Saundra

June 2024 Workout Rotation I altered quite a few of the May rotation workout due to hurting my back and knee. I kept all of Jessica Smith workouts but replaced the PHA workouts with Yoga workouts. For June, I am going to try to get back into adding more resistance in the form of Barre/Pilates workouts. The plan looks like this: Sunday - Treadmill Monday - Suzanne Bowen BarreAmped  Tuesday - Ilaria PowerStrike Wednesday - Suzanne Bowen BarreAmped Thursday - Core Rhythms  Friday - Suzanne Bowen Pilates Saturday - Pool I have add-on workouts that are recovery-mobility-stretching workouts as I am still nursing my low back and knee back to health.  

May 2022 Monthly Rotation Sunday - Treadmill 4 miles Monday - Tracie Long Grand Total Signature Series Tuesday - Core Rhythms Wednesday - Barre Amped Thursday - Piloxing Friday - Piloxing or BarreAmped Toning Workout Saturday - Rest Day/Swim Day First Saturday, I will be participating in a 5K race. The other Saturdays, I am going to try to go swimming. The BarreAmped workouts are super long. I will be splitting them up and doing parts on Wednesday and parts on Friday. There are two workouts that I have not reviewed. They are the Original Piloxing workout and BarreAmped Fire Extreme Sculpt. Those reviews will be coming up. I will also do a Round 10 mid-way update at the six week mark.  

June 2020 Monthly Rotation Combination of Barre/Ballet and Dance. Dance will be from Core Rhythm series. Barre will be from Sleek Technique, Jessica Smith, Jazzercise, Karen Voight and Eric Zimmer. 3 miles will be a walk/run on the treadmill.

Core Rhythms Swing Sensation stars Jaana Kunitz and Julia Powers as your instructor.  This workout clocks in at around 46 minutes and features some intense core action in the various segments. Jaana and Julia takes you through three basic tempos: Half time  -  At Tempo   - Double Time. They show basic versions of the moves as well as its high impact version. You perform all moves first on the left and then on the right. This workout requires a lot of arm/shoulder endurance. I was really feeling it in the shoulders trying to hold the arm positions. The workout also contains intensifiers that really get the heart rate up. Jaana and Julia calls them "sprints".  Sometimes Jaana and Julia will get a little spastic in this part of the workout. Love the music. Love the vibe of the workout.  The workout is choreograph tightly to the rhythms of the music.  The sections of the workout are: Warm Up Merengue Swing Cool Down. The cool ...

Latin Synergy is about a 50 minute workout that feature six of the rhythms in the Core Rhythms series. The workout breaks down as follows : Warm Up - about 3 1/2 minutes Merengue - ~ 8 minutes Cha Cha - ~ 7 minutes Salsa - ~ 8 minutes Samba - ~ 6 minutes Paso Doble - ~ 6 minutes Swing - 8 minutes Cool down -~ 4 1/2 minutes (Bolero Dance) Janna and Julia each lead various segments throughout the workout. I love this workout. I really like how they include a lot of the rhythms in this workout. Most of the other workouts only include two main rhythms, along with a warm up and cool down. That sometimes can get repetitive. In Latin Synergy, not all segments include sprints. The sprints occur in the Salsa and Swing rhythms. Latin Synergy is the longest Core Rhythms workout. 4 1/2 stars

Jumpin Jive is about 42 minutes in length and features Champion Ballroom Dancer Julia Powers and Jaana Kunitz. The sound track is awesome. I absolutely love the music in the workout. In the Core Rhythm workouts the moves are choreograph tightly with the music. Along with a warm up and Rumba cool down, the two main sections of Jumpin Jive are Salsa and Swing. Jaana leads the warm up and Swing section. Julia leads the Salsa and cool down segments. In the Salsa and Swing segments, there are about 4 mini combos that you repeat several times. As you go through each iteration of the combo you are adding a little bit each time. Both the Salsa and Swing conclude with "a sprint" which are very high energy moves. The Core Rhythm DVDs are very versatile. You can follow the workout from the front or from the back. I had fun with this one. 4 1/2 stars

Oh Cha cha cha cha. Salsa Blast is 45 minutes in length and feature a warm up, the Cha Cha rhythm and the Salsa rhythm. Rumba is the rhythm for the cool down. I love the Core Rhythm workouts. What I like most about the workouts are how all the moves are precisely synchronized to the music. Jaana and Julia continue to do a good job in showing off and explaining the steps. The moves are becoming easier for me to do as well. Although I still have a long way to go. I can hip circle in one direction but I still need lots of work in hip circling in the opposite direction, but I am having fun in trying to get it. The music used in Salsa Blast is music you can really groove too. Jaana always references moves that you can take out to "the club". The moves and music used in this workout, I can see that happening. This workout features intensifiers that Jaana and Julia called sprints. The Cha Cha sprint was particularly a challenge. Jaana has you doing Cha Cha jumping jac...

Merengue Mani a is a 38 minute workout featuring Jaana Kunitz and Julia Powers. The workout features a warm-up, a Merengue dance section, a Salsa dance section and a Bolero/Rhumba cool down. At the end of both the Merengue and Salsa sections are Sprints. These are energy burst that up the intensity of the workout. In Merengue Mania I found the majority of the moves easy to follow and catch on too. I think my body is starting to become use to this type of movement. The music in the workout is awesome and all the moves are synchronize dead-on to the beat of the music. I give this workout 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Full Workout from Core Rhythms is approximately 38 minutes long and features a rather lengthy warmup, the Merengue, the Samba, and a rhumba cooldown. Even though the warmup was lengthy, it didn't bother me because I thought it was a good way to practice and perfect some of the Core Rhythm Moves. I am really a big fan of the Core Rhythm workouts. I like how every movement in synchronize to the beat of the music and Jaana and Julia are infectious. I really work up a good sweat with these workouts. The workouts are very good for practicing body control. 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.

From the Core Rhythms Dance Exercise Program the first series is Quick Workout. A 20 minute workout that features a warm-up, the Merengue, Samba and cool down. This was a great short workout. The music is fantastic and I was sweating up a storm. Jaana and Julia break the workout into half count moves, then moves to single count and then to double time. By double time you are shaking and shimming. These moves can be quite fast. A couple of times I got lost in the movement. What I find the most challenging about these workouts is keeping my arms up. My arms are always the first to fatigue because you almost always are holding them up in a dancer's posture. My only complaint comes from the Merengue section where Julia doesn't equally balance out both the left and right sides. You do more reps/sets on the left than you do on the right, but that is relatively minor. 4 stars out of 5.

Short but tough!. This lower body sculpt program is 24 minutes in length and it is led by Jaana Kunitz. Jaana uses the Paso Doble rhythm to sculpt your lower body. Specifically she does a series of squats, dips, side leg raises, calf raises, lunges and back leg raises - all with a dance flair. Most of the exercises were done twice through and well before the end of the second set, I was feeling the burn. I give this workout 4 out of 5 stars.

Today is really suppose to be my rest day but I made it an Active Recovery day. I wanted to practice my Core Rhythm technique and the perfect DVD to do this with is their Kick Start dvd. The Kick Start dvd comes in the first Core Rhythms set that came out. In this workout, Jaana and Julia take you slowly and methodically through the basic movements that make up Core Rhythms. It's mostly instuctional but if you are truly following the technique, you will sweat or at least I did. The workout features 3 mini programs. - Get started - Get moving - Get dancing The programs build on one another and it really lets you practice the technique of Core Rhythms and that can really help with later Core Rhythm and really any type of rhythm workout. The workout is approximately 34 minutes long.