Saundra

This was the fastest that the month of March has passed by. And, workout wise, March was a pretty good month. Now on to April 2012. I am going for more weight and strength work in April. The rotation breaks down as follows: Sunday - Cathe Weight Training Monday - Pump It Up workouts Tuesday - Ilaria Powerstrike workouts Wednesday - More Pump It Up workouts Thursday - Kelly Coffey-Meyer Weight Training Friday - Cardio Karate - My favorite workouts of the set Saturday - Rest The only workouts that I have not done previously are the Pump It Up workouts.

Reboot Volume 2 is a 53 minute workout and contains the following chapters: Warm Up (5 Mins) Medicine Ball Cardio (8 Mins) Power Cardio (8 Mins) Weighted Cardio (8 Mins) Fast Cardio (8 Mins) Weighed Core (10 Mins) Stretch (5 Mins) Lots of functional exercises in this workout. I thought the workout more intense than Volume 1 and it contains quite a bit of high impact and power type moves. There were a couple of times where I was out of breath. Tracie takes you down to the floor in several of the segments. There are burpees, burpees into push ups, plank triceps press, plank side rotations - these are all exercises that I am about sick of because they show up in so many workouts. I did enjoy all sections of the workouts that didn't include those moves. Tracie uses a med ball, two sets of dumbbells and a mat. Usually I really like the music Tracie select and it's not that the music selection in Vol 2 is bad, but it seem staccato. I wasn't crazy crazy about this workout. It i...

Reboot Vol 1 is the first workout in a new series from Tracie Long. It is approximately 50 minutes long and is an interval style workout. The basic pattern of the intervals are : cardio recovery weight training recovery cardio I like the workout. I didn't think it all that intense, more of an intermediate workout. Also, I didn't think it all that different from the Longevity Series (Tracie's previous serious). The DVD does not contain any premixes but the following chapter points are available to select: Warm Up (5 mins) Hamstrings & Butt (8 mins) Lunges & Shoulders (8 mins) Weighted Push Ups & Rows (8 mins) Squats & Biceps (8 mins) Weighted Core (5 mins) Stretch (5 mins) Like most of Tracie's workouts, the workout is tightly choreograph with the music. The workout uses two sets of dumbbells and a mat. 3 & 3/4 stars

Volume 12 in the original FitPrime series of workouts is Just Right Flex Posture. It is an 40 minute workout and it features Anna Benson as the lead. Pilates and Yoga are the principle disciplines used to give your body a thorough stretch and to work on your flexibility. Many of the exercises use isometric holds. The workout also include balance work. I enjoyed the balance exercises the most. I think of Flex Posture as a good stretch workout for the total body. The workout is chapter and you can select the following chapter points : Salutation Warrior Stick Tree Sit Twist Block Horse Bow + Cat Camel Threads Plank Spider Core Nose to Knee Venus Anna uses the tall step, yoga blocks, yoga pillows and a dowel stick throughout the workout. 3 Stars

Cathe's Travel Fit is approximately 50 minutes in length and it is a total body workout that uses a stretch band to get the job done. The workouts contains cardio burst in between the various resistance sets. I put this workout in my rotation because I knew I would be traveling and staying at a hotel. The workout does not require a lot of space so it work well in the hotel room. Most of the cardio is done in place and the only thing of concern there is some of the moves you are hopping or doing little jumps - so the people beneath you may not appreciate you depending on how much noise you make. I quite enjoyed the resistance sections (more so than I did the cardio burst). Most of the resistance exercises are isolation exercises. There are only a couple of times where I would say Cathe does a compound type move. Also, for the resistance sections, Cathe mostly uses a pattern of high reps to get the job done. There are a lot of 7 in 1, 15 in 1, and 3 in 1 pulses; and you do s...

Jennifer Ray leads the FIRM's Cardio Dance Club workouts. The DVD contains three 20-minute workouts. Each workout features its own warm up and cool down. Besides Jen, there are two cast members with one showing modifications. The dances are : Club Dance Salsa Sizzle Caribbean Groove I did all three dances back to back and burn over 430 calories. Each of the dances feature two sequences that Jen teaches separately in a layered approach. Towards the end of the 20 minute, she combines both sequences into one long pattern and runs through the whole combos two to three times before moving on to the cool down. I found all the moves very simple and easy to follow. Jen cued well. I thought the most energetic dance the Club Dance and this was my favorite of the three. I just thought it had a really good energy. The other dances are good, I just felt I had to create my own energy with them. I think that had something to do with the music being a slower tempo in the Latin and Caribbea...

CIA 2202 All-Out Hi/Low & Step features Franny Benedetto as the lead. It is an older CIA Video workout that is part of the 2200 Series of Workouts. The actual DVD contains three 2200 workouts that were once only on VHS. I have had the DVD forever but up until today, I had only done CIA 2203 Cardio Strikezone which is a kickboxing workout. So I decided to explore the other workouts on the DVD. 2202 All-Out Hi/Low & Step is actually two separate 55 minute plus workouts. Workout one is Hi/Low and Workout Two is Step. I only did the Hi/Low workout. The Hi Low workout features an 8 minute warm up, 7 mini combos, and about a 5 minute cool down. Franny teaches the combos in a rapid layer approach. Once you get pass the warm up, there is not a lot of marching. You are always doing a move that is part of the combo. She teaches it, does it about 4 times and then she is like "let's move on". I mentioned this because a couple of times, I was trying to figure out where ...

Just Right Cardio is Volume 11 of the FitPrime original series of workouts. It stars Anna Benson and it's a little over 30 minutes in length. The sections of the workout are Warm Up Stretch Cardio Floor Work Stretch Cool Down The cardio portion is about 20 minutes and consist of short sequences of mostly walking, marching, tap outs and some squat work. There is one cardio tune where you are doing a lot of knee lifts and I felt it in the hip flexors. So great endurance work for that part of the body. Anna used the arms quite a bit in the cardio sets - overhead press, biceps, press downs, swing arms are some of the variation arm moves. Anna included a lot of breath work and I like that part of the workout. This is a really easy, basic simple workout, not much complexity. The floor work contains push ups, bridge, and core work. There are several glitches in the editing. At least twice in the workout, it appeared that a section came to an end, only to have the workout jump back in ...

30 Minutes To Fitness Your Best Body is a muscle endurance sculpting workout. The Main Menu of the DVD looks like this: Introduction Warm-Up Workout One Workout Two Yoga/Stretch Premixes Chapters Credits The reason I tend to post what the DVD menu looks like with Kelly's workouts is because vary rarely can you just push play. There is no "Play All". You need to select the warm up and after the warm up the DVD takes you back to the menu where you can select Workout One or Two. So there is a bit of choppiness with it. When you combine the warm up, one of the workouts and the yoga/stretch segment which serves as the cool down, the workouts are each over 40 minutes on their own An extra 10 minutes is too long for a workout that is suppose to be 30-Minutes. I have gripe about this before so I won't do it here. The Workouts: Both workouts are very similar to each other. There are five rounds. In each of the five rounds you work an upper body muscle group, the legs, ...

30 Minutes To Fitness Step Boxing is a Kelly Coffey Meyer workout. The main part contains two Step Boxing workouts. Workout One is about 32 minutes and Workout Two is about 33 minutes. The main menu on the DVD contains the following sections: Introduction Workout One Workout Two Stretch Premixes Chapters Quick Fix Tutorial Credits This DVD also has a ton of premixes giving you lots of options. The premixes are: Workout One Plus Extra Drills Workout Two Plus Extra Drills Workout One Plus Extra Dumbbell Drills Workout Two Plus Extra Dumbbell Drills Kickboxing Drills Only (No Step) Dumbbell Drills Only (no Step) Kickboxing and Dumbbell Drills Kelly's Favorite Compilation Workout One & Two I have done both workout one and workout two each of which has its own warm up. Today, I completed the Premix that combine both workouts (Workout One & Two Premix). The only difference between this premix and doing the workouts separately is the premix did not include the warm up for Worko...

Just Right Weights + Cardio +Yoga is lead by Anna Benson. It is Volume 10 in the FitPrime original series of workout and it is about 40 minutes in length. The back of the DVD cover states "The Just Right series is not too hard, but beautifully effective." I agree with that statement. I didn't think this workout hard but I certainly felt I got a good workout. This workout is a Non-Dominant Trainer workout. Not only does this Just Right workout work your non-dominant (weak) side first, Anna also gives you more reps to do on the weak side than she does on the strong side. For instance, you will do a single arm shoulder raise. You might do three reps on the weak side and one rep on the strong side. This is by design. So for those of you who have to do the same amount reps per side, this may not be the workout for you. The cardio is very simple and much of it lacks intensity. There is this bunny hop section that alternates with calf work ( releve ). I found this ...