Les Mills Evolution

Wow what a weekend, every three months I get to go to a Les Mills Super Quartely Workshop for a day to check out the new releases. These days are generally a day of pure awesomeness, which put me on a complete high and every time I leave saying ‘I want to do it again tomorrow’. Well, this time, we got to do just that.

On Saturday September 3^rd the Les Mills UK Presenter Team stormed into Wigan to present the new batch of releases. Starting bright and early at 8am with the delightful Phil and Carl who always manage to deliver a seemless performance to kick off the day. First up was RPM with Carl, Delores and Washington. Admittedly I went into the session saying I might hold back a bit in RPM to save my legs for the rest of the day, did I? No. Within minutes of the warm up finishing I was dripping with sweat, panting for breath and gulping down water. This release is intense, the music keeps you going, and with a fun presentation from the team the session was definitely effective! Straight away from the pack ride I knew the music was going to rock in this release!

Session 2 was Body Attack! After a slightly dodgy technical start the hour absolutely flew by with presentation from Vanessa, KC and Tanya. Music was fab, the chore simple, the workout HARDCORE. I came out as I always tend to do after a quartely saying I must book onto the attack module (one day I will follow through) I’m looking forward to perfecting my hair whipping for the aerobic track, and my word I will have the strongest legs in the world after doing track 4 a few times! Now, when I normally take part in Body Attack I don’t tend to really like doing the agility track but this one was great, I liked the skiing theme from it and it really did beast the legs. My favorite part about the running track at quartelies is that this is the time of the day when you see loads of people you know so it’s a very sociable track. I almost lost my teeth in this running track with all the sprint starts and abrupt stops.

Session 3, Body Jam. I haven’t got much to say about this if I’m honest other than I absolutely LOVED it!! All of it, every second!  I hadn’t seen the tracklist for  this release before attending the quarterly so was delightfully surprised when ‘Party Rock Anthem’ came on and we got to shuffle away, literally every time a new track started I turned to my friend and said ‘man I love this song’ especially when we hit turbulance!!! Such an amazing hour, the Shey, Phil, Em and Linsey were on form! This is the first time I have seen Shey, Linsey and Em teach Jam and I thought they all smashed it…still missed Sarah though :(

Next up was the Body Step class of my life. Vanessa and KC took it above and beyond introducing the new initiative The Athletic Circuit that will push you to your absolute physical limits giving you a very sick feeling (in a good way). My legs by this point were beginning to give up so we got a very welcome break for half an hour.

Straight after lunch (which I ate too much of) Dave, Tanya and Phil rocked in with Body Combat 49! Musically, very strong, physically, quite tough, although the legs don’t get as much of a beasting as in Body Combat 48. Track 2 is a keeper, giving you a chance to give someone a kick in the teeth, I never thought I would like to hear Barbara Streisand again, but I enjoyed track three, it has a different feel to it like in 48 with the step over upper cut and my new friend ‘Bob’.  Track 4 is awesome, I can’t wait to play with that one in my classes. Track 5 is the best 5 ever! I probably said that about the last one but this one is even better. Track six feels similar to the one in 45, and track 7 is a happy rocky Muay Thai which is a nice change although I love the intense moody ones. Track 8...they nailed it this time round! This completely wipes the floor with 48’s.

Body Pump showed up next with a wicked release, with a smashing tracklist. Watch out for the back track, but…get those weights up! 

Dave, Niamh and Howard definitely delivered, with a cheeky lil surprise halfway through where they popped out into the crowd to finish the bicep track.

And last but definitely not least, Body Balance 54. What a beautiful release, the choreography in the Tha Chi warm up is so uplifting with the birds tail, the sun salutations track is a blast from the past! The music just gets better and better finishing off the hamstrings with a beautiful song by the one and only Leona Lewis.

Every programme has got such a strong release, the team in NZ are really outdoing themselves! This quarter is going to get the whole world trim waists  with the sheer amount of side planks! Bring on the SQW in November!

Kia Kaha