Saundra

FitTower Advanced Boot Camp is a 49 minute workout. This workout follows a similar pattern in Cathe's other boot camp style workouts in that you work in rounds. Each round includes four to five exercises with a particular emphasis.  In this boot camp workout, the exercise groups are: power cardio cardio legs targeted muscle group 2nd and/or 3rd exercise targeting a  muscle group There are a total of six rounds plus the warm up and cool down. You are typically running through several sets and many reps of the particular exercise as you change leads and work around the FitTower barre. Depending on the exercise, Cathe will have you raise or lower the exercise barre. Along with the FitTower, Cathe also use a stretch band, a band loop, and a mat.  Cathe shows you modifications throughout the workout for certain exercise.  Of the three new FitTower Advanced workouts, this is the only workout I thought truly advanced but I think that is because this is the worko...

Lean and Mean is a 34 minute workout. It is part of Cathe's Fit Tower workout series. This is the advance workout. The workout is broken up into three segments. There is a lower body segment, an upper body segment and a core segment. Cathe uses the Fit Tower mostly as a prop. She adjust the bar of the Fit Tower throughout depending on the exercise.  Cathe also uses the loop and the band in many of the exercises. This workout did seem a little bit more challenging than the intermediate workout. Rest are kept to a minimum as you are moving from one exercise to the next. Along with Cathe, there is one other cast participant. 3 & 3/4 stars

FitTower Long and Strong is the intermediate workout.It is set up similarly to the beginner workout in that you have a warm up, lower body, upper body, core, and cool down. The exercises are also similar. Cathe varies the rep count and how many sets you are doing from the first workout. Also the rest are shorter. Many of the exercise patterns have you do four reps followed by seven pulses. You are adjusting the FitTower bar throughout. There were a couple of times when Cathe had adjusted her FitTower bar off camera and I was scrambling to get mine in place to start the exercises. That was  annoying. I thought the music included in this workout also very good.  The workout uses a loop and a band on some exercises.  Workout clocks in at 34 minutes. 3 & 3/4 stars

To the Mat is part of Cathe's ICE series. The ICE series are workouts that are geared towards the intermediate exercises. To the Mat clocks in just over 49 minutes.  It is a lower body core workout that is done completely on the floor. Even the warm up is floor base (performed seated).  I never care for these types of warm up because I never feel truly warm up.  I did this workout in the evening.  Had I did this workout in the morning then the warm would not have been enough. Lots of reps.  Most of the exercises you are performing 4, 6, or 8 sets of 8 in the rep count. Cathe does offer some variations as she does the exercises. For instance you might do the first four sets with the foot pointed followed by another four sets with the foot flex. Besides the tons of reps on some of the exercises I like the workout.  Cathe uses the stability part is the first part of the workout. In the second part she uses the band and loop and in the last part you u...

Another workout in Cathe's Low Impact Series is Slide & Glide . Slide & Glide features a pair of discs, a band loop and a mat. The main part of the workout is broken up into two parts. Part 1 is a Cardio Segment in which you use your Slide & Glide disk the entire time. This section is about 20 minutes. After awhile, it feels like you are doing the same thing over and over. There is not a lot of variety in this part of the workout. So I started off thinking "this isn't bad" but by the end of the segment I was ready to move on. Part 2 is Muscle Conditioning Segment . In Part two, depending on the exercise, you will use your discs and/or band loop. I really enjoyed part 2. You start off with legs. This is followed by triceps, back, biceps, chest, and then abs. I like the exercises many of which used the discs and it was challenging. The discs are also used in the warm up and the cool down. The DVD contains an Introduction is which Cathe gives...