As Christmas excesses become a distant memory everyone is getting back into the gym to work of their turkey, Quality Street, Twiglets and puddings. Classes are rammed full and Les Mills have given us a great start to 2013 with another solid, tough and calorie burning class.

Welcome to Body Combat release 54.

Upper body warm up (What doesn’t kill you): We start with an uplifting cover of a Kelly Clarkson song. Easy punches, a combination of upper cuts and hooks and jacks warm us up quickly and allows us a few moments relief for a karate based kata.

Lower body warm up (Blow): This is a big track with “Shoot Lunges” as well as the usual kicks and knee strikes. The music at first appears to be a fairly dull extended dance song – but I always find myself singing along to the melody and drawing wry smiles from my participants. They’ve packed a lot into this warm up and it succeeds in its aims.

Combat 1 (Turbulence): The title if this track is a word that strike fear into my heart – especially if uttered by an airline pilot. Recent track 2s have been so short you could blink and miss them. At six and a half minutes this is a leg killer. They told us on the training that the BPM of this track was lower than in the LBWU but that doesn’t prevent it from exhausting you early on. The lunging kick is back and cries out for a full class kiai! The slow and endless balancing round house kicks bring on groans – and we are only 10 minutes into the workout.

Power 1 (Gona Love Me): A perfectly acceptable power track with a flurry of punches and upper cuts. But I find the music is a bit of a dirge and I’m not keen on the screeching singer. And we had the hook stepping and weaving combo in the last release so a different move would have been good. The moves work but for me the music doesn’t.

Combat 2 (Paradise City): This is fast and furious and quite hard to cue because there is so much going on. And there aren’t always 4 repetitions – sometimes 2,3, 4 or 8 so you need to stay sharp. At the end we have an extended bout of skipping and add in a “double under” – which is a little jump. Take care here. I’ve had sore Achilles and I think this sequence is the reason. Great track.

Power 2 (Invincible): Again I’m not sure about the music. Whilst it builds from a quiet start to a powerful explosive beat once the full combination kicks it feels a little flat. “We can do it together” is a good line for a group fitness class and the endless hooks at the end really shatter the shoulders.

Combat 3 (DOA): A long time ago they used to call track 6 used “the recovery” track. Programme directors Dan and Rachael did away with that concept ages ago. This is a relentless track with great combinations involving the back kick and a powerful karate punch. The song is quite catchy too, “No one’s getting out of here alive!”. I bet you find yourself singing along.

Muay Thai (The Switch): A driving techno beat and an avalanche of knees and elbow strikes. This is furious and you can let yourself go wild. On the quarterly workshop Tanya Walker, the trainer, had me up shadowing her on  this one and so I didn’t have to learn it – it was already burned into my brain. I like the little nod to the past with the sound effects and warning bells like we used to get years ago.

Power 3 (Dark Skies): A great climax to the class with shoulder destroying speed balls and more endless jabs. The music in this power track is very motivating which is good after the two earlier slightly disappointing ones. We all feel completely spent as we run around the room to the reprise of track 3 – but there is more hard work to come.

Conditioning (Internet Friends): The first time I tried to teach this I demonstrated the moves for the class first. They looked horrified. So after that I have just gone straight in. There’s plenty of time to set up the “leg escape” move during the introduction and the best way for the class to learn is to do it. Only problem is that if you sweat like a tap (as I do), the floor beneath you becomes slippery and can make achieving the move quite hard. Finally we finish with some very tough crunches.

Cool down (Payphone): A pleasant song and an easy series of stretches bring us back down to earth finishing with a reprise of the kata from track 2.

Body Combat release 54 is another solid class which gets results. Your shoulders will ache after all the hooks in track 5. Apart from a couple of dull pieces of music Dan and Rachael have given us another winner.

Your turn: Are you a Body Combat instructor? What do you think of my review of Body Combat release 54? Do you agree? Please share your thoughts. If you are a participant let me know what you think as well. Click below where it says “Leave a reply” and share!