Initial Impressions: Peakfit’s Dynamic Flexibility Review

When you read those fitness magazines, they often talk about the three ingredients to fitness: cardio training, resistance training, and flexibility training.  I’m pretty darn abysmal at flexibility so when I find a stretching workout I like its like the heavens have opened.  Michelle, with her PeakFit Challenge, did not ignore the importance of flexibility and created a 30 minute program for those of us who need the extra guidance and discipline to get the job done.  

The Breakdown.  Dynamic Flexibilty is broken five segments to finish to a total running time of just around a half hour.  A more athletic stretch workout, Michelle guides you through a fusion of traditional and nontraditional yoga poses with her on twist.  Throughout the workout, she works on stretching the whole body but there are bigger focuses in each section whether its glutes or legs or shoulders.  Michelle does a great job getting your body warmer before embarking on some of the deeper stretches in the first segment.  The second segment focuses on hybrid warrior poses.  When you’re done with warrior, she continues in the next segment alternating between planks, downward dogs, scorpions, and pigeons (so very animal focused!).  The fourth segment uses her Exerspy band to stretch out the glutes down on the mat, and the final section also uses the resistance band but you’re more focused on the legs (ITB, hamstring, quads, etc.) in the first half of the segment and then you move into the upper body for the final minutes of the workout.

The Good.  Honestly, its one of the best stretch workouts I have.  It kicks Stretchmax‘s ass and is shorter and not as hard as Yoga for the Warrior.  It’s euphoric feeling is most likely amplified by the fact that I was REALLY tight and I REALLY needed a good stretch so my opinion of it may change.  Michelle’s cueing is pretty clear and the music was not very ya-ya I’m in a yoga studio which I like.  (Actually, I wish there were more workouts that included metal music…but don’t worry, no metal in this system.)  I like it as a total 30 minute stretch workout, and I think that I’m thankful that its scheduled on the rotation…I mean, how many times to we make time to stretch and relax?

The Not So Good.  For those of you who like to hold your stretches extra long, you may hate this workout.  I could suggest to you that you pause and hold the stretch as long as you’d like, but I can understand if you were annoyed you paid money to have the workout have such short holds.  Michelle talks a LOT during the workout.  Don’t expect super-duper meditative state when completing this workout as you will get annoyed.  Lastly, if your Exerspy band hasn’t broken in yet, you may find it too taut for some moves.

Final Verdict.  Big surprise, I liked it.  I felt good from it.  I did it on top of Core Dynamics so I still got to spend around an hour on improving my health so that is always a win in my book.  But man, I did have to be super vigilant about my calories that day since my burn was so low.