Saundra

10 Minute Solutions Cardio Hip Hop is lead by Heather Graham. Heather takes you through five dance routines that have a hip hop flair to them. The dances are: Hip Hop 101 House Party Signature Moves Hip Hop Jam Street Style Hip Hop 101 starts off with isolation's for the rib cage and the hips.  You do this for about 4 minutes.  This is followed by a series of knee pulls for about a minute.  After this section you move into a mini routine consisting of knee pulls, hip hits, a move called the chicken up and a figure 8 toe taps. In House Party there is a lot of bouncing and you are working on the balls of your feet.  The first music tune in this section was blah and it faded out.  It didn't sound a strong or loud as the music used in Hip Hop 101.  It was almost background music.  The second tune was a little bit stronger.  Moves called the quick step, slice and wave up appear in this routine. Signature Moves are Heather's personal ...

Latin Cardio Party is the latest Dance Off the Inches workout.  Like the other DOTI workouts is clocks in at just under 45 minutes and features a warm up, three dance routines and a cool down. The workout is lead and choreograph by Emily Naim.   I was reading the back of the DVD cover and Jennifer Gilardi co-choreograph the workout. Besides Emily, there are two other cast members. The dances featured in this workout are: Samba Cumbia Reggaeton There is a Step Guide section that is about twenty minutes long and it takes you through several of the steps that appear in the three dances.  I wish this section had separate chapter points for each step she went over - to make it easier to go to the steps you wanted to work on and skip easily over the steps you did want to go over. The dances were not hard to follow. Emily takes you through a lengthy break down often teaching the move "under" tempo before taking it to full tempo.  She gives you lots of re...

Ballet Body Core is a 45 minute workout in which you do about 10 minutes of standing toning and then about 30 minutes of floor toning and ending with a stretch. Like the lower and upper Ballet Body workouts, Leah used voice-over in this workout; and the voice-over is done very well. The standing sections alternates between expansive moves and smaller pulsing moves. The floor work includes a set of side planks performed in various positions (knee in, leg straight out).  Leah also includes several sets of exercises for the lower and upper abs.  You also go onto all fours and do what I thought were some interesting exercises.  Supermans also show up. All movement is set to the beat of the music.  I think this is my favorite out of all of Leah's Ballet Body workouts. The DVD offers the following optons: Play All Music Only (No instruction) 4 stars.

Ballet Fitness by Jennee:   Ballet Blas t is probably going to be my favorite ballet DVD workout that I have.   There is not a barre or chair but Jennee tells you that you can get a chair if you require more stability.   However, Jennee would prefer you to use your own balance. The workout clocks in at 50 minutes and includes several sections that you can select on their own.   In fact the DVD offers the following options : Play All Play Workout Only Warm up Plié’ blast Cardio blast Ballet sculpt Ab blast Cool down Extras In the ballet sculpt and ab blast sections Jennee does use a set of hand weights and a mat is use in the ab and cool down segments.   Along with Jennee there are two other cast members and all cast members work out with bare feet. Jennee offers form tips as she takes you through various exercises; showing you the wrong way and telling you not to do it.   She also offers various modifications showing yo...

Ballet Body Upper Body clocks in at around 45 minutes and it is essentially divided up into two parts, a floor plank section and a standing light weights section. For the plank section, there are full arm extended planks, side planks, front elbow planks, side elbow planks, and reverse planks.  In these various plank positions you do several exercises altering the tempo or rep pattern throughout the sets.  In the plank segments, the shoulders are getting worked constantly.  The standing weight segment uses hand weights.  Leah recommends 2 to 5lb dumbbells.  There is a lot of shoulder work in this section as well, but also there is some chest, rear delt and triceps work.   Circles and more circle - there are a lot of sets where you are circling the arms in one direction and then you reverse and circle in the opposite direction. This workout was challenging for me. I had to take lots of breaks. Also in this workout, I didn't think Leah's voice...

Well I kind of felt that Rockin Models was all over the place. It seems like there was a lot of stuff put into this workout starting with the equipment list : Body Bar or chair Yoga Mat Exercise Ball towel a hat The workout combines yoga, ballet and the burlesque style of dancing and it is around 70 minutes long. At the beginning of the DVD, you can select Play All or Chapters. If you select chapters, you get the following options : Interview Artists Workout Rockin Models The Interview segment is an interview with Grace Lazenby. She introduces and talks about her concept for Rockin Model. The Artists section showcases a music video from each of the artist whose music appear in the workout.    The workout section is further broken down into the following tracks: FireFly - Warm up How the Day Sounds - Yoga Ghost Town - Yoga Evil - Standing Ballet Burlesque Your Melody - Yoga Honestly - Yoga Take me Home - Standing Ballet Barre Comes and Goes - C...

Well as voice-overs go,  Ballet Body Lower Body Extreme Muscle Elongation is one of the best.  Really, the narration is right in sink with what Leah is doing.  This workout requires a mat and some type of barre (chair) that can be use to assist with balance or the ballet exercises that appear throughout. The first part of the workout is one long standing series of moves mostly using the barre.  Every once in a while, Leah will release the barre and workout without it.  You work all parts of the leg - calf, hamstring, quads, glutes, inner thigh, and outer thigh.  There is a lot of isometric training and a lot of working up on your toes.  All the moves are choreograph to the beat of the music.  I like this.  I found it much easier to follow what Leah was doing and I felt I was able to go longer into each set because of this.  Often with ballet type workouts, I have to take more breaks than other type of workouts. The second part of...

Body Fit 360 , from the clip that I saw,  I did not think I was going to like this workout very much.  This is a body-weight and barefoot workout.  Well, Michelle works out with bare feet as did the rest of the cast. The only equipment required is a mat and there is a modifier. This is a dance based, up and down workout.  By up, I mean standing and by down I mean floor work.  You are constantly working in both planes.  Along the way, you are doing a lot of balancing and stretching. While I like this workout more than I thought I would, I did think this would be a workout that I could get away from burpees and squat thrust, but no, they show up.  Even a variation on the plank mountain climber shows up.  Now with that said, I do think the way Michelle incorporated these moves into the workout, along with the musical selection made the moves take on a different persona.  Also, all the exercises are measured and precise. I did not think the...

Ballet Body by Leah Sarago has the following DVD menu options: Play Full Workout (75 minutes) Warm up (5 minutes) Upper Body Workout (20 Minutes) uses light dumbbells Lower Body Workout (20 Minutes)  uses a barre Core Workout (20 Minutes) Cool Down/Stretch (10 Minutes) Instructional Segment (12 Minutes) There is also a 3 minute introduction to the workout. Except for the Instructional Segment, Leah is the only cast member. During the Instructional Segment, Leah has Daina, show different modifications for the core, upper, and lower body exercises that you will see Leah perform in the main part of the workout. At 75 minutes, I did think the main workout long but you can choose to do just a couple of the individual workouts or even parts of those individual workouts. While the workout as a whole moves from exercise to exercise without stopping, the DVD does contain chapter points (segments) that allow you to move forward to a particular point on the DVD. In the U...

Ballet Body by Jazzercise is lead by Emily Tyson, Ashley McConnell, and Emily Newland .  It is approximately 40 minutes in length.  It contains a warm up, 6 sculpting tracks, and a cool down. Track 1 - lower body (standing) Track 2 - upper body (standing) Track 3 - lower body (standing) Track 4 - lower body (standing) Track 5 - core (standing/floor) Track 6 - lower body (floor) I do not do a lot of barre style workouts, so I thought several aspects of this workout tough.  I did like like the length of the workout- just long enough to be challenging but not so long  I got bored.  I tend to get bored with barre style workouts.   I thought both the instructors and the soundtrack great, and I love the vibe that they gave off. There is a chair used in the standing lower body tracks and a mat used for the floor work.  During the workout, one of the instructors shows advance moves and another one shows beginner modifications. DVD Menu Op...

Dancin' Abs is co-lead by Shanna Missett Nelson and Young McCarthy.  It is a 60 minute athletic dance core workout. All of the ab work is done within the mini dance combos and it is all standing.  Expect a lot of oblique focus training.  Most of the ab work were oblique twist, oblique crunches or side bends. There is quite a bit of impact, not super crazy high impact - more that you are constantly up on your toes doing some type of bouncing or hopping move. There is also a lot of repetition within each mini combo.  You are doing a set of two sequences over and over again until the end of the track.  Not including the warm up and cool down, there are 12 tracks in the 60-Minute Workout.  Most of the tracks are roughly 3 to 4 minutes. Lots of stopping and starting.  At the end of each track, you come to a complete stop and do some type of dance pose hold. Towards the end of the workout, most of the tracks are focused on sculpting the abs but the...

July 2013 Monthly Rotation Sunday - Treadmill Monday - Dance Tuesday - Barre Style Wednesday - Dance Thursday - Ballet Body Friday - Dance Saturday - Rest