Meh days, brisk walks and Crunch "CardioSculpt"

VIDEO: "CardioSculpt," from the Crunch series, available on Netflix instant streaming
STYLE: Circuit training-style combo of light aerobics and quality dumbbell exercises
INTENSITY: For beginners, moderate to intense. For intermediate and up, light to moderate.
STRUCTURE: Just over 30 minutes total; brisk 4-minute warm-up; 20 minutes alternating aerobic and weights exercises; 4 minutes floor exercises; 3-minute cool-down.
GIST: A pretty solid 30-minute workout that gets your heart rate up, but focuses more on an all-over tone than serious cardio work. Interesting variations on classic exercises make the workout challenging and semi-fresh even for more advanced folks. The cardio exercises are so-so, and the look and feel is definitely same-old, same-old.

Some days are going to be sloggy. Meh. Comme ci, comme ca. The usual. Not every day can be brazzle-dazzle, dancing on a lighthouse with Helen Reddy and wearing amazing sailor pants. But a meh day is better than a terrible, awful, no-good day, right? And looking back, you realize it wasn't that meh at all, because it was just another day of wins and losses, ups and downs -- another day of being alive.

Sometimes, circumstances -- misplaced your fave videos, tired of your workout routine and needing something new in a pinch, just generally feeling pissy, etc. -- require us to do the more "meh" workout, because it's better than no workout. More important, it can save us from slipping into "Whatever, I'm getting cheese fries" regression. Or worse, (unless you're the Fat Boys).

Streaming Sass & "The Situation Workout"

I learned a few important things today.

1. Netflix has a modest but decent library of fitness videos available on instant streaming. This is marvelous news! They're culled mostly from the Crunch, 10 Minute Solutions and Dance Off the Inches series, with a few randos thrown in. Which leads me to...

2. Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino of "Jersey Shore" shadenfame has a workout video. Of course he does. It promises to give you "the recipe for your own Situation" and features two vaguely guidette-ish chicks, along with Mike's meathead bestie from the block, dubbed The Unit. (Why "The Unit"? Says he: "You don't choose the nickname; the nickname choose you.") As for the chicks' nicknames, they get to share the generic, maddening "sweetheart," along with douchey molestations from "the man, the myth, the legend" himself.

The Unit, at your service.

The only workout that includes special instruction in sexual harassment!

3. Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino has a fairly decent workout video. I would never do it for real because of reasons already stated and further elaborated below, but in terms of the actual workout, I can't find too much to hate on. It consists of five 10-minute circuit-training segments, each of them a combination of dumbbell exercises and "active rest" aerobics. The whole workout, about an hour long, amounts to P90X: "Jersey Shore" Edition.

For some, that's not only tolerable; it's a selling point. For me, not even an ironic fan of that Music Television programme, I'd rather suffer the private humiliation of the entire "Dance the Chakras Yoga Workout" than listen to Signore Situation opine on himself, his haters and women, (but mostly himself).