Saundra

30 Minute To Fitness Shape Up features Kelly going solo again.  Kelly deliver two tabata style workouts in which you work for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds. Kelly alternates cardio exercises with weight exercises and you are doing each exercise for 8 rounds. Depending on the exercise, the 20 seconds goes by quickly or seems to take forever. Of course, I wished that Kelly included a countdown timer in the corner, but she doesn’t.  What she does do is provide voice cues within the music.  A guys voice comes on and says something to the following “ round 5  in 4, 3, 2, 1 ”  So you knew when to go. I thought this a nice feature. I also wish Kelly had include an inset (picture in picture) that demonstrated the next or upcoming move.  She did this for her 30 MTF Kickboxing workout.  As I was doing this workout, I felt this particular format could have used it. Kelly uses a step but tells you, you don’t have to. She  also (as typical) has a set of light and heavy dumbbells.

So I decided to review these two workouts together because I purposely waited to write the review for Workout 1 until after I had done Workout 2. I think Cathe could have called these workouts Power 7 Stepping because that "Power 7" move or the "Sculpt 7" move showed up consistently throughout both works.  Take that move out or even just the over use of the move in its many variations (i.e Power 3s, Power 15s etc)- once okay but three and four times, doing this move practically in every combo, I started to get annoyed. But going back to what I started to say, take that move out and I quite like the combos.  They were all fairly easy to learn. Cathe does use quite a bit of her previous choreography but I like the way she put the combos together. It is just different enough to make you think.  Many times I thought I knew what was coming next based on how she incorporated a move in a previous video and I would be wrong.  But by the second or third time through I

  Lean Legs & Abs is Cathe latest lower body workout and it clocks in at  approximately 48 minutes in length. It features a series of mostly standing lower body exercises some of which have a cardio factor that Cathe uses to get the heart rate up. I like this workout because the compound leg portion only used weights and your own body weight.  So very minimum equipment wise. A chair and the fire walker band are used in other parts of the workout. I also really like the core section. It had the right amount of variety for me and the exercises chosen alternated into being challenging for me and just the right amount of tension.  I think this Core segment is going to become a favorite of mine. There is a bonus barre segment that I did not do. The DVD also contains six premises. Lean Legs & Abs + Bonus Barre (61:11) Lean Legs & Abs + Bonus Barre (no core) (50:57) Lean Legs & Abs + Bonus Barre (no chair /firwalker) (50:00) Timesaver #1 (No chair/firewalke

  Butts & Guts is a 77 minute workout that focuses on the butt (lower body area) and guts (abdominal core area).  Not a great workout title name in my opinion. The workout is divided into a standing section, floor workout section and an abdominal section.  The floor work section is further divided into floor work using the stability ball and floor work using ankle weights. The standing section consist of essentially two rounds of doing the same group of exercises.  The reps are fairly high.  The standing leg portion is approximately 32 minutes in length.  The floor work is about 20 minutes. I did not do the abs segment but that segment clocks in at 14 minutes. The DVD also features four bonus segments which are: Stability Ball Abs Sit N Stands Leg Press Glutes Squeezes The DVD also contains the following premixes: Standing Glutes & Ab Timesaver 49.5 minutes Overall Legs 65 minutes Leg Blast 47.5 minutes Floor Work & Abs 59.5 minutes Overall, I like

  Great Glutes is the latest lower body workout by Cathe.  If you do the bonus with the main workout, the workout clocks in at over 62 minutes.  Otherwise, the workout is around 55 minutes. Cathe breaks the workout roughly into five sections which are : Compound Legs/Glutes Glide Disc Legs/Glutes Stability Ball Legs/Glutes Floor Work Bonus Chair Legs/Glutes The workout moves from one exercise to the next with breaks in between as Cathe talks to either give you time to relax or to set up the next set or exercise. The music in Great Glutes is all instrumental.  This was nice compared to some of the other workouts with the strange vocals. There is a mixture of dumbbell weight and body weight exercises. Other equipment used is the stability ball, glide disc, mat and chair. There are 8 premixes: Great Glutes Extreme (62:36) No Stability Ball (55:40) No Glide Discs (54:21) No Floor Work (53:05) Timesaver #1 No Floor Work (45:43) Timesaver#2 No Glide Disc (46:59) Times

Advanced Step Challenge 5 is Amy Bento's latest step workout in the ASC series.  This workout features five combinations plus a warm up and cool down.  The workout clocks in at just over 60 minutes. This is athletic style stepping and the workout contains quite a bit of jumping and other high impact moves. Like most of Amy's ASC workouts this does feature a preview section that breaks down the five combos. When learning the workout, I learned a combo at a time. I would start by viewing the preview for a particular combo and then I would go and run through that combo several times.  I learned a combo a day before doing the whole workout. The preview section is not chaptered which was a pain once you got beyond the first combo because you had to scroll/fast forward through to get to the combo you wanted to learn. I found the combos fairly easy to learn.  There were two areas where I had a little trouble and any time Amy was jumping completely over the step, I modifi

X10 was billed as five 10 minute workouts. In actuality even without the warm up and cool down, all the workout segments exceed 10 minutes, clocking in at between 12 and 16  minutes. I think the workout could have been called XDrills because that is essentially what you are doing - a series of drills for a specified number of reps or time. X10 DVD options are: Introduction Play Workouts      X10:  Step Workout 26:12      X10:  Low Impact Workout 24:56      X10:  Hi/Lo Workout 25:58      X10:  Cardio Blast Workout 24:38      X10:  Fat Burning Circuit 28:53 Chapters      Warm up      X10:  Step      X10:  Low Impact      X10:  Hi/Lo      X10:  Cardio Blast      X10:  Fat Burning Circuit      Stretch Premixes  There are 12 premixes each featuring various combinations of the five workouts.  Looking at the premix list it is all or nothing.  Meaning that a premix will feature all of a step workout or all of a hi lo workout. For instance, Cathe doesn't take part of L

  Leaner Legs is part of Cathe's Cross Train Xpress series done years ago. It is  51 minute lower body workout. It is a pretty no-nonsense workout. The format of the workout is circuit like but just for the lower body. For instance instead of doing sets of the same exercise back to back.  She will do a set for the hamstrings, then the quads, then the calves before circling back to the hamstrings. The only time where you did sets back to back is when you were working one leg and then the other. This is a standing leg workout.  The only time you hit the floor was when you did a set for the abdominals. I like this one. I thought I did this workout before but I didn't find a review for it.  4 stars

November 2013 Monthly Rotation Happy November to you all. November's rotations is all about the lower body.  That at least is the emphasis I am planning. The rotation breaks down as follows : Sunday - Total Body Conditioning Monday - Step (Amy and Cathe) Tuesday - Lower Body (Cathe) Wednesday - Cardio Karate Thursday - Core Rhythms Friday - Lower Body (Cathe) Saturday (Rest) I do have a mini vacation schedule in where I am just going to take Rest Days.