Fem365: Fitness. Food. Femininity.
As I have stated before, this is a women’s interest blog with varying info about fitness, women’s health, food/nutrition, and even a bit of fashion and beauty thrown in the mix, but I must warn you: For the next few weeks I am going to focus heavily on FOOD. And I am SO EXCITED. I have been hard at work on super-simple Paleo-friendly recipes that the whole family will love. Most of my upcoming recipes consist of only three to four ingredients, and ALL ingredients will be readily available at any grocery store. Not just fancy “gourmet” stores or “health-food” stores — no, no no. We’re talking ingredients that are available at your local Super-Wal-Mart or Safeway (or better yet, your local farmers market!). So stay tuned: More info about my super-simple recipe series is coming next week. Check back, and tell your friends! Your support via comments and Facebook “likes” feeds my soul and gives me the encouragement needed to keep posting daily. Because it’s a lot of work.
Until then, it’s important for me to get some fitness info out there, especially since the original focus of this blog was women’s health and fitness!
Have you heard of BodyRock.tv? I had… But I didn’t know much about it until recently. First, let me state this (and I know I’m not the only female who feels this way): Women can be EVEN MORE FUN to look at than men. A beautiful female is a sight to behold, and an athletic, toned, fit female is inspirational and motivating (to me). So back to BodyRock: Although I love seeing lean, athletic female physiques I was a little turned off by the blatant sexualization of the men and women who demo the exercises on BodyRock.
Check it out:
Too much.
But what BodyRock offers is important, because it highlights power moves, which many women stop doing as they age. They might have played high-intensity sports in high school or college, and even taken a few bootcamp-style fitness classes in their twenties and thirties, but in general women stop the “hardcore” exercises that make sweat pour, the heart pound, and the breathing labored. I’m no exception: I also prefer a more comfortable — shall we say — form of fitness (such as yoga, walking, a bit of weight training, and my FemFusion classes, which are intense but low-impact). However, a few weeks ago I started adding one to two “power” sessions each week and it has (already!) done wonders in terms of sculpting my muscles, revving my metabolism, and giving me energy that lasts throughout the day.
But I don’t do BodyRock. I’ve found something better! She goes by the name of ZuzkaLight.
Zuzka’s “real name” (well, maybe real) is Zuzana, and she was actually the co-founder of BodyRock when BodyRock started a few years ago. Recently, she left BodyRock and went in a (slightly) different direction. She started her own fitness “channel” on YouTube, which you can access and subscribe to by clicking here. My opinion is that Zuzana’s workouts are BETTER than those found on BodyRock.tv, and here’s why:
- Although Zuzana is a bombshell and it’s VERY CLEAR that she is capitalizing on her looks, the filming is far less focused on capturing boob and butt shots. Rather, the filming clearly captures the exercise session. The exercise is the star, rather than T & A. Well, that point may be debatable, but it’s the view I’m taking.
- From what I have seen, Zuzana tends to use less equipment than the videos on BodyRock. I haven’t done all of her workouts… I’ve actually only done two of them over and over. When she does use equipment it tends to be readily available items such as medicine balls and weights rather than specific equipment pushed by the website (as in BodyRock, where they have an entire section devoted to buying the equipment they use in their vids).
- Zuzana’s manner is sweet and encouraging. She makes it clear that she’s working hard and motivates her followers to keep up with her.
- The best part: In each video, she goes through the entire workout with you. They tend to be 10-15 minutes long. With the BodyRock vids I’ve viewed, they just show you clips of the intervals you’re supposed to do and then you do them on your own, with your own interval timer. For those of us who don’t have an interval timer, Zuzana’s vids are nice… You can use hers. I’m still a proponent of rest-based interval training as described by the Metabolic Effect Diet gurus, Jade and Keoni Teta, who encourage you to rest only when you need to and pushing when you don’t need to, but Zuzana’s workouts are intense enough that I always need to rest when her interval timer says it’s “rest time.”)
- Safety may be an issue, especially for viewers who are just starting out in terms of fitness/strengthening. Her routines are extremely challenging and seem to be tailored to athletes and people who are pretty far along in their fitness journey(s). In the videos I’ve watched, Zuzana doesn’t provide many modifications, and when she does, she usually provides the modifications (i.e. to make the moves easier/less challenging) toward the end of the routine when she — herself — is getting tired. I’ll tell ya: If you’re a beginner, you’re going to be tired far before she is and from the beginning you may not be doing the exercise properly due to weakness or lack of stamina/endurance.
- Her workouts contain a lot of high impact movements, which may be problematic for women with pelvic floor dysfunction. If you have pelvic organ prolapse or incontinence issues, I recommend talking to your doctor or women’s health physical therapist before trying her high-impact moves. If you ARE going to try her stuff, remember to ZIP UP especially before jumping, etc., or exercises that require a lot of balance.
My take on Zuzana vs. BodyRock? Zuzana wins, hands-down. 
Thoughts? Comments? Have you tried BodyRock or Zuzana’s channel?
Zuzana gets my vote too. I like that her exercise moves require balance as well. I will have to give her workouts a try.
Yes, I love Zuzana also. And, btw, has anyone noticed that she has an hour glass shaped female body whereas the women at bodyrock don’t? Something to think about. Lifting your own body weight if very powerful and a hard work out, yet it is hard to actually overtrain.
And, yes, Bri, I am 100% with you: power sessions work GREAT for women! I actually prefer extremely hard and extremely short weight lifting (or body lifting) sessions also. They work well for me. I started them out of necessity actually as, frequently, I only have about 7 min I can spend in the gym with the weights after my younger kiddo is off to school before my beloved yoga class starts. So, I head over to free weights corner (already well warmed up after chasing after my kids:-)) and do very hard core very fast paced (still rest when I need to) lift weighting probably horrifying many blissfully “treadmilling” folks around me. After my 7-10 mins are up, I run into my yoga class where I get to catch my breath, stretch and do more core toning. I LOVE it!
Julia — I love your workout routine — you’re getting core work, flexibility, and POWER all rolled into a tidy little package.
Thanks, Bri! And, again, thanks for the reminder on Zuzana’s stuff. I need to get one of those lifting balls or, maybe, just work my way up to it, a yoga brick will suffice in the mean time, I think. I am TOTALLY going to try to do her workouts at home. I mean, everyone has 15 min a couple times a week, right?
Btw, have you seen this: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-importance-of-pull-up-bar-training/#more-28642?
Muscle ups are my new inspiration, with the handy-dandy muscle up bar installed in the bedroom closet door now! If I can only get up before the kids do (next on the list to work on:-)!) In general, I would like to move away from weight lifting and more into body lifting stuff myself. I like the latter better as, with the summer coming up, I can actually “work out” while chasing after my kids at the playground. Which is why I want to get good at muscle ups as, then, any playground time is also a workout time for mama!
I love playground time as workout time — the playground is full of makeshift pull-up bars, push-up benches, and dip stations!!! And free!
I love the new ZWOW workouts, though I can’t do any of those Pistols yet–kill my knees!–and showing the entire workout is a plus, too.
Nyx — I also love that she shows the entire workout. I feel like I’m “getting away with something,” in the fact that her workouts are FREE!
How do you feel about “fitness” coming from a host with obviously fake chesticals — Plastic surgery is not like changing your hair color, which Zuska does too. The chick on body rock has about 7 pounds of silcone in her chest as does Zuska
Dave – I don’t have a problem with plastic surgery so much as I have a problem with women who USE their obviously enhanced body parts to promote their health-related channels, products, etc. In a way it’s no different than a guy using his ripped abs to promote a channel/product, but on the other hand, said guy didn’t go out and purchase his ripped abs… He had to work for them by way of a healthy lifestyle including fitness and clean eating.
The sad thing — in my eyes — is that a woman could also try to promote her channel with ripped abs, but some people see “ripped” muscles on women as masculine and unsexy… Which is why women on YouTube (or some other venue that’s attempting to appeal to the masses) so often turn to their “assets” which may or may not be artificially enhanced. Let’s face it, which videos get more views… Video thumbnails with a close-up of a female’s bulging bicep, or video thumbnails that depict scantily-clad breasts or booty? I’m not saying this is a GOOD thing (not at all!), but it’s the way of the world, and the BodyRock gal and Zuzka have BOTH capitalized on it.
All that being said, being judgmental about the girls themselves isn’t helpful… I still enjoy Zuzka’s channel (I find her to be energetic and motivating and much less sexualized than the BodyRock gal); however, lately I’ve been focusing more on the stuff from fitnessblender.com — a cute couple who provide safe and effective workouts and wear actual clothing (!!!) when they exercise! They’re attractive people, but they’re not capitalizing on any specific body parts (or uber-sexual posturing/poses) to “sell” their channel.