Saundra

Tracy Anderson's Boot Camp Targeted Training DVD contains  three 20 minute workout. The DVD allows you to select Play All or to select an individual workout. The three individual workouts are : Abs Hips & Thighs Glutes Each workout is setup pretty similarly. Tracy starts you off with her signature warm up of arm movements. You then move into some stretching.  Next comes the main part of the workout - which most of it is done as a mat workout. The workout concludes with standing arm work and stretching. Now, while there is not a segment for the arms, you do get plenty of toning for the arms as each of the three workouts include some arm movements. Almost all the exercises in the Hips & Thighs and Glutes and some of the exercises in Abs are multi component exercises.  Tracy takes a little bit of time to demonstrate each of the exercise. She counts her demonstration as a rep. So as soon you see what she is doing, my advice is to jump in. Otherwise, you will mis

Cardio Dance Express contains six 10- minute mini dance routines led by Tracy Anderson.   You can choose to Play All or you can choose any of the individual dances. The segments are: Basic Steps Dance Vitality Cardio Party Sweat Fest Calorie Blast Dance Intensity Each of the dances follow a similar pattern. Tracy starts off with an arm warm up and some briefing stretching. This might take the first two minutes of each segment. Then Tracy teaches a mini combo that last for about 5 to 6 minutes. Next, she free styles for a minute or two before taking you into the cool down stretch. As you go into each interval, Tracy takes a moment or two to briefly tell you what interval you are on. Just some notes .  The mini combos contain around six moves that you learn in a layered pattern and then repeat for the 5 to 6 six minutes.  Sweat Fest includes moves you learned in Basic Steps, Dance Vitality and Cardio Party. There is quite a bit of impact in all of the dances.  I thought t

Chiseled Upper Body is a 42 minute workout that works the upper body using a variety of functional type moves and some traditional exercises.   After the warm up, Cathe  takes you through a series of moves. Before each moves, Cathe explains the exercise.  You then perform the exercise for a series of reps before moving on to the next exercise. Many of the exercises are multi-component or compound in that a particular exercise typically has multiple parts to it. I was really looking  forward to this workout because most of Cathe's upper body workouts are split workouts and I was excited about having an upper body workout from Cathe that worked all muscle groups in one workout and in under 42 minutes.  However, overall I didn't really care for this workout.  I think there were to many functional type exercises and many of the exercises could have also been placed in a core workout. This is also a workout where Cathe really highlights what Amanda is doing.  Amanda is the modi

Chiseled Lower Body Blast is one of two lower body focus workouts that is in the ICE series.  Where as To The Mat was a floor based mat workout, Chiseled Lower Body Blast is all standing. This workout combines strength moves with cardio moves. It does this by alternating the two to increase the metabolic conditioning effect.  The strength moves are composed of either body weight exercises or weighted dumbbell exercises. For the cardio exercises, expect to jump, bounce, hop and jack your way throughout the workout.  The cardio moves can be done either low impact or high impact. As with the other ICE workouts, Cathe gives you a bit more rest between the exercises.  At least if felt that way to me. Also it seem in this workout she pointed out what Amanda the modifier was doing more so than in the other workouts. Chiseled Lower Body Blast has seven basic premixes, six timesaver premixes and five mishmosh premixes. The bonuses are ICY Core 2, Muscle Meltdown Shoulders, and a Blizzard Bla

Low Impact Swea t is the second cardio workout that is part of Cathe's ICE Series.  The workout consist of two low impact workouts and when done in its entirety clocks in at just over 46 minutes. Cardio 1 Workout is floor based and uses a mat as a marker.  Cardio 2 Workout uses the step.  Cathe has two risers on her step and in both workouts for some of the exercises, she uses 3 and 5 lb dumbbells. Also, in both workout you are doing a series of moves; first with the right lead and then with the left lead. For the most part you are doing 16 reps per side for each exercise. There are exercises that have more than 16 reps. Cathe gives you a recovery period between each exercise. I like the step part of this workout more than the floor part. Speaking of which, Cathe does cool you down after the floor part before moving on to the step section. Low Impact Sweat has  seven basic premixes, sixteen timesaver premixes, and ten mishmosh premixes.  The bonuses are ICY Core 2, Musc

Rock'm Sock'm Kickbox is one of two cardio conditioning workouts in Cathe's ICE series. The workout is 48 minutes in length. The workout contains a mixture of punching drills, kicking drills and cardio blast. This is mostly a drill base workout with marching in between the exercises to transition to the next side or next move. Typically you are performing moves on one side for a series before switching sides and performing the same group of moves.  Then you move on to the next series of move. The workout is set to a pretty good sound track that is up tempo.  This is the type of workout that I normally love but something was missing. I have done this workout twice and even the second time through I felt something was off - that there was a lack of flow.  For instance, while  I enjoyed the warm up,  the conditioning kick drills that followed the warm up started off with side reach lunges that felt completely out of place.  I also enjoyed the punching combos. Rock

Boot Camp Circuit is a 45 minute workout that is part of Cathe's ICE series for intermediate exercises. The workout consist of six circuits. Each circuit contains four exercises done back to back. The first exercise in the group is cardio focus. The second exercise is lower body. The third is upper body and the last exercise in the group is core based. Each exercise last about a minute. Then you move on to the next grouping. This workout is where you can really tell the series is intermediate. I went back and did Cathe's original Boot Camp workout from the Intensity series and there is a definite difference in, well, the intensity. This workout uses a step and a series of weights. Cathe's step height starts at two risers and then half way through the workout she raises the step height by adding another set of risers. This increases the intensity. Plus Cathe uses rep tempo variations within some of the exercises to increase the intensity as well. Boot Camp Circuit

Cathe's Metabolic Total Body is one of seven workouts that is part of the ICE series. Metabolic Total Body clock in at 47:53. Almost all of the exercises are compound multi joint exercises where you are working both the lower body and upper body simultaneously. The awkwardness was kept to a minimum.  I say this because depending on the combination of the moves, the compound exercise can be cumbersome to do. But the exercises in this workout flowed pretty well with each other. Because of the exercises are compound in nature, there is a cardio effect however the pace of the workout was moderate I felt the tempo of most of the exercises slower than I am used to with Cathe workouts. There also seem to be more time between the exercises and more stretching after an exercise. There are seven basic premixes, four timesaver premixes, and six mishmosh premixes. The bonuses are ICY Core 1, Muscle Meltdown Chest and a Blizzard Blast. Of the seven main workouts in the ICE series,

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 use your own body weight.

Cathe ICE series comes with two bonus core workouts. ICY Core 1 clocks in at 11 minutes.  You can find ICY Core 1 on Rock'm, Sock'm Kickbox, Metabolic Total Body, and Boot Camp Circuit. The workout uses a pair of dumbbells for increase intensity on some of the exercises. I thought the workout was okay.  I like some exercises better than others.  My favorite in this group was the leg chasers.  I felt this one. ICY Core 2 clocks in at under 14 minutes. This workout is found on Low Impact Sweat, Chiseled Upper Body, Chiseled Lower Body Blast and To the Mat: Legs and Glutes. This workout uses a dumbbell and a resistance band for some of the exercises. I thought this core workout was okay too. My favorite exercise in this group was the 45 degree Toe to Heel Taps.  ICY Core 1 - 3 & 1/2 stars ICY Core 2 - 3 & 1/2 stars

  Every year Cathe comes out with new workouts. This year the workouts focus on the intermediate exerciser hence the name of the series - Intermediate Conditioning Extreme or ICE for short. The series comes with seven workouts.There are: Two lower body workouts:  To the Mat: Legs & Glutes, Chiseled Lower Body Blast One upper body workout: Chiseled Upper Body Two total body workouts:  Boot Camp Circuit, Metabolic Total Body Two cardio conditioning workouts:  Low Impact Sweat, Rock'm Sock'm Kickbox All the workouts have tons and I do mean tons of premixes.  The ICE series also include twelve bonus workouts.  The bonus workouts range any where from 10 minutes in the  length to 22 minutes in length. There are two bonus core/ab workouts. Five bonus workouts that are called blizzard blast. These are geared towards the advance exercisers. There are also five body part workouts. Cathe calls these bonus workouts Muscle Meltdown.   Each of the muscle meltdown workouts

Athletic Conditioning Volume 2 is a 30 Minute to Fitness workout that is part of Kelly's Young Adult series. This workout features two distinct workout. Workout 1 is a conditioning workout where you are doing twelve exercises for 10 reps each with a relatively short break between each exercise.  You do this for three rounds.  After each round you get a brief towel and water break before the next round. Workout 1 has around a 3 minute warm up.  It moves quick and there is not a lot of setup time for the exercise.  Throughout the workout, Kelly points out various modifications to some of the exercises that you can do in place of the move  she is performing.  Workout 2   is an abdominal and flexibility workout and it is all floor based.  The description of this workouts talks about "fusing" the two styles together to strengthen the core and increase flexibility.  I was expecting the workout to be one core exercise followed by one flexibility exercise, but that was

Strength and Stamina is a workout that features groups of exercises consisting of three sets of two alternating exercises and one set of kettlebell work.  The alternating exercises is a mix of body weight, cardio, weight work and functional exercises. The kettlebell exercises are mostly swings and each of the kettlebell sets are 45 seconds in duration. Like many 30 Minutes to Fitness workouts, the DVD features two workouts that share a warm up. Each workout has its own cool down. Both workouts follow the same pattern. The DVD menu offers the following options: Introduction Warm up Workout One Workout Two Premixes - Includes 12 premixes Bonus Step (22:41) Credits Music on/off The Bonus Step workout is a super fast workout.  With this workout, I started off with my step height at 6 inches but took it down to 4 inches.  Next time I do the workout I will probably increase it back to 6 inches.  Now while the workout moves fast, Kelly uses a relatively easy to follow patte