FitFriday Experience : 21Day Clutch Cut

Hey Fitfam!

It's Friday! woohoo !

Yesterday was one of those days where I simply had no free time at all, driving from one point to another and I didn't even find time to publish an article.
Today, I am going to share with you my first week's experience of Ashley Conrad's 21-days Clutch Cut program.

Before we start I will tell you why I actually started with this program: 

As you may know from my Facebook page, I got my first license for competitions a couple of weeks ago, which means that I am part of the Powerfood's J-M.B NAC International Team of Luxembourg, pretty cool huh?

As JMB ( My coach, Jean-Mari) is a very busy man, he didn't have time yet to meet up for a check-up to develop together an adequate training program and a personalized diet.
I will therefore receive my own personalized program in a few weeks,
but I just wanted to get things started. It's not that I dont't see any results so far, but they come sooooo slow, which by time started to slow down my motivation. To keep me going I decided to get a program from www.bodybuilding.com until I get my own program.

Let's talk a bit about ClutchCut itself: 

Ashley Conrad developed this program to give people ,who are short on time , a chance to workout and see awesome results in only 3 weeks. She already trained people like Bradley Cooper, Kate Hudson, P.Diddy and so on.
Clutch Cut is about getting lean, mean and cut in only 21 days. I really wanted to get trough this program and started last week.

My 1st Week of ClutchCut:

First of all, before I started this program, I had a quick look at the food list and the diet-plan to get a slight idea of what I need to buy to get started. I bought 500 grams of meat ( fish and chicken) , some veggies like kale, broccoli, asparagus and APPLES! 

After I did my grocery shopping, I was so ready to start! 

The program says that you should take your rest days on wednesdays and sundays, but as I prefer to have two rest days in a row, I decided to do the Shred Lift on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the Shred Cardio on Tuesday and Thursday. Which means that my rest days will still be on Saturday and Sunday. 

• Monday, Shred Lift:

I started with an easy incline walk of 5 minutes on the treadmill to warm-up.

I skipped the stretching, if you wanna know why click HERE . 

Then I did the Sprint Workout which was pretty easy.

You walk for about 30sec, then you jog at a moderate pace for 30 sec. and then you sprint the hell out of the treadmill for 30secs again. You repeat this circuit for 4 times which gives you a nice little 6-minutes-HIIT warm-up, before you get started with lifting weights. 

I think this program meets everyone's needs as you can choose the way you wanna do the HIIT. 

For example if you don't go to the gym, you can do this little HIIT workout outside with jogging , inline-skating or bicycling. If you have a cross-trainer at home or a stair-machine,you can also do it on these machines. Up to you.

Personally I won't do this HIIT on the treadmill anymore, as you have to set the tempo yourself which can be quite annoying when you have one hand on the screen and still have to run. I decided to do this HIIT whether on the stationary bicycle, the stair-machine or on the cross-trainer. 

For the Shred Lift you perform one circuit between 3 to 6 times, depending on your fitness level.

I decided to finish every exercise before I got to the next one. I really didn't want to block the majority of the spots and equipment at the gym, because you have to perform 13 exercises. 

The program states that you should perform each exercise with maximal exertion, which means that by the last rep you should be gasping for air. I like! 

After having done the first exercises, Clean&Press, I was already so exhausted! Which actually motivated me even more to do the next exercises. 

As I was in a little hurry I did some supersets so I always made a 1-minute-rest in between. ( Normally you should do 30secs rest between each set) 

I was so damn exhausted and tired afterwards,I couldn't believe it myself! But it felt so good! 

To finish Shred Lift I went on the treadmill for a cool-down-walk for 5 minutes.My legs felt like jelly and I could hardly walk on the treadmill. Awesome!

I also skipped that finishing stretch and went straight to the changing room , took a nice warm shower and returned home for a 5 star sleep.

• What about Shred Cardio:

Fitfam, Shred Lift was NOTHING compared to Shred Cardio! I swear!

As I really don't like cardio, these two days were the hardest, probably also because I already suffered a bit from muscle soreness from the Shred Lifting. 

You start with a little warm-up, a 5-minute walk on the treadmill, or a slow ride on the stationary bicycle. 

After that, stretching, which I skipped again. 

I went right to the HIIT Training.

You start with a moderate walk for 1 minute, then you jog at an intermediate pace for 30 sec and finally you sprint the hell out of the treadmill for about 1 minute. 

Repeat this for about 10 times and you got a 25-minutes HIIT workout! 

Here again it's up to you : You can either do it on the treadmill (which isn't that comfy as I already explained) on the cross-trainer, on the stationary bicycle, on the stair machine, or simply outside! 

After the HIIT Training you cool-down for 5 more minutes, you stretch ( I skipped stretching again) and if you think you're done by now..ha ha ha. There's even more to come.

You still have to do a whole Core-workout that consists of 8 exercises which you have to perform once until failure:

- Jack-knife Sit-up

- 90-degree Crunch

- Weighted Bicycle

- 90-degree Toe Taps

- Elbow Walk

- Army Crawl

- Exercises Ball Crunch

- Isolated Crunch

NOW you are done and can take a shower !

After this first week my motivation got a real push. I already feel better and more energized.

The only thing which was quite 'heavy' for me was to stick to the diet-program as it is very strict. But if you want to see awesome results in only 21 days you gotta stick to it. 

I have to admit, the training was quite tough but sticking to the eating-plan was even harder for me.

Before I started the program I measured myself to see the results , so I just let the numbers speak for themselves:

      31.03.2014                         07.04.2014

Weight: 57 kg                           56,2 kg !!

Neck: 31,5 cm                          31,5 cm 

Biceps: 28 cm                           28 cm

Thorax: 68 cm                          68 cm

Waist: 66 cm                             64 cm !!

Hips: 86 cm                              85 cm !!

Quads: 52,5 cm                        52 cm !!

Calves: 35 cm                          34,5cm !!

I know those aren't big changes, but this was only after 1 week! 

Next week I will share my experiences and improvements of the second week of the Clutch Cut! So stay tuned!

For those who want to experience the same sweat-dropping work-out, click HERE to download the FREE E-Book of Ashley Conrad's Clutch Cut program !

Have a nice weekend an FOCUS!