Melissa Wood Health Workout Review
About a year and a half ago, I made a major shift in my fitness routine from high impact workouts to low impact. Low impact for me consists of Melissa Wood Health Yoga/Pilates flows, reformer pilates, some toning classes here and there and walking mainly. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious shift, but rather a shift that happened gradually based on listening to what my body was craving.
Enter Melissa Wood
This happened during a period when I was trying to save some money, transitioning into moving to LA, etc. So, I stumbled upon Melissa Wood’s pilates style workouts. When I did this, my routine typically looked like Barry’s bootcamp 1x per week, my own gym workout with sprints/weights/abs 3x a week, a body pump weight lifting class 1x a week and usually a core power sculpt class on the weekends as my rest. All of this was pretty high impact training on my body.
I had always loved pilates, but it fell off of my schedule due to convenience and budget. Once I had discovered Melissa Wood’s at home workouts, I absolutely loved them. At first I would always add in the 3lb weight and didn’t think it was ‘hard enough’ on my body. For some reason I had it burned in my brain that for a workout to be effective, it had to be painful. WTF kind of logic is that? Over the past year, I’ve switched from really doing things against my body or because I want to change it and shifted to loving it, and wanting to make it stronger but in a more gentle manner!
After a while of doing the Melissa Wood workouts, slowly but surely I became addicted. I absolutely loved her positive energy every morning, staring my morning slow (I have always had high stress jobs, so why add more stress), and the fact that it was so convenient to do anywhere!
I did a poll on Instagram so that I could answer all of your questions on this very topic, so here are your questions answered directly!
Your Questions, Answered
A: The workouts are all pilates/yoga style flows. Melissa always has a minimum of 12 workouts up for you to choose from, typically ranging from 15-30 minutes. She also has a few meditations, 4-5 treadmill series and pre/post natal series too. You can pick and choose your flow, or go along with her weekly schedule. The workouts can be done with no equipment (she posts quite a few that don’t use any.) The top equipment pieces she uses are these wrist/ankle weights and booty bands. You can check out all of the other equipment here.
A: As I started incorporating the lower impact workouts, my body stated craving them more and more. I always felt nervous or anxious when going to Barry’s or a Body Pump class, and on the contrary I ALWAYS look forward to doing the MWH workouts. I also loved the way it made me feel in the mornings. I always do my workouts first thing in the morning, and I have a high stress job. I was immediately starting off on a high stress state for the day when I did the high intensity workouts. With the low impact, it’s a much more grounding and peaceful start to the day which I was craving in my life.
A: I typically do the MWH workouts 6-7 days/a week. The beauty of the workouts is that I typically am only spending 20-40 minutes working out. On the weekend, sometimes I may just do 10 minutes, but I feel like the daily movement, no matter how short the timeframe is has been a game changer for my mental and physical state. I used to think I needed to spend hours in the gym slaving away. Melissa helped me realize that is not the case, and these short flows can really be so effective when you’re connecting wit your body.
A: Since doing MWH workouts, I feel that my abs, legs and arms are more defined than ever. I think that this also has to do with diet of course. When I was doing high intensity workouts, I was RAVENOUS throughout the day. I feel that I’ve really leaned out over the past year. I think it’s a full mind, body, spirit transformation and I really am the happiest and healthiest that I’ve ever been. I credit this to my meditation practice, honoring myself and when to say no, my clean eating and of course my MWH workouts!
A: Right now she has 14 prenatal flows + 2 prenatal treadmill series on the website. I believe that some of her typical flows are also prenatal safe but she’s great to respond to questions on that!
A: To be totally honest, I used to worry about this as well when I first started the workouts. I was worried about losing muscle as well, but it hasn’t happened. For me, I still see a difference when solely doing Mellissa Wood’s workouts. She actually recommends solely doing her workouts to see the best, most effective results. Melissa also says she purposefully keeps the weights light to target certain muscles – there is definitely a method to the madness! However, I think it’s always all about doing what feels best for your body!
A: In my personal opinion, diet maintains your weight. As they say, “abs are made in the kitchen” 🙂 However, Melissa Wood has treadmill series. I think low impact cardio and walking is super effective for me. I do probably 1 of her treadmill series a week and then try to get steps in whenever/wherever possible! Read this blog post about putting yourself first year round, and it touches on diet too!
A: Honestly, I fell in love with Melissa’s personality, positivity and overall vibe. Obviously the workouts are affective, but her attitude on life shines through the screen and she makes me feel so inspired day after day. You can just tell she’s a genuine person doing exactly what she’s meant to be doing and I love supporting her!
