Coronation Street Blog: Keep Fit with Corrie: Week 10

Gemma and Michael over at Conversation Street, the Corrie podcast, have been keeping fit the Corrie way!

In week one, they did the Vicky Binns work out
In week two, it was the Kym Ryder work out
In week three, it was the Angela Griffin work out
In week four, it was the Beverley Callard work out
In week five, it was the Debbie Rush work out
In week six, it was Tina O'Brien, Lucy-Jo Hudson and Angela Griffin
In week seven, it was Salsacise with Tracy Shaw
In week eight, it was Fat Brenda's Big Fat Workout!
In week nine, it was Vicky Entwistle's Weight Off Workout

And now we come to the final of their Coronation Street fitness journey, and this time it's Kym Marsh's Power Sculpt.

Hey you! Yeah, you! Put down that Easter egg, and stop stuffing your face full of chocolate. A bank holiday is no excuse for relaxing or enjoying yourself – in fact, it means there’s more time for exercising! And there’s no better proper hardcore workout for a Corrie fan than Kym Marsh’s Power Sculpt.

Just look at her. Look at those abs. Look at those toned arms. See how she wears makeup even when doing burpees. This woman is a goddess, and do you think she got that way by eating chocolate on a Monday and doing some gentle salsa? No! Kym is so hardcore she works out with not just one trainer, but two – Matt (primary school teacher on speed) and Sam (robot sent from the future to kill John Connor and get your glutes really tight).

All joking aside, this is probably the most well structured and modern workout we’ve come across when it comes to Corrie fitness – the method is called ‘intelligent fitness’, but it seems like a form of high intensity interval training, whereby you put in a maximum amount of effort for short bursts, then rest and work on a different group of muscles. HIIT is claimed to improve your metabolism so you continue to burn fat for hours after your workout is over. Fitness gurus like Joe Wicks and Jillian Michaels have used methods like this to great success, so it’s fab to see a Corrie star recommending it too. Of course, it’s no miracle cure, because you have to work HARD, but 30 minutes here is still going to be more effective than fannying around half-arsing it for an hour (looking at you, Corrie Funk Fit).

The DVD is divided into two phases, or levels, with second one being slightly harder than the first (read: they make you do burpees). Gemma has sworn off burpees for life, citing her shoulder impingement syndrome, but really it’s because they’re awful and were invented by someone who hates humanity – like a traffic warden, perhaps. The thing about burpees, though, is that they’re fantastic exercise, and like many of the exercises here, you probably won’t like doing them, but you will like the results.

Each phase has a warm up (although these are the same for both phases), then sections for upper, lower and full body workouts. Each section has supersets, where you have five exercises, which are performed for 40 seconds with a 20 second rest, one after the other – then you rest for 60 seconds, then you do the sets again for a total of three times. Of course, you don’t really get to rest all that much – you’ll be continuously badgered to ‘take on water’ like you’re a cruise ship refuelling at the Port of Miami. It takes around an hour to complete each phase, but you can dip in and out and do different sections on different days if you’d prefer a shorter workout.

This is a vastly superior workout to Kym’s first DVD, Kym Ryder’s Burn and Firm Workout, and she promises results in four weeks. Unfortunately for Gemma in particular, Ms Marsh was not available for the duration of our Corrie workout programme to slap takeaways, chocolate and G&Ts out of our mouths, so the results of our sessions have been less than stellar. As we keep banging on, weight loss is mostly diet – and even when you’re armed with all the knowledge in the world, it can still be tough to keep to a weight loss programme. Just because something is simple, doesn’t mean it’s easy! Even though we’ve probably only lost around 10lbs between us during the workouts, we’ve had a great time – and exercise isn’t just about losing weight, it’s about keeping fit and being healthy for you and your family. Preach it!

To find out more about our podcast, search for Conversation Street on iTunes, or go to conversationstreet.podbean.com. If you want to follow Gemma’s blog, all about her fitness journey, and her love of food and fashion, head to www.foodfashfit.com