30 Day Breakaway - Week One Review

30 Day Breakaway is an intermediate running program from Beachbody On Demand.  Yes - it's a RUNNING program!  Please follow my affiliate LINK for more product details.  And, as always, remember your old pal if you want to buy anything - because I do get a small commission. 

On to the review!

I was a little scared to start this program.  I haven't run in two years, and in that time I have relinquished control of the composition of my body largely to Chipotle and Anheuser Busch.  Just last December, I decided to get to work on some of that excess guacamole hanging around my waistline.  After four consistent months of working out, I decided to jump in to a little running!

30 Day Breakaway (30DB) is a program that contains weight training, stretching and running instructional videos.  The running videos are available in two formats.  One is an audio only version that you can play through your phone and go out on the trails for a run.  The second is a beautiful filming of the instructor running through the parks and beaches of Southern California.  

The program is set up so that the 20-30 minute workouts can be done separately (a.m. & p.m) or back to back.  You only run three times per week, and the weight lifting is broken up in to upper, lower, total body and core.  There is a recovery day stretching/foam rolling workout and a run prep and post run stretch workout.

It is  a little confusing!  You basically build your workouts from a library of separate videos.  

For example, the calendar on Day 15 calls for Upper Body Combos and Endurance Pyramid.  If you do the workouts back to back, your workout will look like this:

Upper Body Combos (25 min)

Runners Warm-Up (5 min)

Endurance Pyramid (25 min)

Runner's Cooldown (5 min)

That's four separate videos to cue and whole hour of time.  Idalis does do a runners stretch at the end of the strength training videos, so you wouldn't *have* to do the warm up.  Also, by the time you do the cool down a few times, you can just do it without having to cue it.

Now, you could of course do the weight training in the morning and then the running portion later in the day.  But, am I the only one that has trouble getting myself to do this ONCE per day, much less TWICE?!

The good news is, that the rest days are plentiful.  There is one day per week that is marked Rest Day and an additional day per week calls for the Rest Day Roll-Out video (30 minutes of light stretching and foam rolling).  That's TWO rest days every week, people!

So, how did I like the workouts?

I found the running workouts to be quite good.  I started my calendar on Saturday so that I could utilize the weekends (and my running buddy) to be able to safely run out doors.  The very first run that I did was the audio cues only with headphones, out on the trail. Idalis does a great job of cuing the intervals.  And, she says that it's totally okay to walk the recoveries (but she does encourage you to try a light jog). 

I did the second run on the treadmill, and it was really cool!  They film her running right beside you on the trail.  She cues you with things like "put your treadmill on 1% incline" and "okay, start increasing your speed" because it's specific for indoor running.  The scenery is beautiful and there are even drone shots from above while you are sweating out the intervals.

The weight training I like...less.  

This program is listed as an intermediate program.  I always think that speaks to the difficulty - but really it indicates that there are some assumptions made when it comes to form.  Idalis does not cue form very well at all.  She shows you the move once and then *boom* you're doing it.  The transitions are so fast that you feel pretty awkward the first time through - and if you have no prior weight training experience, you may not be using proper form.  My recommendation is to watch the video the night before to see if there are any moves you need to look up form basics on.  For an exhaustive list of weight lifting form videos, please visit bodybuilding.com.

The Rest Day Roll-Out video is pretty basic.  I don't think I will probably continue to follow the video, but will just do a head to toe stretch and roll on those days.  There's NO MUSIC in any of these videos and at 4:30am - I need to at least watch Netflix while I'm doing something as boring as stretching and foam rolling.

So far - I like this program.  Do I think I'll be able to run 3.1 miles, non-stop in 30 days?  No, probably not.  But, that's not going to stop me from trying.