Anyone try the CORE Performance workout by Mark Verstegen?

Men's Health recently (maybe this month) had a write-up of some of the exercises involved and I thought they were pretty interesting.

Here is the promo write-up for the book on Amazon:

The Core Program Shows You:

--How to develop balanced fitness -- strength, muscle mass, flexibility, power, and endurance -- without overemphasizing or shortchanging any component.
--How to recover from workouts so you get leaner and stronger when everyone else is just getting tired.
--How to eat the right foods to get the body you want and the energy to have more fun with it.

You probably look at elite athletes and think they have something you don't. Certainly, they can do things the rest of us can't, but they have the same muscles and require the same food. They have to strike a balance between exercise and recovery, or they'll wear down. They need to get leaner and stronger without compromising their endurance or flexibility. And if they don't train intelligently and cautiously, they'll get hurt. Same as you.

Of course, athletes have hours a day to train, and you're probably lucky if you can squeeze in 60 minutes. So it's no wonder that you focus on one or two types of exercise -- aerobics, bodybuilding, Pilates, yoga, kickboxing, or Tae-Bo -- and assume you don't have time to work on all the other aspects of fitness.

Core Performance is the first program that delivers strength and muscle mass, endurance and a lean body, balance and flexibility, athletic quickness and power -- all in less than an hour a day. How? By giving you a personal coach who has worked with some of the most famous and successful athletes in the world today.

Mark Verstegen, owner of Athletes' Performance in Tempe, Arizona, and Carson, California, has trained the best of the best: Nomar Garciaparra. Mia Hamm. Roberto Alomar. Mary Pierce. When Verstegen trains an athlete, millions of dollars in salary and signing bonuses are at stake. Bottom line: If he didn't deliver, he'd be out of business. And he's busier than ever.

What works for these gifted athletes will work for you. Sure, you can't do as much exercise as they do, but you don't need to. It takes less than an hour a day to build the type of fitness that improves your life in almost every way. You can straighten your posture, eliminate aches and pains, sleep better, and approach everything you do with more vigor and a better attitude.

Sure, you will get bigger muscles, a tighter waist, and more strength and power. But the biggest benefits come from the inside. The intense focus on the muscles of your core -- abdominals, lower back, hips, and thighs -- will help you stand taller and prevent the back pain from which most people eventually suffer. The detailed nutrition section guarantees that you'll feed your muscles, starve your fat, and get boundless energy when you need it most. And the attention you'll pay to recovery from your workouts will give you a straight path to the results you want.

The potential is within you, and the power to unleash that potential is within Core Performance.

So, promo-fluff aside, I find that what is appealing is the combination of "traditional" strength building excersises with ones derived from pilates and other forms, as well as the combination muscle exercises that focus on using muscle groups together. I've been trying to assemble a group of exercises like this for a while now and having a tough time doing it on my own. But I'm a competetive Lindy Hop and Blues dancer and instructor, so high strength to mass ratio, flexibility, and core support are high on my list of priorities. I'm excited to take a look at what the program has to offer.

Anyway, I'm off to pick up the book and I'll keep folks posted, but just wondering if anyone here has looked at/started/passed-over the program already?

Here is the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...4156043-7077533

Got the book, still reading it, and will finish before I start the workout. I hope to start next week. My initial impression is somewhere between "cool!" "intense" and "woah, challenging". The first part is what is called "Movement Prep". Its a series of warmup excersises that combine stretching and warm-up movements designed to get you ready to workout, though it can be a workout unto itself if you are a real beginner. It is also meant to target and strengthen many of the smaller muscles of the body that are often overlooked, therefore underused, in everyday life (sitting in front of a computer all day) and in most traditional workouts that focus on the larger muscles of the body. These muscles are involved in stabilization, balance, and transferring energy from your body's center (core) to wherever it is needed.

All of these excersises can be done at home. From what I've read thus far in the book, all you need for much of the workout is a physioball.

So far the book really resonates with me, on an inutitive level. As a dancer, and previously as a martial artist, I have a lot of experience with generating movement and energy from my center. Also, I have had lower back and hip pain and flexibility problems that have been traced by a massage therepist, to weakness in some of the smaller msucles in my lower torso, particualrly the soaz muscle, very underutilized by most people. Working and stretching those muscles did wonders for my back and hips, so this seems like more of the same. It will be an adjustment not to go to the gym and grab hold of something heavy for a good workout, but we will see.

As I continue to read and start the workout, I'll post more. If I get bold, maybe I'll even post some pictures.

Men's Health is useless for information on muscles.