Barlates: Endurance 90 Lower

Endurance 90 Lower is a super tough (IMHO) workout from Linda Wooldridge. I’ve really been wanting to do this workout ever since Linda posted it to YouTube but I am getting chemo and my workouts are all over the place. I either cannot workout at all, or I have to do something really easy (Jessica Smith‘s walking workouts) and on my good days I do Cathe‘s ICE workouts, some of her Cathe Live workouts (the easier ones) and Jessica’s Walk Strong workouts. Today is a good day. I did Cathe Live ICE: Chiseled Upper & Lower Body Blast and got through still feeling great at the end. So I decided (later in the day) to finally visit this workout.

I found this very difficult. I would say it is advanced but I don’t feel like the best judge anymore since Cathe’s ICE workouts kill me on my not so good (but not so bad) days. So keep that in mind. Linda does a lot of interval workouts but her intervals are never more than a minute. These intervals are 90 seconds of work with 10 seconds of rest–and it was brutal. I think I would have found it very challenging even pre-chemo. By the halfway point in this workout I had to hit pause at many of the 10 second rests because I needed more than 10 seconds before I could continue. I would never have done that before but my stamina/endurance just isn’t what it used to be. However, with all of that said, it is an excellent workout that will burn your lower body out and give you some cardio. In my case, it sometimes got HIIT level–according to my FitBit I was in my peak heart rate zone several times–but I don’t know if that would have been the case for me before. It’s just hard for me to judge these days. I probably won’t return to this workout any time soon. However, I will definitely return to it when my treatment is over. I am a big fan of Linda’s Stretch Sculpt Lower and her Long Lever Upper & Lower. Those were two of the main workouts I did after I had my mastectomy and they served me well. This one is a similar type of workout–though more challenging (I think). One nice thing about this workout is that after completely frying your lower body, she rewards you with a nice long stretch.

Endurance 90 Lower is 40 minutes long; 1 minute intro, 6:30 minute warm up (#1-4 below) and 5 minute stretch. No equipment is needed but I used a chair for balance on several of the moves.

1. Squats
2. Squat w/ crescent knees, alternate sides
3. Crescent knee to wide squat, crescent knee back in (opposite direction) to narrow squat (stay on same leg)
4. Repeat #3 on other leg
5. Forward crescent lunge to reverse crescent lunge
6. Crescent lunge then kick in front of you and slightly across body, crescent lunge then kick in front of you but slightly out to side of body (so you are making a V with your kicks)
7. Crescent kick to reverse curtsy lunge then crescent kick in opposite direction to regular reverse lunge
8. Reverse curtsy lunge to side kick, reverse regular lunge to front kick
9. In down dog, kick back one leg, stand and kick other leg in front of you
10. In down dog, raise and bend one leg and push it up straight to the ceiling then lower
11. Start in down dog and step one foot forward next to hands, then step foot back across/behind other leg into a curtsy while hands are still one floor
12. On all 4s, kick one leg out to side then kick same leg out behind you
13. Repeat 5-12 on other leg

For more info on Barlates and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.