Saundra

Finally got around to doing this workout. I have had the workout schedule at least three times and life kept interrupting me. So Turn Up and Slim Down is a 70 minute workout led by Patrick Geoudeau.  Along with Patrick there are two other cast members.  The workout contains a warm up and cool down plus 6 ten minute workouts. Three of the workouts are cardio based and 3 are body weight exercise based. I found the body weight workouts super challenging.  In all the workouts Patrick is layering moves – piling it on I thought. In a couple of the Body weight segments I felt the final sequence of moves quite complex.  If you look at the spread sheet I created for the exercises you will see I list the exercise as “into” or “add” and that is because Patrick makes changes or modifications as he moves through. You might get 4 shots at the base exercise before he adds on. Patrick uses a mat in all the workouts.  The only other equipment you will need is a ...

Body Weight Blast is a Patrick Goudeau workout that clocks in a little bit over the hour mark. This is an interval style workouts that features some high energy throughout the workout. There are 8 interval segments that are 6 minutes each. Each 6 minute interval is broken down as follows: - 3 minutes of body weight exercises - 2 minutes of heavy weight (dumbbells) work - 1 minute of high intensity cardio. Within the 3, 2 and 1 minute sets,(in several of the segments) you are often working one side of the body and then repeating the moves on the other side of the body. Along with Patrick, there are four other cast members.  Patrick teaches this workout in his signature style.  He will start the exercise and then he often stops to coach and talk to the camera or the other cast members. Even though I know he does this, sometimes I would find it confusing because he would start the move and as he is stopping to coach, I am thinking he is going into a different varia...

While Kickbox Burn has Patrick Goudeau's name on it, the main workout  is lead Heather Corndorf. The workout consist of a warm up (co-lead by Patrick and Heather), 4 Kickbox Burn Rounds, a Cool down and a bonus abs sections.  Patrick lead the abs section. I did not do the abs section. The DVD menu allows you to: - Play All - Create a personalized workout - Pick one workout The following are elements of the workout: - lots of knees (pulls and strikes) - lots of running (fast foot, high knees) - lots of fast (double time) repetitive drills - each round features plyo jumping moves - each round features a kickbox combo - what you do on one side, you do on the other side - there is not a beginner modifier This is a super high energy workout.  The  tempo is mostly fast pace and that starts in the warm up. In the warm up, you are running and jacking.  Patrick starts this off and half way through the warm up, Heather takes over and continues the worko...

Step Appeal definitely has the most complex choreography out of of all the Patrick Goudeau step workouts that I have done thus far.  It is approximately 65 minutes in length. The combinations are very intricate and it is going to take me a couple of more times to master this one. Like Patrick's other workouts he starts with a basic moves and then layers from there.  Turns, twist, pivots, working with your back to the camera (TV), rhythm changes, and adding arm moves are all elements that make this workout challenging.  Also this workout requires a lot of space.  You are working off the step quite a bit. In between  breaking down the workout,  your basic move is the step tap (or knee) corner to corner. While doing this move, Patrick explains what is coming next. He then previews it and then you join in. There are three combinations.  However, if you choose the customize workout option on the DVD, it is broken down as follows: Warm Up Step Wor...

Step My Way is a step workout featuring Patrick Goudeau and it is 57 minutes in length.  Along with Patrick there are two other cast members. There is not a beginner modifier. Step My Way contains four combinations that are a mixture of both dance and athletic style stepping.. Each of the combinations starts off with a basic step pattern or group of moves.  As Patrick repeats the pattern, he changes it up by adding more complex moves such a turns, twist and pattern changes so that by the end of the combination you are presented with a challenging step combination. The complexity level I felt was intermediate to advance. Several times I stayed with the more basic move when Patrick added on. Generally, Patrick would show you a new move twice and then the third time through, he wants you to join in with him. The DVD is chaptered and you can select the following chapter points by selecting the Personalized Workout Option: Warm up Combo 1 Combo 2 Combo 3 Bonus Combo ...

Step Up is about a 60 minute step workout featuring Patrick Goudeau as the lead.  The workout contains a warm up, three step combinations, and a cool down.  It is more of a dance step workout than an athletic step workout. In terms of complexity, I would rate the choreography as intermediate.  Patrick starts with basic moves and as he moves through an iterations of the basic moves he add complexity such as turns and twist which make the moves more complicated.  What I found the most frustrating about learning the combos were the camera angles.  So many shot were waist shots and above and I need to see the feet or even better, whole body shots.  That is my only real complaint about the workout. Patrick is enthusiastic and brings energy to the workout.  The  music and set are okay. There are four other cast members besides Patrick and one of the cast members is a beginner modifier. 3 stars

Patrick Goudeau's B.E.S.T Video is a 45 minute step workout. B.E.S.T stands for Best Ever Step Training. This workout features a warm up, three step combinations and a cool down. Patrick uses the layer approach when teaching the step combinations. He starts off with a basic set of moves and then as you repeat the series he add intricacies such as pivots and turns or change of directions. This kept the workout fresh and felt less repetitive than many other workouts. The warm up is about 9 minutes and the cool down is about 4 minutes. The Step Aerobics portion is about 30 minutes or so. Combination 3 is short compared to combos 1 and 2. After you learn all three combos, Patrick takes if from the top and does all the combos back to back. Along with Patrick, there are two other cast members. There is not a beginner modifier. However, I didn't feel the workout was too hard to learn. Patrick always started by teaching you a basic move and you can stay with the basic move eve...

Extreme Calorie Burn could have been called Lean Hot Body 2. Same format but slightly longer, Extreme Calorie Burn clocks in at 67 minutes. I have to say, Patrick annoyed me or maybe it was the camera person. Patrick kept stopping "to coach". I am use to this because he does this in his other workouts. He does this so much in Extreme Calorie Burn that I don't think he even did 1/2 the workout. The part that annoys me is that the camera is on him quite a few times when he does stop which he does so very abruptly. So either I am thinking the exercise is over and I stop too or it messes up my count. There is a warm up, 5 interval blocks and cool down. The DVD has a chapter menu so you can choose to include the ab workout before the cool down, eliminated the ab workout and go straight to the cool down or do the ab workout on its own at a later time. The ab workout is about 10 minutes and it uses a dumbbell. The 5 interval blocks each contain two rounds and each round...

Lean Hot Body is a 60 minute Patrick Goudeau Workout. It is interval based - mixing cardio intervals with toning intervals. The workout follows a similar format to some other Interval Style workouts I have. You are essentially doing everything twice through. Once on the right and again on the left. I believe there are five interval blocks for a total of 10 intervals. I was going to break down each of the interval with each of the exercises perform but the workout is not chaptered - which is a big negative. So the next time I do the workout, I will try to take the time to write down what is what. It is a shame that the workout is not chaptered or the main part of the workout is not chapter. You can select the cool down and the abs as separate chapter points. Anyway, as I was doing the workout, I was thinking it would be good to mix and match the sections - to design my own workout by shortening it or repeating some sections or simply just doing the intervals I like best. This workout ...

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...

Not Your Momma's Step . I have had this workout for a long time, probably going on two years now. I think I tried or had the workout schedule to do back in the spring but I got sick. This is a workout that you know you will like it once you get the choreography down, but having the patience to learn the choreography is the key. I don't want to say the moves are difficult but they are dance based with a lot of flair and directional changes. So I really had to watch Patrick execute the moves as well as listen to what he was saying. This annoyed me once because Patrick demonstrated a move - which was a "cross to the front (towards the TV) and then a cross to the back (towards the step) move". Later he calls the move a grapevine. So I am thinking, "why didn't you just call it a grapevine to begin with?" Although when he first executed it, it didn't look like a grapevine to me. Patrick does do a decent job of cuing the move once you know what ...

Hardwork Conditioning 24/7 is about 62 minutes workout if you do all the sections. It is a strength and cardio interval workout. Each circuit is about 6 minutes and it starts with 2 minutes of cardio and then 4 minutes of strength. Typically the 4 minutes of strength is broken down into 2 minutes on the right and then 2 minutes on the left or vice versa. Patrick and his cast use an 8 inch step in the vertical position, a mat is sometimes used and dumbbells. There is a lot of getting up and down onto the floor. There are one and even maybe two too many sets of burpees/squat thrust. A lot of the moves were multi-joint exercises. I did feel as if I was working hard. When you first put in the DVD, the menu is a bit confusing. I bought my copy of this workout from Collagevideo and the workout came with a sheet of scrap paper breaking down the menu options which are as follows: Wake Up Call (warm-up) - 6 minutes Monday (7 circuits) - 42 minutes Tuesday (3 circuits) - 18 minutes Wednes...

Hard Work Conditioning 2 is another workout that surprised me. I didn't expect to like the workouts as much as I did. I have had this work practically since it first came out and I am just now getting around to doing it. It's a interval workout. I thought the blend of aerobics and toning were more even than in the first Hard Work Conditioning workout. The toning segments featured mostly compound exercise and the layering technique. Many of the toning segments had a cardio and/or a balance aspect to it. The cardio segments were burst of simple sometimes intense movement. Patrick uses the step and 2 sets of dumbbells. This workout is long but can be broken down into Lower Body and Upper Body segments. In my opinion, however because of the compound nature of the moves, you are almost always working both body sections together. I give this workout 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

PlayBall in 4 . I like this workout. The workout gets its inspiration from Basketball or so Patrick states and it is divided into 4 quarters. Each quarter is roughly 12 - 15 minutes in length. The whole workout is just over an hour long. Patrick takes you through a series of interval, functional type moves using a medicine ball. Some of the med ball moves are shoulder press, figure 8's, squat press, weaving the ball etc. The ball is used as a prop and also for resistance and stabilization work. I am extremely happy to report that we did not have to bounce the ball. Within each quarter, Patrick incorporates moves that get the heart rate up and then he brings your heart rate down with more static/concentration type exercises. In all 4 segments you are doing some type of floor work with the longest floor work segment coming in the 4 quarter which has a nice ab/core set. Also Patrick uses a left and right pattern meaning you do the combination on the right and then repeat it on the le...

Patrick Goudeau's Hard Work Conditioning is 60 a minute workout that I thought was more toning than aerobics. The toning segments featured exercises that were compound in nature and many of the moves had a balance component as well. The aerobic segments contain power moves done in burst. With the exception of the plank jacks on the steps, I really didn't feel that I was working that hard. However, I got a major case of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) as a result of this workout. At first I couldn't place why I was so sore in my lat area and inner and outer thighs until I started thinking about the moves I had done in the workout. Patrick does a good job of keeping the workout moving. 3 out of 5 stars