Saundra

Elevated Lower Body from Lift, Move, & Restore 2   Cathe has release her new series called Elevated.  It is an 11 workout series that you can purchase on DVD, download or access through her On-Demand Act. Elevated Lower Body is a 52 minute workouts. In this workout, Cathe uses a high step, dumbbells and fabric loop to work the lower body.  There is less rest between sets and Cathe explains a little less than in the LM&R Functional Lower Body workout.  Cathe does take brief water breaks throughout.  Cathe gives you a range of weights to use for each exercise; telling you a selection if you are going light or if you are going heavy. I like this workout. 3 & 3/4 stars

Functional Lower Body is 53 minutes in length. Cathe uses several tools to work the lower body.  There is the fabric loop band, dumbbells, plate weight, resistance loop band, mini step, and your own body weight.   There are distinct segments in this workout.  After the warm up, the workout starts with a fabric loop segment. Next comes dumbbell (weighted plate) segment. There is a mini-step segment and a mini-loop band segment (standing firewalkers and lying floor).  The rep count varies per exercise.  You are doing anywhere from 8 to 10 to 12  to 16 reps depending on the exercise.  You are pulsing some of the moves so the rep count is higher for these exercises. I like this workout the second time through better than I did the first. 3 & 3/4 stars  

Lower Body Balance Bonus from Lift, Move, & Restore Functional Lower Body is a 20-minute workout.  This workout uses two disc and the STS Bar.  You can use a chair if you do not have an STS bar.  Cathe takes you through a series of standing exercises first starting with ankle mobility and then moving on to test one leg balance work.  This is a progression workout.  For each exercise, Cathe starts off with the least difficult move and then she layers on.  For example, you might start with both hands on the bar. Then, next time through one hand on the bar and one hand on the hip. Third time through both hands off the bar.  It was challenging.  3 & 3/4 stars

Lower Body Foam Rolling Bonus from Lift, Move, & Restore's Functional Pilates Fusion clocks in at just under 18-minutes.   Cathe starts the workout using the foam roller to massage and warm up the lower body. She mostly does this by rolling various body parts across and on the foam roller. After the warm up, Cathe uses the foam roller as a support prop to work the lower body. There are standing and floor based exercises. The rep count varied by the exercise.   There is a brief workout at the end. A mat and foam roller are used in this workout. I could hear the music more in this workout than I could in the Upper Body workout. I did these two workouts back to back which is why I noticed.      I thought parts of this workout challenging. I could see me doing this one again. 3 & 3/4 stars

Phase 2 of STS 2.0 Muscle and Recovery program consist of workouts that focus on either the upper body or the lower body. There are a total of 4 muscle workouts in this grouping; two for the lower and two for the upper.  Lower Body 1 clocks in at just over 51 minutes.  In this workout you are completing multiple sets of squats, deadlifts, lunges, hip thrust and calf raises. With most exercises you are doing between 8 to 12 reps.  After almost every exercise, Cathe gives you a one-minute rest.  A bench, barbells, plate, and dumbbells are used.  There are four premixes.  Lower Body 2 has a running time of just over 51 minutes.  The exercises perform are similar to Lower Body 1 but there are slight variations.  This workout contains a total of 5 premixes.  A step with several risers, barbell and dumbbells are all on the equipment list.  For me, these workouts are missing a countdown clock for the rest periods. Cathe talks through the rest...

Boss Loops Glutes & Core is a 52 minute lower body focused workout.  There are three color coded loops. Cathe only uses two of the loops (orange and green) in the workout. The orange loop has lightest tension.   Green loop is medium tension. Blue loop has the heaviest tension. There is a standing segment and a floor segment. Within the floor segment, there is lower body floor and core floor.  Something I did not like about the workout was the fact that Cathe and crew already had their loops on at the beginning of each segment. They are not changing the loop color along with you. So she will end one segment with the green loop. When the next segment starts, she already has on the orange loop. With that said, while I felt rushed, there was enough time to make the switch before Cathe started the exercise. Except for the warm up and stretch, the loops are used throughout. DVD Menu Getting Started Play Chapters Premixes (There are 8) Audio Setting Same set as Boss Ba...

  One on One with Michelle is a three disk strength training program that includes seven workouts.  Each workout is under 30 minutes. Disk one is Be Stronger . This DVD includes two sculpting strength workouts. The workouts are Upper Body Workout and Lower Body Workout. The Upper Body Workout clocks in at 26 minutes.  Michelle workouts the upper body in groupings. The first group is back and chest.  Second group of exercises focuses on shoulders.  The next group focuses on triceps and the last grouping is more shoulders and then it adds biceps work. The Lower Body Workout clocks in at 30 minutes.  There are two sets of the exercises and Michelle changes the lead leg for the second set. This workout contains standing and floor work. Both workouts are super east to follow but challenging. Michelle gives mini breaks throughout but for the most part you are moving from one exercise to the next. The warm up is short and the cool down even shorter....

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, yo...

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,...

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 u...

Ilyse Baker Your Sexy Everything is a lower body inspired workout.   The workout is composed of mini routines from 5 to 8 minutes. Each routine has a particular focus. Ilyse incorporates total body moves in each mini workout that gives the routine a cardio effect. There are two participants along with Ilyse.  One person is showing more basic beginner moves.  The other person is showing intermediate moves. Ilyse is the one doing the advance moves. The workouts are short but challenging. The Tabata workout comes with a picture in picture (PIP) that demos the move during the 10 second rest. The Thighs workout runs through a series of squats and lunges. There are also some plank jacks in this workout. The Calves workout consists of calve raises, hops and rock and roll calves done in a plank position. Glutes is where you get down on all fours working hydrants and donkey kicks. There is also a series of single leg squats and balance work. The Dancer's Floor...

Tracie Long's Figure 30 Hips Volume 1 is a 30 minute workout.  According to the back cover, it features "a series of athletic and ballet inspired movements that complement the way your hips move, work and play". There is some ballet movement but mostly I felt like it was more athletic based in natured than ballet.   The workout breaks down as follows: Warm up - 5 minutes High Cardio Hips - 10 minutes Sliding Ankle Weighted Hips - 10 minutes Stretch - 5 minutes. I tried this workout before but I could never get passed the warm up.  The warm up requires a bit of thinking and focus. The moves are a bit unusual. There are balance moves that require you to stand on one leg and circle the other leg.  A lot of the moves required a stable core.  I was doing quite a bit of wobbling. High Cardio Hips can be characterized by lots of hurdles, lunges, a great deal of balance work, and split  jumps.  Lots of track and field influences in this workouts....

Lift It HiiT It Legs is a 40 minute lower body focused workout. Cathe combines strength with cardio.   Each set starts with a heavy weight leg exercise and then this is followed by an explosive cardio exercise.  The cardio exercise mimics the strength exercise. I really like this workout. There are 24 exercises and I thought the combination of strength and cardio exercises complimented each other and flowed really well until we got to the Woodchop Side lunge exercise. This exercise seemed out of place to me in this workout. This was your strength exercise but the tempo was fast.  The following cardio exercise was  Weighted Explosive Side Lunges.  It felt as if there were two cardio exercises back to back instead of a strength and cardio. The workout got back on track with the remaining exercises.  There are eight premixes in the workout - ranging from 22 minutes to 53 minutes. The only equipment used are dumbbells. 4 stars

HiiT Circuit Lower Body is part of Cathe's Ripped with HiiT series.  This workout is just under 47 minutes in length and uses a step and heavy dumbbells and a barbell to get the job done. This workout alternates high intensity cardio training with high intensity weight sculpting for the legs.  The pattern varies slightly in that sometimes you might do two cardio exercises and then two weight exercises or one cardio move followed by one strength move. Throughout the workout, Cathe varies the tempo, rhythm, and rep count. The workout flows well but a lot of the exercises are very familiar. If you do a lot of Cathe workouts you will be able to just jump right in to this one. The music is a fast paced up beat tempo, but you are not necessarily working out to the music. There are 8 premixes included on this DVD. The workout includes subtitles that pop up and tell you which weight Cathe is using. This was a decent lower body workout. 3 & 1/2 stars

Glute Pursuit Legs and Glute Toning is a 30 minutes workout led by Marcie Benavides. Along with Marcie, are Kass and Ricardo. There is not a beginner modifier.  Also, thankfully- there is standard cuing. No voice over or visual and Marcie did an excellent job cuing. The segments: Rock Your Body (warm up) Demasiao Apretao (Merengue) Dale Muevelo (Reggeton) Candela (Cumbia) Munto (this is your isolation lower body song - with reverse lunges, side squats, hamstring kickbacks) Hey! Barracuda (inner thigh work) Eres Tu (Cool Down) I really like this workout. It did slow down in some parts more than I like. Marcie usually introduce the moves at half time before she went at full tempo and made the moves bigger and faster. This workout also uses the Zumba Rizer. 4 & 1/4 stars

  10 Minute Solution Butt Lift is lead by Christine Bullock. Christine takes you through six ten minute workouts.  The first five workouts are all about the "butt".  This sixth workout is a bonus abdominal work. In all the workouts you are doing two sets of the same exercises.  This is usually accomplished by doing one set on the right and then the next set on the left but not always.  Sometimes you will do two sets on the right and in the second half of the ten minutes you will do two sets on the left. Most of the time you are working for 45 seconds per exercise.  The exception to this is during the Hitt Butt Lift workout where you are performing the exercises for 20 seconds. I really like this workout.  By that I mean I pretty much liked all the segments.    I did these as an add on to the Jillian Michaels Body Rev workouts.  I thought Christine was quite good and the music (for the most part) is good.  Usually with the 1...

  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 5...

  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

 FIRM & Cardio Lower Body is one of the DVDs that come with the Ultimate Set of The FIRM's ZipTrainer System. It is lead by Allie Del Rio.  Emily and Alison are the cast members. Alison is performing beginner modifications. You can do this DVD, one of three ways.  If you choose Play All, you will get both the cardio which is about 12 minutes and the lower body sculpting which is about 12 minutes plus a warm up and cool down.  This workout is about 30 minutes. You can also choose just to do the cardio or just to do the lower body sculpting set. If you choose either of these options, your workout will be about 18 minutes which includes the warm up and cool down. The Cardio Workout uses the ZipTrainer and Core Ball for added intensity. There are three cardio segments and two of the segments contain total body 4 limb movement so you are working both your upper body and lower body. In this workout, Allie and Emily mostly use the 7lb core ball and Alis...

The FIRM - FIRM Basics 12 Minute Time Crunch Weight s contain 4 separate toning workouts; 2 of which are lower body focus and two are upper body focus.  Each workouts has its own warm up and cool down. While the DVD states that each workout was 12 minutes long, I think each of the segments were more in the 13 to 14 minute range. The DVD allows you to select the following : Total Workout Lower Body with Libby Cowart Upper Body with Janet Brooks Lower Body with Nancy Tucker Upper Body with Summer Sparkman If you select the Total Workout option this will include all the warm ups and cool downs of each workout.  There is not an option of saying doing the warm up of the first workout and the cool down of the last workout. This is a very basic workout.  It is design for beginners.  Because it is a toning workout, you can make it more difficult by adding weights to the exercise or increasing your weight poundage.  Several of the exercises use light weig...