9 things you should know about shift shop written by a physical therapist. After completing Shift Shop Proving Grounds, here are the nine things you should know to make sure that you are able to get the most out of the program in the safest, most efficient manner possible. It’s things I did to make the program more fun, easier, and things you should know before starting this program.

This post contains affiliate links, please see my disclaimer for more information. Lauren is an independent team beachbody coach who co-runs The Girl Squad on the BOD app.

Shift Shop Provings Ground was released in 2017, right when I was moving from NC to WA state. I was excited about the program, but because life and a 30 day roadtrip across America happened, I wasn’t able to stick to the program and filled my fitness with hiking instead.

Flash forward to the summer of 2020, we’re moving again #militarylife, this time from WA state to Wisconsin and I’m looking for something with minimal equipment and a lot of variety.

I settle on the 6 week black super trainer workout calendar because it hit the minimal equipment and variety and added in some added money in black owned businesses pockets (super trainers get paid per view of their workouts through licensing agreements).

During the 6 week black super trainer workout calendar, I had a few Shift Shop workouts to try. After I finished that program I was ready to go all-in on the full workout program, Shift Shop Proving Grounds.

I completed the workout program from October 14, 2020 to November 30, 2020, averaging 4.8 workouts a week (yes those 10” abs added workouts counted as ONE full workout!).

During that time, I created 9 tips and tricks that I felt you would find helpful. My hope is that by reading these tips and tricks that you feel MORE confident in completing this workout program YOUR WAY and realize that moving isn’t as scary as it sometimes seems.

9 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
SHIFT SHOP PROVING GROUNDS

Put the captions on when you stream the workout on your tv via the roku, chromecast, apple/fire tv.

I stream my beachbody on demand workouts through my roku onto my tv (in the basement now, the guest room in WA, and the living room in NC). I like to put my music loud to keep me motivated and distract me (who doesn’t?) but sometimes if a move is new I don’t want to miss what the super trainer is saying.

So, I make sure to always (on all my workout programs) have the closed captioning on. This way I can workout to louder music AND know what’s going on without having to rewind (most of the time).

It’s okay to pause/rewind the workout

One of my absolute favorite things about at-home workouts is that I can stop the workout any time I want. Have an emergency bathroom break? there’s a pause for that.

Need to blow your nose? there’s a pause for that. Not sure what position to place the markers in because you were focusing on catching your breath? there’s a pause + rewind button for that.

Make sure that you’re the one in control during your workout. Yes, it’s important to do the workout how it is meant to be done (with intentional breaks or without any breaks depending on the workout program) but what’s MORE important, in my opinion, is that you get it done in a way that feels good to you.

If there’s a choice between doing it perfectly (no pauses/rewinds, etc) and quitting before finishing a program and doing it imperfectly (bathroom breaks, pauses, rewinds, etc) while crossing off every single workout on a workout calendar, I vote we do the latter one as imperfectly as possible.

Count evens/odds instead of every single rep
if you’re going fast

During the “Proving Grounds,” workouts, you’re going to be doing reps as fast as you can to try to beat the score (1 rep = 1 point) of your previous week’s number. These workouts are repeated once a week for strength and once a week for speed.

When you’re going super fast, your body might start moving faster than your brain can count. When this happens, to make sure you’re able to keep up, start count evens or odds. I personally liked the even numbers, so I would count: 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 12, etc.

This was a brain saver while doing these workouts and I hope it makes counting easier for you too!

get “above yourself,” in order to push yourself further during proving grounds days

There’s a pro athlete strategy where the pros will try to “get above yourself,” while training. Think of it as trying to have an “out of body experience,” while still in your body or expanding your awareness to outside of just yourself.

How it worked for me, was to try to feel the space around me and then work on slowly expanding my awareness to the edges of the room. This is similar to a hakala technique that my neurolinguistic programing (NLP) coach taught me.

It’s essentially expanding your awareness to outside of your limited physical body to decrease the intensity of what your body is feeling. It’s allowing the mind to push you further than your body feels able to do in the moment and it’s pretty dang powerful.

use the tiger tail to roll out your lower legs
(calf muscles)

You’re going to spend a lot of time on your toes because Shift Shop Proving Grounds is essentially an agility based cardio program that involves jumping, quick changes in direction, etc. This will increase the demand on your gastrocnemius/soleus (calf) muscles.

My saving grace for muscle tightness is the tiger tail. If you don’t have one you can grab the 18” one in the shop and if you’d like to learn how to use it on your lower legs you can find that info via this youtube video.

use the markers as visual cues to increase the effectiveness of each move

The markers are really a must have for this workout program. You could grab different markers, but if you do make sure they’re the same colors because I promise you, when you’re tired you’re not going to want to try to figure where to place them if the colors don’t match.

The markers are not only fun and give this workout program a little extra bad-assery to it, it also helps you uplevel your workout by using the markers as visual cues. Visual cues are essentially giving your brain something to focus on and telling your brain where to move your body in order to “complete,” the move.

Without the markers, you may not move as far, work as hard, or stretch just a bit further during each rep. The risk then, is that you don’t get quite as good of a workout as you would with the markers. Plus, the markers really make it the most fun.

Make sure you’re doing the
sumo squat correctly

The sumo squat is a move that really needs a youtube video soon on my part. A lot of times, the sumo squat is difficult for people due to tightness in their inner thigh muscles (adductors) or hip joints. This results in them having less wide of a stance and increases the risk that their knees will go past their toes, increasing stress on the knee joint (not what we want).

When doing a sumo squat keep these tips in mind:

Point your toes out
Focus on a wide stance (as wide as you can go with your knees still over your ankles when you bend your knees)
Tilt your bottom under (this will increase the stretch on the front of your hips but keep your back in good alignment)
Only bend your knees slightly if your hips/inner thighs are really tight

The biggest thing to remember with sumo squats is the more beachbody on demand workouts you do, the more flexibility you will have.

This is because Beachbody Super Trainers focus on the three planes of movement (frontal, sagittal, transverse). Frontal is moving side to side like a lateral sprint, sagittal is moving your right/left side of your body like a lunge, and transverse are rotational movements.

Focusing on these areas will improve both strength and flexibility (among other factors of fitness). My hip mobility has made a ton of progress in the last five years because of these programs and if you’re consistent and don’t skip the stretching I would gather yours will too.

say coordination moves in your head
(out-out, in-in)

This is another brain tip. Shift Shop Proving Grounds is an agility based cardio program but it is also a program high in coordination. This is awesome, because coordination while awkward at times is SO GOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN.

Did you know that coordination exercises can help improve brain function long after your workout is over? In fact, you’re the smartest within the 20 minutes after exercise.

If you can’t do your hardest work that close to your workout maybe dropping down and doing ten push ups (or 5 to avoid getting sweaty) before a big presentation or interview isn’t a bad gig. Team yoga pants to interviews???

Saying the moves in your head while you complete them can end up creating a better mind-body relationship, making the moves feel less awkward and improving your performance.

it’s okay if some moves are more difficult when going backwards

Going backwards is actually a pretty difficult skill. When a move is introduced that requires you to go backwards, remember that your performance will typically decrease when you compare it to the same move going forward.

It might be less smooth or you might just get tripped up enough to have to start over. This is TOTALLY NORMAL. We spend less time doing things backwards so overall our mind isn’t as used to coordinating this way.

Then add the fact that we lose one of the three main systems to giving our brain input about where we are in space and you’re guaranteed to have a dip in performance.

Your visual system (eyeballs) mixes with your vestibular system (inner ear) and your proprioceptive system (touch/skin/joint pressure) to give your brain an understanding of where you are in space.

This allows the brain the ability to give correct instructions to your body to perform a task it wants the body to perform. When you take 1/3 away, it challenges the other two and you might experience more “failure” in the system (mistakes).

BONUS TIPS

it’s okay to do a move totally wrong

Listen, we all do it. We’re following along on a workout program and we think we watched the move and we do it on the mat only to realize halfway through or at the end of the move that it was totally wrong. Oops.

It’s fine, shake it off, Taylor Swift style. There’s no use in feeling guilty or weird about it. Your brain saw/told your body one thing and somewhere along the line it misheard or mis-saw. It happens all the time, and after five years I did it at least three times this program.

It happens to me most when I’m tired and I think Chris said one thing and it’s similar to what he said but not exact. What I focus on is moving. Okay this isn’t EXACTLY what he meant but I’m still moving, still showing up, and I’ll try again next move.

try switching your first leg to make a move harder

If you’re ready to level up during the quick speed drills, focus on which foot your initiating (starting) the movement with. Typically for me, my go to foot is my right foot because I’m right handed.

To challenge myself, I would initiate a move with my left foot. I did this if I wanted an extra challenge or if I was super tired and needed to give my cardio a break but still wanted to get the most out of my workout.

if you’re tired here are ways to modify a move

First, you have to decide what your goals are and then base your modifications on that. During a full workout program 3-9+ weeks, your goals in the moment might change, which is why it’s good to have all of these up your sleeve to use at any time.

Cardio/Endurance: Decrease the intensity of the move but focus on doing a lot of reps.
- Focus on speed but decrease range of motion or make the move itself easier by taking something off (go to your knees, etc).
- Keep moving and do whatever you can to not stop
Weight Loss: Keep moving, try changing to whatever the modifier is doing
Overall Health: Don’t quit.
- Transition from moving reps to holding a rep (shoulder taps in a plank to holding a plank)
Strength: take the jump out and increase your weights (lunges, etc)

This is a total guide to all the modifications, tips, and changes I made to make Shift Shop Proving Grounds a fun and effective program that worked for me, a Physical Therapist and Fit Coach, helping ambitious women live a whole hearted life one crossed off workout at a time.

I hope you find the tips helpful and if you’d like more information on Shift Shop, check out all the details in this blog post or try a full length workout below to see if you like it (for free).

Try Shift Shop (30" workout)

More Workouts From Chris Downing