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Signature Series Volume 2 is the second iteration of Tracie Long's 2020 workout release. It is similar to Volume 1 in that it is roughly broken down into the following three sections: Mobility Exercises Weights & Cardio Core & Final Stretch Flexibility and range of motion is the focus of the mobility segment. Tracie does include weighted exercises for more intensity. Again, I felt like I needed a warm up before getting into some of these exercises. Weights and Cardio segment follows next. This segment starts with cardio. Half way through the segment, there is a medicine ball mountain climber series.  In between the cardio and med ball series, you are doing a series of weighted compound exercises. This segment really flows into the Core segment. I could not tell where one ended and the other begin. Maybe  with the dead bug pullover exercise? Equipment in the workout includes, dumbbells, med/sculpting ball, stool/stand and a mat. Tracie is the only...

Ultimate Cardio Core Workout is a step med (sculpting) ball workout that is 60 minutes in length. I like working out with Christi.  Her step combos are fun and intricate enough so that you are not bored but not so intricate that the combos are difficult to pick up. There are 5 step combos with an dance and athletic feel and they all used the ball.   During the combos, Christi gives you advanced options in which she and the two ladies in front show. There are two ladies in back that continue with the standard option. After the step combos with the ball, Christi has you release the ball and continue with the step combos with impact giving you an additional cardio burn. After the Cardio Burn segment, you go in to the Core Conditioning segment which include isolation work for the core.  There is also upper body work in the form up triceps dips and push ups.  This segment uses both the ball and the step. The DVD gives you the following options: Intro Cardio...

Hi/Lo Med Ball is fun workout with a lot of personality. It features Tracey Staehle as the lead and there are two backup cast members (Jill and Barbie). The music is fairly good but this is the type of workout that just begs for vocals. Because it is instrumental, some of the moves get lost in "repetitiveness". The workout is called Hi Lo Med Ball, and it is mostly Hi Lo. There are only two Med Ball sections and one of those is an ab section done on the floor. In total there are 9 combos, plus a warm up and cool down. Combos 4 and 9 are the med ball combos. I didn't really like the med ball sections. The other combos are hi lo and feature, kickboxing, dance, athletic style moves. There's lots of jumping and plyo type moves. Tracey slows moves down to half counts and she speeds them up to double count varying the tempo throughout the workout. My biggest issue with the workout is Tracey's cuing. Sometimes I think she forgets she is leading a workout. She ...

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...

Better Burn Better Buns is a functional fitness workout that is 55 minutes in length and it is led by Tracie Long. The workout uses a rag or you can use a paper plate or gliding disc to work the lower body. There are about 4 sets of lower body work using the rag. There is also some standing single leg isolation work. The types of moves that you are doing are leg lifts, zig zags, single leg squats, push lunges, standing shootouts.. - all using the rag or your own body weights. No dumbbells are used. The workout also has medicine ball cardio and core sets. I thought the medicine ball routines fun. However, they are repetitive . You are repeating the same group of moves about 8 time through but I find this is typical for a Tracie Long workout. The moves are simple , repetitive and allow for full execution and the majority of the time you have cool music that you’re performing the move to so the repetitiveness of it doesn’t bug me. Some of the cardio moves, are hurdlers, X marks the spot,...

Defined Lines is a 50 minute workout that Tracie introduces as mostly a cardio workout. I really didn't think it a mostly cardio workout at all. If I had to characterized the workout I would call it a "total body functional fitness style workout" that uses lots of range of motion. The segments are long but within the segments you are moving quickly from multi joint compound exercise to multi joint compound exercise. Defined Lines uses a medicine ball, a pair of dumbbells (Tracie's pair is 5lbs), a rag (or paper plate if you are on carpet), your own body weight and a mat. There are roughly 10 segments or songs in this workout. Each segment with the exception of Song 4 is roughly 5 minutes. Song 4 is about 3 minutes. The breakdown and some of the moves in each segment are : Song 1 - medicine ball warm up, v-steps, shoulder serves, halos, weaves, lunge-dips with pullovers Song 2 - dumbbells, side lunges, french press, kick backs with leg lifts, delt raise, shoulder r...

The next volume in Tracie Long Fitness Focus Series is Volume 5 Break Through . Break Through is a 30 minute medicine ball cardio workout. The workout contains two chapter workouts "Have A Ball" and "Whittle Your Middle". Essentially, Have a Ball is the first 20 minutes of the workout and Whittle Your Middle is the last 10 minutes. Within the 30 minute workout, I counted 8 distinct sections. Section one : Med Ball Warm Up. I thought this section was rather fast or maybe I wasn't ready to work out but the tempo seemed quick to me. The warm up is about 4 1/2 minutes Section two : cardio no med ball. Side lunges, squats, jacks, and a quick tempo define this section. About 3 minutes Section three : Back to med ball. Overhead press, scissors, ball weaves and figure 8s. About 5 minutes Section four : Cardio no med ball. Side lunges, Lateral jumps, single leg balance work and power. 3 1/2 minutes Section five : Med ball. Sumo squats, releve' cir...

This is my second time doing Staying Power . Before I go and read what I wrote before I am going to say this is a 3 1/2 star workout. My biggest gripe was that I really couldn't hear the music. I could hear Tracie just fine. This is an interval style workout that used light to medium weights and the medicine ball. I like the intervals and the exercises that Tracie selected. Tracie is always so precise to me. Each move is distinct and identifiable. Going to go and check out my last review...... In my last review I gave it 3 1/2 stars. So that is very consistent. This is a solid workout.

PlayBall in 4 . I like this workout. The workout gets its inspiration from Basketball or so Patrick states and it is divided into 4 quarters. Each quarter is roughly 12 - 15 minutes in length. The whole workout is just over an hour long. Patrick takes you through a series of interval, functional type moves using a medicine ball. Some of the med ball moves are shoulder press, figure 8's, squat press, weaving the ball etc. The ball is used as a prop and also for resistance and stabilization work. I am extremely happy to report that we did not have to bounce the ball. Within each quarter, Patrick incorporates moves that get the heart rate up and then he brings your heart rate down with more static/concentration type exercises. In all 4 segments you are doing some type of floor work with the longest floor work segment coming in the 4 quarter which has a nice ab/core set. Also Patrick uses a left and right pattern meaning you do the combination on the right and then repeat it on the le...

Last workout for 2009 was Tracie Long's Back Up , the fourth workout from the Longevity series. Tracie keeps it consistent in that the workout is also right around the 50 minute mark, 52 minutes to be exact. Like Staying Power this too is mostly a interval style workout. The individual segments in this workout were long and the moves repeated a lot. The cardio segments were functional fitness/sports drill related (i.e soccer, tennis, baseball). The sculpting segments were compound in nature with many exercises working the small muscle groups. Tracie used light, medium and heavy weights for sculpting and she used the medicine ball in the cardio segments. Like the other three workouts, this workout also includes push ups and a core/abs segment. Overall I like this workout. I did think Tracie's face appeared out of focus almost throughout the whole workout. just very fuzzy. The music was good and fit the exercise that Tracie was performing. 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Coming in at around 52 minutes, Staying Power , the second workout from Tracie Long's Longevity series is an interval style workout. That is the first 30 minutes, after the warm up, is interval style. Then Tracie takes you to the floor for the last 15 minutes of the workout. This workout reminded me of TLT (Tracie Long Training) workouts. Although, I will say it didn't have as much functional fitness exercises as the previous series. This interval workout alternated cardio sets with sculpting sets. Many of the cardio sets used a medicine ball and the sculpting sets used light to medium weights. The only time you really needed to grab a heavy weight was during the one arm row exercise. My least favorite sections was the floor work section. This section was loosely divided into three sections, push ups/core, hips and stretch. In the push up section, Tracie takes you through a series of push up/plank exercises. The hip section consisted of doing long lever side hip raises...

The FIRM's FIRM Cardio - Cardio Burn workout is a 45 minutes cardio sculpt workout. It is what is called a "Hare" workout - heavy on the cardio and light on the sculpting. Personally I wish it was just a straight cardio workout. The first 30 minutes of the video is a mixture of four limb, plyo using the ball and light weights, step and floor aerobics. The last 15 minutes of the workout you are using moderate dumbbells or the barbell for various sculpting exercises. Abdominal work is also included. This workout is lead by Tamela Hastie whom I happen to like. I mentioned this because when you read reviews about this workout - she gets heavily criticized for her performance. One of the main annoyances voiced is that she would say "Isn't this fun" or something similar all throughout the workout. I counted that she said this six times. Although it didn't bother me at all. This workout contains tall box climbs - just a variation on the leg press. ...

In September 2008, The FIRM release three workouts that they filmed in New York. My big griped about these three workouts is that you couldn't hear the music in any of the three. The sound quality is just terrible. If you turn up your volume, then the instructor is super loud. I really feel that this undermines which overall are a great set of workouts. That brings me to my favorite of the three and that is Slim & Trim lead by the FIRM's Tina Smalley. This 40 minute workout uses a 4lb medicine ball or power ball. It still uses the FIRM formula of interspersing floor aerobics with toning sets. This workouts moves. You really don't get a break from once segment to the next. In some spots it was difficult for me to tell when one segment ended and another one began. The aerobics is high and low impact. Also, you are constantly using the ball. Only a couple times were we not doing anything without the ball. My one gripe about the ball is that it is hard. One set,...

Okay. The story behind this workout is..... I pre -order this workout based on the fact that I like Kimberly. I then saw a clip of the workout and was not enthused about it at all. I was contemplating cancelling my pre -order, but because the video was already paid for. I decided to let the pre -order stand. The workout came and I put it in my to do pile. A couple of times I schedule the workout, but then would put something else in its place. So when doing my August rotation, I just decided I was going to do this workout August 31st period. I thought it would be a great transition from my August rotation into my September rotation. Well this whole week of workouts have been off. So I have been grabbing whatever I felt like doing. Last night I was really undecided as to what to do. Did I want to do The FIRM's Jiggle Free? Did I want to do The FIRM's Fat Blasting Cardio ? What about Zumba ? Oh I will do a Kickboxing workout. And that was when Cardio Combat Surge po...