Saundra

Wow, this year has flown by. I can't believe that December starts tomorrow. For December's rotation, about a 1/3 of the workouts will be my first outing with them. Although, I have had some of them for almost a year, if not longer. The breakdown: Sunday - Circuit of some sort (mostly FIRM new workouts). Monday - Dance Tuesday - Cardio Sculpt - The FIRM Wednesday - Step Thursday - FitPrime Originals Friday - rest day Saturday - Amy Bento cardio weight workouts. On Sunday the 5th, I have three 20 minute workouts listed. They are all FIRM workouts: Power Sculpt, Core & Lower Body Toner , and Weighted Gloves Cardio Workout. I might replace Wednesday the 29th workout with the FIRM Cardio Step Mix . I will see when I get there. Right now I have Cathe's Intensity listed. It will be one or the other. It was my intention to take 2 rest days in December, but I decided to just go for one. Usually in December I like to take it easy and go with less intense or shor

November is coming to an end and so is my Turbo Fire rotation. The last of the workouts are Fire Class 30 and Stretch 40 Class. Fire 30 Class clocks in at 30:57. It features one drill done twice but the drill is not done back to back. Chalene does the drill once at about the 20 minute mark or so and again at about the 12 minute mark. This is a fun workout. I thought the combinations flowed really well. This is probably my second favorite behind the Fire 45 EZ class. You get in, work real hard and then get out. Stretch 40 Class is basically a yoga class or a stretch class done with yoga poses. It was just okay. I actually thought it was a bit long and boring. Chalene coaches throughout - constantly providing motivational tips. I like listening to Chalene but Stretch 40 is probably my least favorite out of all the Turbo Fire workouts. Fire 30 Class - 4 1/2 stars Stretch 40 Class - 2 1/2 stars Summary of series: I really like the series especially the cardio. At the same

Oh IMAX 3 was a killer of a workout. I think this was due to the recovery periods being almost nonexistent. Like its predecessors, IMAX3 features 10 intervals. The 10 intervals include a mini step routine repeated 6 times, a blast and a very brief recovery period. Cathe even states "You might have notice, we tightened up the recovery period". Yes I noticed, but I didn't like it. I enjoyed the recovery period in IMAX 1 and IMAX 2. What I liked about IMAX 3 were the mini step routines. I thought they flowed extremely well. Although, now that I think about it, it could be I just wasn't ready to go into the next blast - that could be why I liked them so much, I was still in recovery. If the recovery periods were shorter, I have to assume the blast were longer; at least that's how it seemed. Some of the blast seemed like they were going on and on and on. Most of the moves in the blast and step routines were athletic in nature. There might have been one or t

Turbo Fire 45 EZ Class is my favorite Turbo Fire Workout. I just really like how the combos and music come together in this one. The workout clock in at 43:40. It has one finale but no drills. A drill wasn't necessary. I burnt almost as many calories in the 45 EZ Class as I did in the 45 Class. Just super high energy and motivating fun from Chalene. Tone 30 Class clock in at 30:17 and it features a standing and floor section. The standing sections contains compound upper body and lower body moves that are followed by upper body only moves. The floor section are all compound exercise type moves that work multiple body parts. The workout uses both the band (tube style) and a lower body band. I did use the bands for the whole workout, although I am sure you can substitute dumbbells. A solid toning workout. HiiT 25 Class length is 24:32. It features 4 drills that are repeated twice. The first drill is 69 seconds, the second - 67 seconds, the third - 69 seconds and the

Another blast from the past. I have been pulling out all of the first group of workouts that I have ever owned - well the ones I still have. In that pile is Technifunk 2:The Dance Attack!. It is a 30 minute cardio workout that features a warm up, a dance routine and a cool down. This workout is fun fun fun and a real calorie burner. Although, the workout does starts off slow. The warm up is mostly isometric movements, shoulder roles and ribcage isolation with some stretching. Once it gets past that point, the workout picks up with some cool dance moves that Victoria breaks down in 1/2 counts and then she picks up the tempo with double count. You are doing a little bit of ballet, some jazz and some hip hop funk type moves. There is a lot of repetition but it didn't get on my nerves like it did with Cher's Hot Dance. In fact, a couple of times, I even said to myself - "We need to do that part again". Victoria is fun, and hip and motivating in her enthusiasm and

I will be offering additional thoughts on this workout at a later date, but for now I want to give my initial impression of Intensity . I did the download version of this workout and from the download it is hard to see how things breakdown chapter wise. The workout itself clocks in at 57:38. It is roughly broken down into the following parts: warm up - about 6 minutes Step (high and low intensity) - 14 minutes IMAX (step mini routine with blast) - 10 minutes HiiT - 10 minutes Lower HiiT - 10 minutes Stretch - 7 minutes. The HiiT portion does contain a clock count down but there is no set pattern as there is with 40/20 and 30/30. The HiiT pattern is random depending on the exercise. The workout features all old or reused Cathe choreography. Therefore, if you are use to Cathe choreography you will have absolutely no problem in picking up the routines or moves - which is good because the workout does move. You are not resting much. With the exception of Lower HiiT portion, much o

This week's Turbo Fire workouts started off with Turbo Fire 45 Class . Fire 45 Class clocks in at 44:39. It contains 2 drills. The first drill is only done once and it is 70 seconds in length. I was a bit disappointed that this wasn't repeated twice. The second drill is also 70 seconds in length but it is performed twice. There is one finale. I like the individual moves in this workout but I didn't think the moves flowed well together. Sculpt 30 Class clock in at 28:18. I like this workout much better than the first time I did it. That could be because I used dumbbells for most of the exercises. Chalene does use a band - the tube style. The exercises in Sculpt 30 are mostly compound in nature. You are working both the upper and lower body at the same time. A few of the exercises just work the upper body. It is an okay sculpting workout. HiiT 30 Class contains 5 drills and clocks in at 30:35. Each drill is repeated twice except for the last drill which is repeated three

Yes, I know. I went back in time with this workout. This workout is one of the first 15 or so workouts videos that I had purchased. In the beginning, for me anyway - it was Jane Fonda, CherFitness, and Tamilee Webb (Buns of Steel) that made up my repertoire of workout videos. So Body Confidence consist of two workouts. A Hot Dance workout for cardio and a Mighty Band workout for resistance. I only did the Hot Dance workout which is led by choreographer Dorian Sanchez. It has probably been at least 10 years since I have done this workout and I think my VHS was feeling its age because I could barely hear Dory and I don't remember that being the case. The Hot Dance workout is 38 minutes of athletic style with a dance flair cardio. The workout features a warm up, one lengthy combo, and cool down/stretch. There is a lot of "taking it from the top". So much so, that I started to get annoyed. Very very repetitive. Dory takes you through three or four iterations of each pass be

Kettlebell Bootcamp is a 54 minute workout featuring Angie Miller. This is my first time doing this video and I have had this workout for a long long time. I bought it because I kept hearing about Kettlebell this and Kettlebell that. The only other Kettlebell workouts I have tried have been Kettlenetics, The FIRM's TransFIRM Your Trouble Zone and Absolute Beginner's 3 in 1 Kettlebell. I just wasn't crazy about the Kettlebell and that type of training. So this workout just sat on the shelf. This workout is led by Angie Miller and this is my first time working out with Angie. I found her to be really pleasant and likable - very easy going and encouraging without being over the top. The DVD features a tutorial. It also has music only options for the various sets. The workout is broken into 8 sets. In the, 8 sets you are performing various swing, strength, and cardio type Kettlebell moves for both the lower and upper body. The time for each set is listed below. Set 1

IMAX 2 . I really like this workout. Following the first IMAX, it contains a thorough warm up, 10 intervals, a cool down and a stretch. The 10 intervals are broken up into a mini step routine repeated 6 times, a blast and a recovery period. I think it's the music that gives this workout its extra oomph! From the start of the workout, there is a vibe that flows through the whole workout and the energy is super high. You just feel like you are grooving and in the zone. The only thing that I didn't like about this workout is in one of the blast you are hopping on one foot for several sets. I ended up modifying that so it wasn't a big deal, just something I didn't care to do. Between intervals 5 and 6, Cathe gives you extra rest time - about 30 seconds. You can check your heart rate or grab water or.... Rest. IMAX 2 is just fun to me. And, oh. It clocks in at 55 minutes. 5 stars.

So this week's Turbo Fire workouts started off with Fire 55 EZ Class. Fire 55 EZ clocks in at 53:05. It contains one drill repeated twice. The drill is 72 seconds long. It also contains two finales. I kind of question the reason of having two finales. Having two seems to take away the impact of having a finale. 55 EZ seems more repetitive than Chalene's other workouts. Chalene keeps up the energy but even so the workout feels long to me. Chalene coaches throughout and the music is energetic. The second Turbo Fire workout I did this week was Upper 20 Class. Upper 20 clocks in at 19:50. Chalene uses a band - the tube style. I chose to use dumbbells. The exercises included are traditional upper body exercises , as well as core based exercises. You are performing anywhere from 8 to 16 reps per exercise; and depending on the exercise -anywhere from 2 to 3 sets. Upper 20 is a nice get in and get out upper body workout. HiiT 20 clocks in at 19:05. It consist of 3 drills. Drill 1 i

Interval Max is Cathe's first IMAX workout and it is approximately 60 minutes in length. It features the club step. Cathe uses a 8 inch step. I used a 6 inch step height. Interval Max is a step interval(hi-low, aerobic-anaerobic) workout. It contains a rather long warm up (about 13 minutes). The core part of the workout features 10 intervals that includes a mini step routine repeated six times, an intensity blast, and a recovery period. This is followed by a cool down and a stretch. Now while this is the first Cathe IMAX workout produce, I actually did this workout last after first doing IMAX 3 and then IMAX 2. So I think this is only my second time doing this workout. Of the three, I do think Interval Max is the easiest to do, but I will confirm that as I have both IMAX 2 and IMAX 3 coming up later in the month. What I like about this workout is that all the moves are really simple - which is what I want in this type of workout. You don't have to think a lot with this

Since I am doing several Turbo Fire workouts within a week, I will do a combine review of that week's workouts. First a little about the set up, the Turbo Fire system is broken down into a series of Fire (aerobics) workouts, HiiT workouts, and toning workouts. The number in the title is a rough estimate of how long the class (workout) is. Each workout features a modifier and each workout is led by Chalene Johnson. The Fire workouts feature a combination breakdown option (called new to class) that you can select to learn the moves more slowly. This does make the workout longer. I started my Turbo Fire workouts on Tuesday with Fire 60 Class . The Fire 60 Class actually clocks in at 56:58. It features several kickboxing dance based combinations and it has two drills repeated two times each and it has 2 finales at the end. Each of the drills are approximately 68 seconds. I like this workout. I did not get bored even though some of the combinations are slightly on the repetitive side

I snuck in an evening workout yesterday. DanceFit Cardio Latin & Retro Mix is approximately 42 minutes in length and features Tracey Mallet as the lead. Tracey leads the workout and cool down. The warm up is led by Cal Pozo. The back of the DVD cover states that he is an award winning dancer. I have heard of him before. He is heavily involved with Ballroom Dancing. So after the warm up, Latin & Retro Mix is broken up into three dance routines. The first is Salsa Sizzle, the second is Swing and Hustle Mix, and the third is Retro and Disco Mix. In Salsa Sizzle, you are doing the merengue, salsa, samba and a little Pose Doble. The Swing and Hustle Mix is my favorite of the three routines. I just really like the way the combination comes together. The Retro and Disco Mix include the "funky chicken", "the bump" and "80's jazz". Tracey is full of energy and she cues very well. What I like about this workout is the way she layered the routine

Bodystrikes 2 is a 48 minute lower body emphasis workout. It starts off with a warm up that includes (and I am not kidding) about 3 minutes of alternating dips. Can you say ouch? Can you say enough? The warm up also includes a review of the kicks that you are using throughout the workout. After the warm up, comes the combos. There are four combos total. Ilaria teaches you combo 1 on the right, then the left. She then combines the two, and moves on to teach you combo 2. After you learn combo 2 (using the same pattern as combo 1), you go back to combo 1 and layer it with combo 2. She does the same for combos 3 and combos 4. Each time after learning a combo, you go back to the beginning and run through all of what you have learned. So by the end you are doing all 4 combos back to back. Combo Breakdown combo 1 - front snap, diagonal snap, round house, squat, three front pushes into back push. combo 2 - squat, squat with knee raise, squat with front kick, dip, front kick combo 3

Atletica is a 50 plus minute toning and sculpting workout that uses compound movement for almost all of the exercises. One of the things that Ilaria does throughout her workouts is she introduces them with real meaningful content. Atletica has an introduction and in the introduction Ilaria shows you some of the moves you will be doing throughout the workout. The workout is divided into roughly 4 series. Within each series, you go through all the exercises twice with the exception of the push up set. Mostly you do the exercises on the right, do them on the left and then go back and repeat the exercises on the right and the left. Then you move on to the next group of exercises. Ilaria keeps the workout moving. You may get a short very brief break before a new series start but usually within the series you are moving from one exercise to the next without a break. Each exercise last for about "a minute plus" which translates I guess to between 60 and 85 seconds. My beef (or