PIYO workouts that focus more on this.

Here's my review of PiYo Sweat.

Chalene Johnson leads the workout with 3 other background exercisers. One of the exercisers shows easier modifications. They are all doing the workout barefoot on yoga mats. The set has a kind of industrial feel to it.

The clock starts at 36:18. The workout is broken down into segments, the first is the warm up. This segment is about 4:30 minutes long and consists of sun salutations, chair to lunge pose, PiYo side steps, and other warm up moves.

The second segment works a lot of lunge type moves. An example of a sequence of moves would include low lunge, to standing knee lifts, to warrior 3, to low lunge up and down, to chair. In all the segments a piece of a sequence get introduced and by the end you are doing the whole sequence. In this workout you'd do the sequence first on the right the whole way through, then start on the left side.

The third segment focused more on balancing moves and some core work. An example of a flow was standing splits, to plank with leg raise, to plank with knee in with side kick, to chatarangua, to down dog, and the curl up to standing. I liked this segment a lot. Fair warning, you are in plank or down dog almost the entire time and it can feel tough on the wrists.

The fourth segment was called the Power segment. There were a lot of plie squats. This section had some impact in that you had the option of going from a deep plie and kind of hopping up onto the toes on the up portion of the move. This section also had some slow burpees in it.

The final section was the strength/stretch portion. This section included sun salutations with push up variations sprinkled in at various points. In all I think there were 6 sets of 8 push ups. The end was a little weird in that you finished the last set of push ups then went into child's pose and that was the end of the workout.

Overall Impressions. I am not a yoga or pilates person so I appreciated that this workout was not typical of either genre. It felt like Chalene was trying to create the vibe of athletic yoga without all the mysticism in traditional yoga. She gave a lot of form pointers throughout and encouraged the viewer to try their best and have fun. I did actually work up a sweat during the workout as the sequences do go fairly quickly (although never a feeling of being out of control). But this was not a super taxing workout. I consider myself a low advanced exerciser and I would say that this workout is probably intermediate as demonstrated by Chalene although I'm sure those in the know could make it harder if needed. The modifier was always on screen and used a chair in a couple of section to aid with balance and make some of the moves easier (hands on the chair vs. on the floor). What I liked best about this workout is that it doesn't have the feel of a typical yoga workout and it was a great length in terms of time. Since I'm not a fan of yoga or pilates I liked that I got in a good workout without committing a ton of time.