Saundra

Body Design is a long workout. I specifically schedule it for today because I knew that I would be off from work. It clocks in at 81 minutes, and I did all 81 minutes, and yes it felt that long. The DVD is chaptered so you don't have to do the whole workout or rather you have options to jump round and do what you want. The breakdown is : Warm up Design 1 - Lower Body Design 2 - Chest and Back Design 3 - Triceps and Biceps Design 4 - More Legs & Shoulders Design 5 Abs Cool Down. Now Patrick, tells you that you can pick and choose which sections to do, thus designing your own workout. I just think with the way he has it set up, it would be difficult to get a complete workout in. This is an interval workout and many of the sections contain some type of impact move. Squat thrust and mountain climbers both show up. A lot of the impact moves comes from moving on and off the step. Along with a step, Patrick uses a body bar for sculpting and balance moves. For most of the worko...

I thought Max 30 , featuring Toby Massenburg an interesting collection of workouts. There are three workouts on this DVD. However, the workouts are not chaptered. If you want to skip ahead to a different block, you can't unless you use the fast-forward option. The workouts are : ---Max Sculpt (~35 minutes) ---Max Cardio (~35 minutes) ---Max Core (~ 10 minutes) I did Max Sculpt and Max Cardio. Both of these are complete workouts meaning they contain their own warm up and cool down. On Max Sculpt's equipment list, you will find dumbbells and on Max Cardio, you will find the club step. Both workouts are set up in the same pattern. Within each block you have three drills and two exercises per drill. Within a drill you have a basic exercise and then you have a more advanced exercise which Toby calls "Max". You follow this with another drill in which you have a basic and max exercise. Then the third drill (which Toby call "the combo drill") combines the two ...

Low Impact Challenge is a 50 minute step workout. It is part of Cathe's Low Impact Series of workout. The 50 minutes breaks down as follows: Warm up Step Combo #1 Step Combo #2 Step Combo #3 Step Combo #4 All Combos Cardio Blast Stretch If you are at all familiar with Cathe's step workouts, you should have absolutely no problem in picking up the choreography and routine in this workout. In fact, I was put off by the clip and save this workout to near last because everything in the clip look so old and reused. So I was mildly surprised that I enjoyed all the combos. I think the combos flow well. My only complaint within the combos is that there is a lot of repeaters and sculpt 7s. I was enjoying the workout up until I got to blast. The blast is about 10 minutes long, and it is mostly just lots of repetitions of various leg sculpting moves. Up to this point, this workout was on its way to being a 4 or 4 1/2 star workout. I even liked the music. Next time I do this workout I ...

"Welcome to the Revolution" Tracie states at the end of each of these workouts. The Revolution being a "different" way of training or the foray into functional fitness type training. Functional Foundations is a workout set that consist of two workouts: Core Strength and Core Cardio. They were made in 2004 and during this time it seemed like "functional fitness" was the new fitness buzz word of the day. I thought and I think I was hoping that functional fitness was a passing fad but no, it is still around today - not always called functional fitness but certainly with the elements of functional fitness. Well these two workouts are led by Tracie Long and definitely as far a functional fitness home DVDs workouts go, Tracie is one of the leaders, and she is superb in these workouts as well. Core Strength is a 50 minute workouts. It uses a stability ball, mat, and various weighted dumbbells. This is a strength, balance, and posture workout. There is almost n...

Kick-IT ! contains two 30 minute kickboxing workouts and both are led by Janis Saffell. While the DVD advertises two workouts, I did them as one workout. The first workout is called Hi/Low Kickbox Aerobics . In this workout Janis takes you through 3 mini (and I do mean mini) combos. The combos are more low than hi. The exercise that makes the workout "Hi" in my opinion are the jumping jacks that occur throughout the workout. There is also a mini hitch kick segment that can be used to kick up the intensity. The cuing is just okay. At the end of the workout the mini combos are combine to make one long combo and then at the end of the combo, Janis just starts calling out moves. The cool down is very short. The other workout is called Step Ringside . This workout uses a step. Janis uses the traditional "club step". You can think of this workout as Step Kickboxing. The combos are very basic and doable. Janis does a lot of partner work in this workout but of course you ca...

CIA 2903 Stepping Up with Seasun Zieger is approximately a 55 minute step workout. It does contain an additional core section but I did not do that portion of the workout. . I believe this workout came out in the Spring of 2009. I bought the workout when it came out. I even think I pre-ordered it, but I haven't gotten around to doing the whole workout until this year. . I had actually scheduled the workout in my rotation several times but always chose something else because I didn't want to put in the time it would was probably going to take me to learn the combinations. I think in 2009, I got as far as learning the warm up and maybe part of the first combination. . So in October of this year, when I pull the workout back out I was really starting from scratch. This was a difficult step workout to master. By far, out of all my step workouts, this was the most challenging. The step workout contains a warm up, 3 step combinations and a cool down. Even the warm up and cool down h...

Tuesday, I did Cathe's Rhythmic Step . I reviewed this workout on July 2, 2009 and I don't really have anything new to add. I used a 4 inch step height and still got a good calorie burn. This morning, Wednesday, I did The FIRM's Cardo Sculpt . I reviewed this workout on September 14, 2009. I have nothing really new to add to this either except that lately I have been tracking calories burned during a workout and while I felt like I got a good workout, my calories burned for this workout was only 266 calories for a 55 minute workout. I was kind of disappointed in that.

Circuit Max is a 60 minute plus workout that features cardio mostly and some weights. This is my second time doing this workout and I thought I had like the workout much better than when I did it yesterday. The problem with the workout for me is the weight work. Circuit Max is definately heavy on the cardio and the weight sections left something to be desire. First the organization of it - Cathe led us in 6 cardio segments and each cardio segment was followed by a upper body muscle group combine with a lower body exercise (compound movement). I believe the sequence went shoulder, shoulder, bicep, triceps, triceps and then bicep again. While you were doing the upper body exercise, you were combining that with lower body work such as squats, plie squats, lunges, static lunges etc. After the circuit part was finish, Cathe tack on a strength section, where you did "1 arm rows" to work the back, "pushups" to work the chest and plank work for the core. Then came t...

Step Moves . Step Moves. This workout is 44 minutes in length. I am really liking the length of the Shock Cardio workouts. It is nice to be able to have enough time to finish a workout as is without having to split it into two or wait for an off day from work. Not a bad workout. The combos were more intricate than Athletic Step but doable. There was only one move that stumped me. I thought Cathe gave us just the right mix of a break down and moving the workout along. The only move that I could have did without were the "Power 7s". This is more of an athletic move and Cathe included the move, or a version of it, a lot in Athletic Step. The workout contains 3 combos and a finish combo section where she runs through all the combos twice. The music was okay. I can't say I notice it much except for the opening (warm up) selection. I still think that the step workouts if not all the Shock Cardio workouts, could have used a music louder option. Well maybe not all but...

STS now has a cardio element and it is called Shock Cardio. Shock Cardio HiiT (High Intensity Interval Training) 30/30 is the second workout that I have done from this series and I thought it was good. I did this workout after I had completed Disc 1 Chest, Shoulders, and Biceps and was very happy that the length of the workout allowed me to so. The workout clocks in at 28 minutes. I thought the warm up was a bit long but the rest of the workout flew by. You had 16 intervals that you did for 30 seconds and then you had a 30 second break after each one. There were about 3 to 4 exercise - where first you did the right side for 30 seconds and then you did the left side fro 30 seconds. Each side counts as its own interval and thus made up the 16 intervals you had to do. I think this is why the workout went by so fast. Also, after you did one side, you knew what was coming on the other side. The workout was over before I knew it. Cathe used a step with two risers on each side. I did the sa...

Low Max is not my favorite Cathe Step tape. It is a 70 minute workout that consist of seven cycles alternating a step combo routine with low impact blast. The low impact blast are leg intensifiers and thus really work the legs. Because of all the leg work you get with this workout, I would not recommend doing Low Max on a day that you are also working the lower body. Doing this workout again, reminded me of when I did this workout many years ago and I had trouble picking up some of the step combos. Nowadays Cathe step combos are some of the easiest combos for me to learn. What I disliked most about this workout was all the sculpt 7's and even sculpt 15. Cathe states they "are not filler moves" and that "we are working them to our advantage". I personally felt the move was overused. I am lukewarm on this workout. It is not my first choice of dvds to pull out when deciding to do a Cathe Step workout. I give it 3 stars out of 5.