My Review of Les Mills Combat

Do you enjoy kickboxing workouts? Have you ever watched some of the kickboxing and karate moves that Keanu Reeves and Jackie Chan do in their movies and said to yourself "I wish I could do that." Or have you ever just wanted a workout that will help you get rid of your stress? Then you'll love Les Mills Combat! In this review I'll provide information on each of the different workouts in Les Mills Combat, as well as a little information on the pros and cons of the program.

When I decided to try Les Mills Combat, I had been doing P90x and P90x Plus for a while and was getting burnt out on them. Plus I was getting tired of doing so many pull-ups, and I also wanted something with a few shorter workouts. Plus, I was really drawn to the kickboxing and karate aspect of Les Mills Combat.

When you first get this DVD program, this is the first disc you'll want to watch. Its not as much of a workout per se, but it explains how to do a lot of the basic punches and kicks that you'll see used throughout the other workouts, like the jab, cross, hook, upper cut, front kick, back kick, side kick and roundhouse kick. It also discusses the different types of martial arts moves that you'll see used in the workouts, such as karate, tae kwon do, muay thai, and capoeira. Of course, if you're still confused about how to do those moves during the other workouts, there's always someone showing modified versions of the moves.

This is the most basic of the actual workouts. It's only 30 minutes, but it's a very intense 30 minute workout that will have you sweating at the end.

This is what I'd consider an "intermediate" workout - it's a little bit more advanced than the beginning workout, but not as advanced as some of the 60 minute workouts that I'll be talking about later. Plus this one is a little different in its approach - you'll do the same sequence of exercises over and over for several repetitions ("kata" is a japanese word meaning "form," "pattern," or "model"). Plus, I love the music in this workout. Plus the music in this workout (as in most of the workouts in this program) is from the 80s and 90s, so if you're a child of the 80s and 90s you'll love this workout.

This is one of the two longer workouts in this program. I love this program because it takes all the different moves and all the different martial arts disciplines and puts them together into a very fun workout. I especially like moves like the street brawl punch, which allows me to pretend I'm beating up someone who ticked me off.

This is the second 60 minute workout in the Les Mills Combat program, and I really enjoy this one as well since it's filmed live in the UK, and the audience is actually participating in the workout - it almost makes me feel like I'm doing the workout with a bunch of other people. It's almost combination of Power Kata and the Extreme Cardio Fighter workouts - you'll see combinations in this workout that are from both of those workouts.

This is the first of the two 30 minute high intensity interval training workouts that are part of the Les Mills Combat program. This workout alternates some aerobic and plyometric moves (if you don't like the plyometrics you can take them out and do the moves with no impact) with weight training. This is one of the few programs in the base package that uses any weights - I like that aspect of it, but I don't like that there's no kickboxing or martial arts moves during this workout.

This 30 minute high intensity interval training workout uses more plyometric moves and less weight training to build your muscles. You'll do a lot more plyometric moves like switch lunges and burpees (I'll provide a video below that shows how to do a burpee, but if you don't like them you can take the impact out) among other things. Again, this workout is a nice change from the longer workouts, but I also wish that it kept some of the punches and kicks.