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  FIRM & Cardio Upper Body is set up very similarly to its Lower Body counterpart. The DVD menu gives you the following options : Play All Cardio Workout Upper Body Workout Hitting Play All gives you a 30 minute workout.  Selecting either of the other two option would give you an 18 minute workout. Both of the workouts feature 3 segments (either cardio or sculpting) followed by an SBT (Short Burst Training).  The SBT is 30 seconds of intensity followed by 30 seconds of recovery before moving on to the next segment. Like the Cardio Lower Body workout, the Upper Body Cardio Workout contained a lot of 4 limb total body exercises.  So you are working both the lower and upper body.  For example, in one of the cardio segments, Emily has you lunging and dipping off the dome in addition to performing upper body moves with the core ball. For the Upper Body Sculpting Workout, the segments are divided into the following categories: Segment 1:...

If you choose to order The FIRM's ZipTrainer Ultimate Edition , you will receive in addition to the basic set, a 7 pound blue Core Ball and  2 DVDs with additional workouts. Unlike the basic set DVDs, the DVDs in the Ultimate set do not come with a Customize Your Workout feature. However each of the DVDs do come with three options which are to play all, to play the cardio workout or to play the sculpting workout. Any of the three selections will come with a warm up and cool down. The two or four (depending on how you look at it) workouts that come in this set are definitely my favorites out of all the workouts in the ZipTrainer system.  A workout that I think they could have included with the system is a standalone stretch workout.  I think the uniqueness of the ZipTrainer and the added bonus of being able to put it in the dome position would have lent itself well to a stretch workout. If I can nitpick, one of the things that irritated me is that all the instructo...

 ZipTrainer by The FIRM Cycle 1 Rev! comes with four workouts. This is a review of Sculpt 1 and Amp Reps 1. REV Sculpt 1 is led by Stephanie Huckabee.  Along with Stephanie, are Annie and Alison. Alison is performing modifications. Including the warm up and stretch, the workout is about 20 minutes. The main workout, however, is just 15 minutes.  Twice within the span of 30 seconds, Stephanie tells us "we only have 15 minutes". I remember thinking, "I hope she is not going to keep saying this for the whole workout."  Thankfully she did not. So the main workout includes 4 short burst training (SBT) that are 30 seconds in length.  Along with using the ZipTrainer and core ball, this workout also uses a set of light/medium and heavy dumbbells.   The exercises are performed at a steady (non-fast) tempo. The music seemed faster than the tempo in which Stephanie was performing each exercise.  The exercises did move from one to the next. The onl...

Cycle 1 Rev! is the first DVD in the FIRM's ZipTrainer System. This DVD comes with four workouts. The workouts are Jump Start (I did not do this workout but I did preview it), Cardio 1, Sculpt 1, and Amp Reps 1. Jump Start introduces you to the exercise moves that will appear in the other workouts.  This workout is led by Emily.  She is the only cast member.  Emily takes you through a series of 8 moves without the use of the Zip Trainer or core ball.  So your are pretending or imaging that you are working with the core ball or zip trainer.  Also Emily introduces you to Short Burst Training (I am abbreviating this as SBT).  In this workout, the SBTs are 30 seconds.  This workout is about 15 minutes. Rev Cardio 1 is led by Allie.  The other cast members are Kelsie and Emily.  Emily does the modifications.  In this workout, Allie includes 4 - Short Burst Training that are 30 seconds each.  Including the warm up and stretch, ...

From the Wave system, The FIRM's Express Abs is a 10 minute workout featuring Emily Welsh. The workout uses the Wave in the rocking and stable position. Weights are not used in this workout. Breakdown: Segment one - standing warm up - wave on rocking side Segment two - seated on wave - rocking side to side Segment three - Planks. Toes on Wave -rocking side Segment four - standing ab workout on the wave, carving the wave, stabilization work, standing crunches, Segment five - Planks, Hand on the Wave - rocking side Segment six - seated and lysing crunches, Wave on stable side Segment seven - back work, supermans, Wave on stable side Segment eight - stretch, Wave on stable side Lots of balance and core stabilization in this workout. Emily cues very well. She keeps a nice steady pace throughout the workout. This workouts has the same picture quality as Rock It Off. Solid. 3 stars

Taken straight from the literature in The FIRM Express Fitness Guide is the following on what The FIRM Express System is all about: "Here's how it works: Instead of starting with cardio, then sculpting each muscle group separately like most traditional workouts do. The FIRM Express compresses cardio and sculpting moves into twelve, rapid-results workouts. The routines are grouped into four progressive cycles that include the hottest studio moves, plus The FIRM Express Mini Bursts , the fast-blast interval technique that gets targeted results burning up to 9X more fat than traditional cardio workouts. All segments feature no-nonsense moves designed to work all your muscles at once-and your abs continually." Definition of The FIRM Express Mini Burst - "Mini Bursts alternate 8 seconds of fast paced exercise with 12 seconds of slower paced "recovery" movement." So this week, I did the workouts from cycle 1 Ignite of The FIRM Express System. The FIRM Expre...

Target Toning Zero-in-Ten is a FIRM workout(s) and it is led by Rebekah Sturkie and Emily Welsh. It consist of five 10-minute workouts. The workouts are Lean Legs (Rebekah), Fearless Arms (Rebekah), Bikini Body Blaze (Emily), ABS-olute Core (Rebekah) and Bun Burn (Emily). Each of the 10 minutes consist of a brief warm up in the beginning and a cool down/stretch at the end. Rebekah uses weights in her three workouts and her three workouts are interval based (cardio burst and strength training). The workouts include the standards interval style exercises (including the burpee - appears in Abs-solute Core). Emily does not use weights in her workouts. Bikini Body Blaze is basically a multi-level cardio workouts. By multi-level, Emily starts at level one (easiest) and goes up to level three (hardest) by adding more intense moves. Bun Burn works the lower body using your own body resistance. You can use each 10 minute workout on its own or you can choose to do all 5 sections in the P...

Burn & Shape is a 40 minute cardio sculpt workout led by Emily Welsh. It uses the same plain, uninspiring and disappointing set as Total Body Time-Crunch. This is another workout that I haven't done in quite some time. I would consider this workout to be low intermediate in terms of intensity but you do need to pay attention because the choreography is at the medium intermediate level in terms of complexity and it moves fast. I liked the moves in this workout. The choreography, especially in the cardio sets, has attitude. There is a dance feel to the choreography. My only beef was that the steps in the later combinations tended to repeat themselves a lot. The sculpting sets were okay. They were compound in nature so choosing an appropriate weight became the challenge there. Emily is fun and encouraging. Equipment used is dumbbells. I went and found an old review that I did of this workout. Here is what I said on 2/27/2008. " This is a workout that you need to be m...