Day 1 | MX SAHARA

Welcome to Day 1 of MX SAHARA

Building from the skills and results you achieved in MX URBAN, this is going to be a fun, varied and challenging workout. With its emphasis on athletic movement, core and coordination your body will develop a lean, firm and fit figure without a gym-bunny bulkiness.

MX SAHARA uses gliding disks (gliders) and body weight exercises so you can do it anywhere. (If you don’t have gliders, thick socks on a wooden floor work well too).

Today, please fill in the form below, then read the information about the workout, and the philosophy behind it. Your only training today is to do four exercises so as to prepare your body for what lies ahead!

 

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“Every journey begins with a single step a simple scroll…”

MX SAHARA is made up of several different themed daily workout challeneges. You end up doing each workout challenge about three times over the next 30 days. Each one comprises of a warm-up then 7 to 10 exercises demonstrated with style by Emma Walsh and Sophie Grace Jones.

You must stick to the order of exercises and the order of the entire program if you want to maximise results. The real art and science of creating a safe, effective program lies in program design. Thanks to YouTube and Insta, we can all see fun new exercises to try out, but it’s only through following a progressive, intelligently designed program do we get real results.

For every exercise in MX SAHARA there are two levels of difficulty: standard and advanced, which determines how many sets & reps you are asked to do as well as  recommended modifications if the technique feels too hard (or too easy) to perform. Therefore each exercise has four variations in total, so you’ll never get bored. Info on the aesthetic and athletic benefits, performance techniques and recommended modifications are all accessible by clicking the appropriate button below the exercise video (or next to it, if you are reading this on a computer). As with any exercise program, take your time and really try to master each move. Like with MX URBAN, please progress in your time and at your own pace. Please be patient with yourself, there are many new exercises in here and its definitely harder than MX URBAN. Most days will take 45 minutes or so to complete. The first time you do them, as there is quite a bit of learning and practicing involved, it may take you an hour.

Please always stay hydrated, neither starving or full up and clear some space. And from Day Two onwards, tune up the volume of your curated MX playlists!

All Methodology X™ workouts have a clear philosophy and a defined goal: to marry achieving specific aesthetic results in an athletic and empowering way. Doing MX URBAN and MX SAHARA will help you fall in love with exercise and your body.

Modern social media culture is full of talk of body positivity and body neutrality. There is fat shaming, slim shaming and everyone has an opinion on how we should think! Traditional media and advertising celebrate skinny or take part in a contrived dance to appear ‘woke’ to avoid the dreaded Twitter backlash and lets not forget the toxic tabloid press that will say anything about celebrity bodies and diets as long as it get clicks.

I am cynical? I don’t think so. I love the world we live in, but my day job of coaching people who NEED to look certain way for their career, along with the consulting work i do for eating disorder charities and my general interest in body confidence and the off-the-record candid chats i have with magazine editors, You Tube infulencers and my peers have most certainly informed my views!

The way I see it, you have one body. It is part of your identity so it’s very important to decide what relationship you want with it. Don’t let an ever-evolving, ever-so-slightly messed-up society dictate how you feel about your body.

You are free to want anything for your body – to look different, to perform differently, to learn new things, to forget things, to improve fitness, to get fat, to get skinny, to build muscle, to sculpt it in any way you want. It’s your individual choice. Most importantly, however, is to decide: what kind of relationship do you want with you body?

That would be me!

Dan x

Methodology X™ is not designed for everyone. It is for those of you wanting to be lean and fit, strong but not bulky, to be skilful and body-aware. It is Inspired and informed by my years of experience personally training the world leading fashion models.

This workout has been championed by the fashion industry for obvious reasons and a lot of models and actresses do the Methodology X workouts, but you don’t have to strut down a catwalk to do it an enjoy the experience and numerous athletic and aesthetic benefits.

MX SAHARA is more difficult than MX URBAN, but aside from that I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. If in fact you have only half as much fun as we did we did filming it in Morocco, then you’ll have a blast!

LET'S GET GOING. PLEASE BE WARM AND HYDRATED

Pendulum Lunge

3 sets of 20 reps (swap sides after first set)

Take 30 seconds rest between sets. ‘Rest between sets’ will be referred to as ‘rbs’ from now on.

Athletic Benefits

  • Develops strength and endurance in core and lower body.
  • Improves coordination and balance.

Beauty Benefits

  • Reduces overall body fat.
  • Tones glutes, hamstrings and quads (without bulking).

 

 

Starting Position

  • Start in a standing position with one foot on a glider. Push the ball of the foot in middle of the gliding disk.

Technique

  • Slide back into a reverse lunge and sink that back knee towards the floor.
  • Maintain an upright posture, then slide back and all the way through into a front lunge.
  • Repeat. One rep is counted as a complete back-forward movement. Aim for fluidity and grace…and breathe.

Easier: Slow down the movement to 50% of the normal speed and reduce range of movement to 80% of your max.

Harder:  Close your eyes! Make sure no one is around you as you’ll probably slide off somewhere. This makes the move more about balance, improving your kinaesthetic awareness and is a perfect way of practicing mindfulness.

REST 30 SECONDS

Advanced Glider Pikes

 3 sets of 15 reps  | 45s rbs

Athletic Benefits

  • The ball pike exercises in MX Urban are always cited as being tough, so here’s an even harder version for you.(Yes, you are welcome!)
  • Strengthens your abs, chest, shoulders, core and glutes.
  • Direct performance application for sprinting, cycling and gymnastics (I use it to help me teach handstands).
  • Improves your coordination, muscular control & hamstring flexibility.

Beauty Benefits

  • Abs and hamstrings develop more tone and definition – they are the key accessory muscles of the booty!
  • As so many muscles are working, this is great for fat burning.

Starting Position

  • Begin in a press up position with both feet on a glider.

Technique

  • This is very challenging, so just do your best.
  • Do the press up as low as you can and maintain a flat back.
  • Then slide in with straight legs while driving your hips up.
  • Get as high as possible, ideally so the torso is above your shoulders.
  • Hold for a second up there and then slide back down and repeat.
  • Breathe steadily throughout the movement.
  • Easier: Eliminate the press-up component.
  • Harder: Really! Well, if you need a bigger challenge then when you get into the top position, lift your legs off into a handstand, hold for 3 seconds and then control drop down onto gliders, slide back and repeat. If you can do this, then please share it with our social team on Insta @methodology_x as that’s seriously difficult and we simply must celebrate you!

Muay Thai Knee Strikes

Standard: 2 sets of 12 reps (swap sides after each set) | 30s rbs

Advanced: 2 sets of 20 reps | 10 rbs

Athletic Benefits

  • Develops lower body power and cardiovascular health.
  • Strengthens core, ab and glutes.
  • Improves coordination.
  • Teaches real fighting skills! Aim for thighs, groin or ribs in a self-defense situation.

Beauty Benefits

  • Burns fat
  • Tones glutes

Starting Position

  • Stand upright with left leg forward and hands up in fighting stance.

Technique

  • Jump up and swap feet so left foot is now backwards.
  • Drive hips & knee up and forward into an imaginary target.
  • As you do this throw your upper body backwards while driving arms diagonally down in unison (this replicates grabbing an opponents head/neck in the martial art of Muay Thai)
  • After striking, bring foot back to starting position.
  • Jump, and repeat on other side and then repeat.
  • Please note that one rep is one strike.

Easier: Step between strikes rather than jump.

Harder: Add in one deep body squat after every strike. This is so hard, but great for building endurance.

Yoga Flow

Standard: 3 sets of 8 reps | 30s rbs (rest between sets)

Advanced: 3 sets of 10 reps | 10 rbs

Athletic Benefits

  • Stretches out back of legs, back and abs.
  • Improves core.
  • Develops movement grace.
  • Mildly strengthens core, abs, wrists and shoulders.
  • Serves as a cool down for today’s workout.

Beauty Benefits

  • Very mild toning of abs and shoulders.

Starting Position

  • Cobra position with head back.
  • Arms locked so chest off floor and abs stretched out.

Technique

  • Float hips up into a pike position.
  • Flow into (half) Child’s Pose by bending knees.
  • Flow back into Pike position.
  • Sink hips down into  Cobra starting position.

Easier:  Loose the flow. Hold each position for 3 seconds.

Harder: When in the childs pose position, jump back then jump in (so basically adding squat thrust into the mix)  but maintain the fluid vibe of this move please as it still needs to be cool down style drill.

Well done!

Tomorrow you’ll be doing the first themed workout from our repertoire: the Be Sassy Workout. Aside from being longer, from tomorrow onwards you will notice curated Spotify playlists helping you stay motivated and there is also an ‘advanced’ option for every exercise. This is perfect for when you are doing multiple cycles of MX SAHARA.