Saundra

January 2011 Monthly Rotation will feature a morning rotation and an afternoon rotation. Morning rotation: Sunday - Tracie Long Longevity workouts Monday - Amy Bento Hi Lo workouts Tuesday - Cathe sculpting emphasis strength Wednesday - Amy Bento Step Thursday - Cathe sculpting emphasis endurance Friday - Amy Bento Kickboxing Saturday - Rest Evening rotation : Sunday - Tracie Long Focus Workouts Monday - FIRM Express Cardio Sculpt Tuesday - Cardio Coach Treadmill Wednesday - FIRM Express Cardio Thursday - Victoria Johnson Dance Workouts Friday - FIRM Express Sculpt Saturday - Rest I know it looks like a lot but the longest evening workout is 45 minutes and that is one of the cardio coach workouts. All the FIRM workouts are 20 minutes and the dance and Focus workouts are 30 minutes each. I will be doing some form of sculpting back to back but much of the sculpting in the FIRM workouts are paired with cardio burst. In looking ahead, I think my most challenging day of workouts will co

2010 What can I say about 2010. The year flew by for me. I had a job change. I didn't make much progress in the weight loss front but other things came together for me. I bought way too many workouts. I hurt my foot and then my knee. I missed my yearly FIRM Believer's trip but I got to go to the Cathe Road Trip. I took a trip out to Denver Colorodo (first time I did that). I had Thanksgiving at my house for the first time in like a Gazillion years. I made it to New York for my annual Christmas day shopping and decided that this was going to be the last year I do New York in December (too cold, too crowded). And I only over spent my Holiday budget this year by $207. So all in all, it was a good if not relatively uneventful year. On the Fitness Front Favorites My Favorite Workout for 2010: Tracey Staehle's Cardio Kickbox Challenge 2nd runner up: Kelly Coffey-Meyer Circuit Burn 3rd runner up: Amy Bento Advance Step Challenge 4 4th runner up: Turbo Fire 45 EZ Workout 5th runne

Cardio Dance featuring Paula Abdul is about a 45 minute dance and sculpting workout. The first 27 minutes or so is the dance and the last 12 minutes or so is sculpting mostly for the legs follow by some stretching. The steps are bit more complicated in this workout than Paula's previous workout and even other dance workouts I have. I do think Paula did a good job of breaking down the steps. She teaches the workout similarly to her previous workout in that she teaches you the steps at half time and then gradually picks up the pace until you are at full tempo. The routine is really just one routine broken down into three parts. Each part has two sub parts. Paula layers the parts until you get to the full routine which I thought was a bit short. I would have like to see more dance content. What is there is fun and funky (kind of hip), including the warm up. 3 stars

Cardio Pump Hi/Lo is another workout I have had for awhile and I that I just got around to doing. It features classic Amy Bento Hi/Lo followed by classic Amy Bento sculpting. . The Hi/Lo portion is sadly too short - only about 13 or 14 minutes or so. It is athletic in nature and I didn't find the steps difficult to pick up at all. I want to say there are two combinations but I really felt there was one combination and then some add-on moves to that. . The sculpting portion is about 20 minutes and it features lots of equipment - club step, tubing, weights, stability ball and mat. The sculpting portion has some unique and traditional exercises. . The workout flew by. Amy is full of energy and the music is motivating. There is a lot of counting down the reps - something that I don't always like. So at times I found this annoying but other than that I love the workout especially the Hi/Lo portion. . The whole workout clocks in around 46 minutes. 4 stars

Get Up and Dance ! is an aerobic dance workout. The workout is roughly 50 minutes in length and features Paula Abdul, two assistant instructors and a huge cast of background dancers. The set is a stage - looks like something you would find in a club atmosphere and the music is mostly by Paula. There are three dance combinations. Within each combination, there are three dance moves that Paula breaks down for you in a slow count tempo. She then picks up the tempo the more you do the move until you are doing the dance move at full speed. Paula then either layers on to what you have already learned or goes on to teach you the next step in the combo. After learning all the steps you run through the combo at full speed. After learning all three combos, you run through the whole routine for several passes at full tempo. In between the end of the combos and the cool down, there is a bit of comedy where the camera crew comes out to do a routine for Paula. I could have done without this

Tracy Anderson's Beginner Dance Cardio is approximately 45 minutes in length, maybe a little shorter and it features a warm up and four dance combinations but no cool down. The warm up is about 5 minutes and each combinations is between 9 and 10 minutes. The workout itself is different. The warm up threw me for a bit because Tracy does not cue through it. At first I thought maybe I hit a music only option (which the DVD does not have) but no - she introduces the warm up and then you are basically just following what she is doing on the screen. It is not complicated and I have to say for the most part the camera did a decent job with the camera angles in the warm up and in the whole video. Either we have full body shots or we have camera shots showing what the feet are doing. So no complaints there. Tracy leads the warm up and the first combinations and then she has her master instructors/trainers each lead a combination; and apparently, we (including Tracy and her trainers)

Cardio Pump Step is another workout that I have had for awhile and I am just now getting around to doing it. It is a 49 minute workout that features two step combos and a sculpting weight segment. The step portion includes a warm up and a cool down and the step combinations are classic Amy Bento - fun, athletic and full of energy. Amy does not have a break down for the combinations but I found them easy to pick. The step portion is about 22 minutes long. The second part of the workout is the sculpting section. This section uses an 8 inch step height, a weighted barbell, and dumbbells to sculpt the body. Amy works each muscle group except shoulders. For the legs, Amy does leg press, lunges, and dead lifts. Push ups work the chest. Barbell rows work the back. Curls, hammer curls and cross body curls work the biceps. Dips and french press work the triceps. There is plank work that works the core. I like this workout - especially the step section, but the sculpting section is pre

Target Toning Zero-in-Ten is a FIRM workout(s) and it is led by Rebekah Sturkie and Emily Welsh. It consist of five 10-minute workouts. The workouts are Lean Legs (Rebekah), Fearless Arms (Rebekah), Bikini Body Blaze (Emily), ABS-olute Core (Rebekah) and Bun Burn (Emily). Each of the 10 minutes consist of a brief warm up in the beginning and a cool down/stretch at the end. Rebekah uses weights in her three workouts and her three workouts are interval based (cardio burst and strength training). The workouts include the standards interval style exercises (including the burpee - appears in Abs-solute Core). Emily does not use weights in her workouts. Bikini Body Blaze is basically a multi-level cardio workouts. By multi-level, Emily starts at level one (easiest) and goes up to level three (hardest) by adding more intense moves. Bun Burn works the lower body using your own body resistance. You can use each 10 minute workout on its own or you can choose to do all 5 sections in the P

A-Team Boot Camp is a 60 minute plus circuit style workout. It consist of 6 circuits or drills as Amy calls them. Each drill is broken down into 4 parts that include 2 minutes of cardio, 1 minute of lower body, 1 minute of upper body and 1 minute of core. The 2 minutes of cardio in some of the drills is very very long. That is because in some of the drills, you are doing the same move for the whole two minute. Over kill. I actually got bored a couple of times wondering when this was going to be over. A couple of the cardio drills do have more variety and thus were more fun to do. The rest of the workout uses a lot of equipment. Weights (dumbbells and barbell), stability ball, tubing and the step bench are all used to added intensity to the lower body, upper body and core exercises. During the lower body sets, where you work each leg separately, the minute is further broken down to doing 30 seconds on each leg. Amy does give you a lot of rest between each drill and a couple of

CIA 2903 Stepping Up with Seasun Zieger is approximately a 55 minute step workout. It does contain an additional core section but I did not do that portion of the workout. . I believe this workout came out in the Spring of 2009. I bought the workout when it came out. I even think I pre-ordered it, but I haven't gotten around to doing the whole workout until this year. . I had actually scheduled the workout in my rotation several times but always chose something else because I didn't want to put in the time it would was probably going to take me to learn the combinations. I think in 2009, I got as far as learning the warm up and maybe part of the first combination. . So in October of this year, when I pull the workout back out I was really starting from scratch. This was a difficult step workout to master. By far, out of all my step workouts, this was the most challenging. The step workout contains a warm up, 3 step combinations and a cool down. Even the warm up and cool down h

Dance with Julianne: Just Dance is approximately 45 minutes in length and features ex Dancing with the Stars Professional Dancer Julianne Hough. The DVD has a tutorial that breaks down the moves. There are four moves that Julianne breaks down. I will tell you that I didn't do the tutorial until after I did the workout; and only then because I was checking out what features were on the DVD. The workout contains a warm up, three dance combinations and a cool down. The warm up is dance based. Meaning it contains, head rolls, shoulder rolls, ribcage and hip isolation moves as well as dynamic stretching. The combinations are Work It, Flaunt It and Pump It. The dances are really contemporary with a leaning towards jazz. I found the routines really easy to pick up. Julianne breaks down each move before she adds complexity to it and even the complexity isn't that complex. However the workout does have a modifier who modifies approximately 6 of the moves and that includes some of the s

Weighted Cardio Gloves Workout is a FIRM 20 minute DVD that comes with a pair of 1lb weighted gloves. Rebekah Sturkie is the instructor. The weighted gloves felt big on my hands and my hands aren't small. When I first saw that this kit was coming out, I thought the workout was going to be primarily kickboxing, but it is not. There is actually very little kickboxing in the workout. Instead, Weighted Cardio Gloves is a power cardio (athletic style) workout. It features traditional high impact athletic style moves that Rebekah first teaches the low impact version and then she bumps it up to high intensity. I had a good little sweat going. You are jogging, hopping, jacking, lunging, squatting, and jumping throughout the whole workout. I thought it was a good solid 20 minute cardio workout and I happy to report that through all that, no BURPEES were included and I was waiting for them to show up. She does have a set of planks at the end, but they were done as a set of plank crunches an

The DVD, Cardio Knockout , actually contains three workouts. One workout features Michael Olajide and is called Aerobox Workout. The second workout, the one I did, is named Kickboxing workout and it features Keith Cook and Keli Roberts. The third workout is Tai Chi and it is led by Keli Roberts and Keith Cooke. Of course the main star of the workout is Kathy Smith. It is her workout. The Kickboxing Workout is approximately 50 minutes in length. It features what I thought a rather long warm up and then drill style kickboxing. Even though Kathy called them combos, I really didn't think of them as combos. There are two sets at the end of the Kickboxing segment that I would call combo. One is led by Keli Roberts and the other by Keith Cooke. They are really brief though. After the kickboxing portion, there is a leg conditioning segment where you work the Buns and Thighs. A stretch and cool down follows and then ab and back work. I thought the sequence of this was odd. I guess Kat

It seems that many retail stores are reducing their fitness selection to just a few DVDs or a few brands of DVDs or retail stores are only stocking their shelves with workouts DVDs just prior to a New Year beginning. It also seems like everyday there is another website popping up that sells exercise videos. I think the latter is great for the buyer. There are so many choices available and the consumer can really shop around for great deals. Also of benefit is the information and services that one can get from these sites. Some sites offer forums, some video clips of the workouts, and some a review page. I personally like the sites where I can see a video clip. The following is a list of sites that I know about and/or shop at. www.amazon.com - reviews, some video footage, www.collagevideo.com - reviews, star rating, video clips, forum, www.totalfitnessdvds.com - video clips www.advancedworkouts.com - blog www.fitnessorganica.com - video clips, outside of mainstream, small &

Not Your Momma's Step . I have had this workout for a long time, probably going on two years now. I think I tried or had the workout schedule to do back in the spring but I got sick. This is a workout that you know you will like it once you get the choreography down, but having the patience to learn the choreography is the key. I don't want to say the moves are difficult but they are dance based with a lot of flair and directional changes. So I really had to watch Patrick execute the moves as well as listen to what he was saying. This annoyed me once because Patrick demonstrated a move - which was a "cross to the front (towards the TV) and then a cross to the back (towards the step) move". Later he calls the move a grapevine. So I am thinking, "why didn't you just call it a grapevine to begin with?" Although when he first executed it, it didn't look like a grapevine to me. Patrick does do a decent job of cuing the move once you know what

Wow, this year has flown by. I can't believe that December starts tomorrow. For December's rotation, about a 1/3 of the workouts will be my first outing with them. Although, I have had some of them for almost a year, if not longer. The breakdown: Sunday - Circuit of some sort (mostly FIRM new workouts). Monday - Dance Tuesday - Cardio Sculpt - The FIRM Wednesday - Step Thursday - FitPrime Originals Friday - rest day Saturday - Amy Bento cardio weight workouts. On Sunday the 5th, I have three 20 minute workouts listed. They are all FIRM workouts: Power Sculpt, Core & Lower Body Toner , and Weighted Gloves Cardio Workout. I might replace Wednesday the 29th workout with the FIRM Cardio Step Mix . I will see when I get there. Right now I have Cathe's Intensity listed. It will be one or the other. It was my intention to take 2 rest days in December, but I decided to just go for one. Usually in December I like to take it easy and go with less intense or shor

November is coming to an end and so is my Turbo Fire rotation. The last of the workouts are Fire Class 30 and Stretch 40 Class. Fire 30 Class clocks in at 30:57. It features one drill done twice but the drill is not done back to back. Chalene does the drill once at about the 20 minute mark or so and again at about the 12 minute mark. This is a fun workout. I thought the combinations flowed really well. This is probably my second favorite behind the Fire 45 EZ class. You get in, work real hard and then get out. Stretch 40 Class is basically a yoga class or a stretch class done with yoga poses. It was just okay. I actually thought it was a bit long and boring. Chalene coaches throughout - constantly providing motivational tips. I like listening to Chalene but Stretch 40 is probably my least favorite out of all the Turbo Fire workouts. Fire 30 Class - 4 1/2 stars Stretch 40 Class - 2 1/2 stars Summary of series: I really like the series especially the cardio. At the same

Oh IMAX 3 was a killer of a workout. I think this was due to the recovery periods being almost nonexistent. Like its predecessors, IMAX3 features 10 intervals. The 10 intervals include a mini step routine repeated 6 times, a blast and a very brief recovery period. Cathe even states "You might have notice, we tightened up the recovery period". Yes I noticed, but I didn't like it. I enjoyed the recovery period in IMAX 1 and IMAX 2. What I liked about IMAX 3 were the mini step routines. I thought they flowed extremely well. Although, now that I think about it, it could be I just wasn't ready to go into the next blast - that could be why I liked them so much, I was still in recovery. If the recovery periods were shorter, I have to assume the blast were longer; at least that's how it seemed. Some of the blast seemed like they were going on and on and on. Most of the moves in the blast and step routines were athletic in nature. There might have been one or t

Turbo Fire 45 EZ Class is my favorite Turbo Fire Workout. I just really like how the combos and music come together in this one. The workout clock in at 43:40. It has one finale but no drills. A drill wasn't necessary. I burnt almost as many calories in the 45 EZ Class as I did in the 45 Class. Just super high energy and motivating fun from Chalene. Tone 30 Class clock in at 30:17 and it features a standing and floor section. The standing sections contains compound upper body and lower body moves that are followed by upper body only moves. The floor section are all compound exercise type moves that work multiple body parts. The workout uses both the band (tube style) and a lower body band. I did use the bands for the whole workout, although I am sure you can substitute dumbbells. A solid toning workout. HiiT 25 Class length is 24:32. It features 4 drills that are repeated twice. The first drill is 69 seconds, the second - 67 seconds, the third - 69 seconds and the

Another blast from the past. I have been pulling out all of the first group of workouts that I have ever owned - well the ones I still have. In that pile is Technifunk 2:The Dance Attack!. It is a 30 minute cardio workout that features a warm up, a dance routine and a cool down. This workout is fun fun fun and a real calorie burner. Although, the workout does starts off slow. The warm up is mostly isometric movements, shoulder roles and ribcage isolation with some stretching. Once it gets past that point, the workout picks up with some cool dance moves that Victoria breaks down in 1/2 counts and then she picks up the tempo with double count. You are doing a little bit of ballet, some jazz and some hip hop funk type moves. There is a lot of repetition but it didn't get on my nerves like it did with Cher's Hot Dance. In fact, a couple of times, I even said to myself - "We need to do that part again". Victoria is fun, and hip and motivating in her enthusiasm and

I will be offering additional thoughts on this workout at a later date, but for now I want to give my initial impression of Intensity . I did the download version of this workout and from the download it is hard to see how things breakdown chapter wise. The workout itself clocks in at 57:38. It is roughly broken down into the following parts: warm up - about 6 minutes Step (high and low intensity) - 14 minutes IMAX (step mini routine with blast) - 10 minutes HiiT - 10 minutes Lower HiiT - 10 minutes Stretch - 7 minutes. The HiiT portion does contain a clock count down but there is no set pattern as there is with 40/20 and 30/30. The HiiT pattern is random depending on the exercise. The workout features all old or reused Cathe choreography. Therefore, if you are use to Cathe choreography you will have absolutely no problem in picking up the routines or moves - which is good because the workout does move. You are not resting much. With the exception of Lower HiiT portion, much o

This week's Turbo Fire workouts started off with Turbo Fire 45 Class . Fire 45 Class clocks in at 44:39. It contains 2 drills. The first drill is only done once and it is 70 seconds in length. I was a bit disappointed that this wasn't repeated twice. The second drill is also 70 seconds in length but it is performed twice. There is one finale. I like the individual moves in this workout but I didn't think the moves flowed well together. Sculpt 30 Class clock in at 28:18. I like this workout much better than the first time I did it. That could be because I used dumbbells for most of the exercises. Chalene does use a band - the tube style. The exercises in Sculpt 30 are mostly compound in nature. You are working both the upper and lower body at the same time. A few of the exercises just work the upper body. It is an okay sculpting workout. HiiT 30 Class contains 5 drills and clocks in at 30:35. Each drill is repeated twice except for the last drill which is repeated three

Yes, I know. I went back in time with this workout. This workout is one of the first 15 or so workouts videos that I had purchased. In the beginning, for me anyway - it was Jane Fonda, CherFitness, and Tamilee Webb (Buns of Steel) that made up my repertoire of workout videos. So Body Confidence consist of two workouts. A Hot Dance workout for cardio and a Mighty Band workout for resistance. I only did the Hot Dance workout which is led by choreographer Dorian Sanchez. It has probably been at least 10 years since I have done this workout and I think my VHS was feeling its age because I could barely hear Dory and I don't remember that being the case. The Hot Dance workout is 38 minutes of athletic style with a dance flair cardio. The workout features a warm up, one lengthy combo, and cool down/stretch. There is a lot of "taking it from the top". So much so, that I started to get annoyed. Very very repetitive. Dory takes you through three or four iterations of each pass be

Kettlebell Bootcamp is a 54 minute workout featuring Angie Miller. This is my first time doing this video and I have had this workout for a long long time. I bought it because I kept hearing about Kettlebell this and Kettlebell that. The only other Kettlebell workouts I have tried have been Kettlenetics, The FIRM's TransFIRM Your Trouble Zone and Absolute Beginner's 3 in 1 Kettlebell. I just wasn't crazy about the Kettlebell and that type of training. So this workout just sat on the shelf. This workout is led by Angie Miller and this is my first time working out with Angie. I found her to be really pleasant and likable - very easy going and encouraging without being over the top. The DVD features a tutorial. It also has music only options for the various sets. The workout is broken into 8 sets. In the, 8 sets you are performing various swing, strength, and cardio type Kettlebell moves for both the lower and upper body. The time for each set is listed below. Set 1

IMAX 2 . I really like this workout. Following the first IMAX, it contains a thorough warm up, 10 intervals, a cool down and a stretch. The 10 intervals are broken up into a mini step routine repeated 6 times, a blast and a recovery period. I think it's the music that gives this workout its extra oomph! From the start of the workout, there is a vibe that flows through the whole workout and the energy is super high. You just feel like you are grooving and in the zone. The only thing that I didn't like about this workout is in one of the blast you are hopping on one foot for several sets. I ended up modifying that so it wasn't a big deal, just something I didn't care to do. Between intervals 5 and 6, Cathe gives you extra rest time - about 30 seconds. You can check your heart rate or grab water or.... Rest. IMAX 2 is just fun to me. And, oh. It clocks in at 55 minutes. 5 stars.

So this week's Turbo Fire workouts started off with Fire 55 EZ Class. Fire 55 EZ clocks in at 53:05. It contains one drill repeated twice. The drill is 72 seconds long. It also contains two finales. I kind of question the reason of having two finales. Having two seems to take away the impact of having a finale. 55 EZ seems more repetitive than Chalene's other workouts. Chalene keeps up the energy but even so the workout feels long to me. Chalene coaches throughout and the music is energetic. The second Turbo Fire workout I did this week was Upper 20 Class. Upper 20 clocks in at 19:50. Chalene uses a band - the tube style. I chose to use dumbbells. The exercises included are traditional upper body exercises , as well as core based exercises. You are performing anywhere from 8 to 16 reps per exercise; and depending on the exercise -anywhere from 2 to 3 sets. Upper 20 is a nice get in and get out upper body workout. HiiT 20 clocks in at 19:05. It consist of 3 drills. Drill 1 i