Pump It Up! The Ultimate Dance Workout - Thoughts

Pump It Up! The Ultimate Dance Workout features Deanne Berry as the lead. It is approximately 75 minutes in length and the DVD contains the following workout chapters:
Heat - Warm Up Section
Dance It Out - Dance Section 1
Pump It Up - High Energy Dance Section 2
Bums & Tums - Toning Section
Chill - Cool Down Section

I did all but the Bums & Tums section.

Absolutely hands down, the workout features some of the best music I have heard in a workout video. That could be because the Pump It Up! workout series is back by Ministry of Sound, a British Record Label.
The music is definitely the best part of the workout.

Now the workout itself.
Deanne does not mirror cue. Which with this workout, even though it is "dance-based", the lack of mirror cuing wasn't a big deal. That is because you are really not doing dance combinations. Essentially you do a series of moves (side lunges, forward lunges, hip swirls, rockouts, pelvis thrust, knees pulls, jacks, salsa and cha chas) and you just repeat them over and over. All the moves are really easy to pick up and/or execute. I thought there were more athletic moves than dance moves.

While the workout was not hard to follow, I didn't think Deanne cued very well. There were times when she would say "let's go back to the beginning or take it from the top" but she didn't do that. I got to the point I would just wait to see what she was going to do, when I heard her say anything about taking it from the top.
The camera angles didn't help her cuing because it would show a close up instead of a fully body shot, just as she was calling out a different move. Also I felt the last part of Dance Section 2 was improvised. It seemed disjointed - just Deanne calling out a bunch of moves.

My favorite section of the workout was the Latin part in Dance Section 1. Overall, I thought the workout could used a bit more variety. At one point, I started adding my own variety. Just changing the moves up a little.

Again, awesome soundtrack! The DVD has lots of extra such as behind the scenes and music videos of some of the featured songs.
3 & 1/4 stars

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Pro-Form 600 LT Treadmill - Thoughts

Image
The Pro-Form 600 LT Treadmill is HSN and Pro-Form 2011 model treadmill. Each year HSN brings out a new Pro-Form model to sale. On the HSN website the treadmill is called Pro-Form Step Up Personal Trainer Treadmill. The price of this treadmill is $699.95 and the Shipping & Handling is free. I have had this treadmill since May. Assembly is required. It took me and another about an hour, maybe a little less to put it together. The instructions are fairly detail and everything went together as it should. I had the 2007 model of this treadmill, but I like the advertised upgrades so much I decided to get this one. Pre-Program Work outs The 2011 model comes with 16 Pre-program workouts. Of the 16, 4 are distance, 5 are timed, and 7 are calorie burned workouts. The distance workouts are 1 mile, 5K, 10K, and 1/2 Marathon. The time workouts are 20 min, 25 min, 30 min, 45 min The calorie workouts that are broken down by time are 20 min, 25 min, 30 min, 40 min, 45 min, and two 60 min ...
Read more

Tony Horton P90X Plyometrics - Thoughts

Image
Plyometrics .  This means you are jumping. This means high impact. Although there were some none or low-impact exercises. The workout is about 59 minutes. The warm is about 9 minute and 30 seconds. Like the other P90X workouts that I have done, Plyometrics uses rounds as well. There are two rounds in which you are doing 4 exercises. The exercise are performed for either 30 or 60 seconds. After each round you get a water break. At the end of the workout, there is a bonus round that includes three exercises that were sports specific. The workout concludes with a 5 minute stretch and cool down. I am including a worksheet of the exercises. This is my least favorite of the P90X workouts that I have done thus far. Plyometrics just felt long.  Although I did think the soundtrack was very good and I burned a lot of calories. Equipment - towel, heart rate monitor 3 stars
Read more

Tony Horton P90X Legs & Back - Review

Image
This is my second week of P90X workouts and it starts with disc 5, Legs & Back . There are 22 exercises.  For every two leg exercises, there is one back exercise. So the pattern is - do two legs and then 1 back exercise. There are a variety of legs exercises but all the back exercises are pull up/chin up exercises. There is a cardio warm up followed by a stretch.  Then you move into the 22 exercises, each of which has a time associated with it. Sometimes you are doing as many reps as you can and at other times, Tony gives you an exact rep number he wants you to perform.  A stretch cool down concludes the workout. While I was sore after this workout and felt the challenge, I really didn't care for a lot of the exercises in this workout. The workout clocks in at around 59 minutes. Equipment used:  pull up bar,  bands, weights. 2 & 3/4 stars
Read more