Saundra

"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...

Better Burn Better Buns is a functional fitness workout that is 55 minutes in length and it is led by Tracie Long. The workout uses a rag or you can use a paper plate or gliding disc to work the lower body. There are about 4 sets of lower body work using the rag. There is also some standing single leg isolation work. The types of moves that you are doing are leg lifts, zig zags, single leg squats, push lunges, standing shootouts.. - all using the rag or your own body weights. No dumbbells are used. The workout also has medicine ball cardio and core sets. I thought the medicine ball routines fun. However, they are repetitive . You are repeating the same group of moves about 8 time through but I find this is typical for a Tracie Long workout. The moves are simple , repetitive and allow for full execution and the majority of the time you have cool music that you’re performing the move to so the repetitiveness of it doesn’t bug me. Some of the cardio moves, are hurdlers, X marks the spot,...

  Endurance For Movement is a 60 minute total body workout and it is led by Tracie Long.  The DVD cover states "We Train For The Way You Live" and "..... we wipe away the 'old school' style of training".  I agree that this is not your traditional style of training or I will say it is not my traditional style of training. This workout is functional fitness at its best.  I say that even though I am not a fan of functional fitness but even after all these years of having this workout, I still find it a very unique workout and not one that I like doing but after I have done the workout I feel accomplished. There are many segments in this workout and as you move from segment to segment Tracie takes time to give a mini introduction to the segment.  I like this because it gives you time to set up for what is coming next. So the segments roughly break down as follows: warm up, core warm up, core, cardio, weight work, legs, upper body, core, cardio, push ups, lower ...

July 2011 Monthly Rotation July's rotation will feature Amy Bento Cardio and Tracie Long Functional Fitness workouts. Sunday - Amy Bento Step Monday - Tracie Long Functional Fitness Tuesday - Amy Bento Hi Lo Wednesday - Tracie Long Functional Fitness Thursday - Amy Bento Kickbox Friday - Tracie Long Functional Fitness Saturday - 30 minute stretch workout. This is my rest day.  I am going to make it an active rest. I have had these 4 stretch workouts for about 8 months now and have yet to do them.

From Tracie Long's Focus series, Weightless is a 30 minute workout that uses your body weight (no equipment). Well, okay. Tracie does use a mat. And there are certain spots that she tells you that you can use weights as props. Again, a great soundtrack and the workout is choreograph tightly to the music. This is a workout that can be "performed" once you really know it. The choreography is athletic in nature but basic. There is some power and a little high impact, but it is mostly low impact workout with some functional fitness and kickboxing inspired moves. The breakdown: Song 1 - warm up Song 2 - Burpees, turn-jumps, squat calf work, step knees Song 3 - Upper Body punches, squats, jogs, jumping jacks Song 4 - Lower body power moves, squat and lunge pulses, jumps in and out, hamstings, triceps push ups Song 5 - Side lunges, triceps dips, shoot outs, crunches, spinal erector work Song 6 - Planks, plank rotation, prisoner squats, push ups with rotation, mountain cl...

Defined Lines is a 50 minute workout that Tracie introduces as mostly a cardio workout. I really didn't think it a mostly cardio workout at all. If I had to characterized the workout I would call it a "total body functional fitness style workout" that uses lots of range of motion. The segments are long but within the segments you are moving quickly from multi joint compound exercise to multi joint compound exercise. Defined Lines uses a medicine ball, a pair of dumbbells (Tracie's pair is 5lbs), a rag (or paper plate if you are on carpet), your own body weight and a mat. There are roughly 10 segments or songs in this workout. Each segment with the exception of Song 4 is roughly 5 minutes. Song 4 is about 3 minutes. The breakdown and some of the moves in each segment are : Song 1 - medicine ball warm up, v-steps, shoulder serves, halos, weaves, lunge-dips with pullovers Song 2 - dumbbells, side lunges, french press, kick backs with leg lifts, delt raise, shoulder r...

Leaning Out is Volume 5 in Tracie Long's Longevity Series of workouts. The workout is approximately 50 minutes in length and it is predominantly a muscle shaping and strength workout with some cardio thrown in. Workout Breakdown Segment 1 - warm up functional ~4 1/2 minutes Segment 2 - sculpting, lat rows, squats, side lunge, overhead press, biceps ~5 minutes Segment 3 - more sculpting, dead lifts, lateral raise, ~ 3 minutes Segment 4 - cardio, basic low and high impact aerobics, athletic ~7 1/2 minutes Segment 5 - lower body, side lunge, dip, squats ~ 5 minutes Segment 6 - functional fitness ~2 1/2 minutes Segment 7 - sculpting, plies, bicep curls, triceps work, overhead rotations ~5 minutes Segment 8 - floor work, bomb diver push ups, plank into one arm row, superman ~4 minute Segment 9 - lower body, ankle weights, leg lifts, shoot outs, bridge, single leg press, ~5 minutes Segment 10 - abdominal work ~5 minutes Segment 11 - stretch- 5 minutes. There is not much that I do not...

The next volume in Tracie Long Fitness Focus Series is Volume 5 Break Through . Break Through is a 30 minute medicine ball cardio workout. The workout contains two chapter workouts "Have A Ball" and "Whittle Your Middle". Essentially, Have a Ball is the first 20 minutes of the workout and Whittle Your Middle is the last 10 minutes. Within the 30 minute workout, I counted 8 distinct sections. Section one : Med Ball Warm Up. I thought this section was rather fast or maybe I wasn't ready to work out but the tempo seemed quick to me. The warm up is about 4 1/2 minutes Section two : cardio no med ball. Side lunges, squats, jacks, and a quick tempo define this section. About 3 minutes Section three : Back to med ball. Overhead press, scissors, ball weaves and figure 8s. About 5 minutes Section four : Cardio no med ball. Side lunges, Lateral jumps, single leg balance work and power. 3 1/2 minutes Section five : Med ball. Sumo squats, releve' cir...

Power Up is Volume 3 in Tracie Long's Focus Series. The focus here is suppose to be "Intense Metabolic Boost". Okay. Sure. This is my second time doing Power Up and it is probably my favorite of the 4 Focus workouts. Chapter 1 - first segment - Brutal. You are doing power lunges off the step. Tracie varies the tempo by adding pulses and knee lifts. One of the features in this workout is that Tracie builds in lots of Active Recovery which after doing the lunges off the step, I needed. The active recovery move that Tracie used was alternating quad stretches. She also did a series of tempo marches. The rest of the workout went like this: 1. speed skaters 2. followed by more alternating quad stretches, 3. jog on the step with the right lead was next, 4. alternating quad stretches, 5. jogging on the step with the left lead, 6. alternating quad stretches. 7. series of squat jumps 8. an ending stretch that ended the segment. Chapter 2 did not use the step and st...

Kick Back features 3 relatively self contained 10 minute chapter segments. You can do each chapter on its own or you can any two or all three. The exercises included in workout are Kickboxing inspired moves. In each of the chapters, Tracie works with the tempo to either focus on form (at a slower tempo) or focus on intensity (at a faster tempo). Chapter 1 uses light and medium dumbbells to work the upper and lower body. Using the dumbbells, you do a series of jabs, hooks, upper cups, and cross arm squats. Other exercises included are side lunges with one arm rows into a one arm sword and squat thrust front kicks. Chapter 2 is mostly a lower body focus and you are doing a series of kicks, plie lunges with calf raises and step squats. Tracie uses heavy dumbbells in the plie and squat sections. Chapter 2 concludes with a stretch. Chapter 3 is floor work. Exercises include side planks, single leg push ups. ab work, triceps extension and ribcage pullovers. Kick Back is Volume 2 in ...

Mmmm .... over all not bad. I enjoyed 20 minutes of Reach Further . 10 minutes I didn't care for or rather I didn't like it as much as the other segments. This workout is part of Tracie Long Fitness focus series and Tracie states it is the 4th workout in the series - which I guess really only means something if you happen to own all 4 workouts. Reach Further, like all the Focus workouts are broken down into three chapters. Chapter 1, I would label as flowing yoga. It moves at a brisk space and you are getting in and out moves quickly. Surprisingly this was one of the sections I enjoyed. I usually don't care for this type of yoga. Chapter 2 is core/ab work. About 1/2 of this section is plank work and the other half is traditional ab work. This was my least favorite section - not because it isn't challenging, more because I felt it out of place in this workout. This would be a good section to add on an ab/core day. Chapter 3 I would say is about balance and stabili...

This is my second time doing Staying Power . Before I go and read what I wrote before I am going to say this is a 3 1/2 star workout. My biggest gripe was that I really couldn't hear the music. I could hear Tracie just fine. This is an interval style workout that used light to medium weights and the medicine ball. I like the intervals and the exercises that Tracie selected. Tracie is always so precise to me. Each move is distinct and identifiable. Going to go and check out my last review...... In my last review I gave it 3 1/2 stars. So that is very consistent. This is a solid workout.

The FIRM's Tough Tape is a solid 42 minute total body workout. It uses the barbell, various dumbbells, and the tall step. It is a compilation workout taken from the Hare and Tortoise workout videos. This workout is hosted by and stars Tracie Long who is superb. This was Tracie's first outing as a lead. The workout moves quickly from one exercise to the next. Therefore, it is handy to know what weights you will need. The only annoyance with the workout is that in one of the leg press sets (there are three sets total), the count is not the same for the left and the right. I like this workout a lot and give it 4 stars. I have attached a worksheet of the exercises in Tough Tape in the order that they appear. Please click on the image for a larger view.

Last workout for 2009 was Tracie Long's Back Up , the fourth workout from the Longevity series. Tracie keeps it consistent in that the workout is also right around the 50 minute mark, 52 minutes to be exact. Like Staying Power this too is mostly a interval style workout. The individual segments in this workout were long and the moves repeated a lot. The cardio segments were functional fitness/sports drill related (i.e soccer, tennis, baseball). The sculpting segments were compound in nature with many exercises working the small muscle groups. Tracie used light, medium and heavy weights for sculpting and she used the medicine ball in the cardio segments. Like the other three workouts, this workout also includes push ups and a core/abs segment. Overall I like this workout. I did think Tracie's face appeared out of focus almost throughout the whole workout. just very fuzzy. The music was good and fit the exercise that Tracie was performing. 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Step Forward is a 50 minute plus step workout and it is Volume 3 in the Longevity series that features Tracie Long. Mmmmmm. Where do I start? My first impression is that found it highly repetitious and boring. The step patterns/combinations were very basic. So there was no learning curve at all. (this is not a negative) Tracie takes you through 5 step combinations with the step in the horizontal position and 3 step combinations with the step in the vertical position. As she went through each combination, she showed you varying levels that you could use. Step Forward really works the legs. There were several times throughout the workout I felt my legs fatigue. This is mostly a result of doing the moves over and over again which for me translated into boredom. Within the combinations, there were moves in the workout that I liked, but after the 10th time doing them, I was ready to move on. The last 10 minute of the workout, Tracie took you to the floor for tricep dips, pus...

Coming in at around 52 minutes, Staying Power , the second workout from Tracie Long's Longevity series is an interval style workout. That is the first 30 minutes, after the warm up, is interval style. Then Tracie takes you to the floor for the last 15 minutes of the workout. This workout reminded me of TLT (Tracie Long Training) workouts. Although, I will say it didn't have as much functional fitness exercises as the previous series. This interval workout alternated cardio sets with sculpting sets. Many of the cardio sets used a medicine ball and the sculpting sets used light to medium weights. The only time you really needed to grab a heavy weight was during the one arm row exercise. My least favorite sections was the floor work section. This section was loosely divided into three sections, push ups/core, hips and stretch. In the push up section, Tracie takes you through a series of push up/plank exercises. The hip section consisted of doing long lever side hip raises...

Finally, we have new workouts and a new series from Tracie Long. The series is called Longevity and the first workout in the series is called Defining Shape . Defining Shape is a 50 minute sculpting/weight and balance workout. I say balance because there were lots of balance moves used in this workout. The sculpting moves are a cross between traditional exercises and functional fitness exercises. Everything flowed really well and the exercise were completed right in tune with the music. The workout itself moved fast. Before I knew it, Tracie was saying let's stretch. Before that, you had a floor section in which you work the lower body doing traditional leg floor work. Prior to going down to the floor, you had as series of standing toning sections that work the legs (i.e. squats, dead lifts and lunges) and upper body (i.e shoulder presses, bicep curls, rows etc). There were also push ups. Tracie is phenomenal. She really has to be one of the top 5 video lead instructors out ...

Oh what a classic! And What a favorite! The FIRM's Maximum Body Shaping is a 46 minute workout led by Tracie Long. It is a strength workout that uses weights, the tall box, and the dowel to sculpt your body. The exercises are synchronized to the beat of the music; which is a controlled and steady pace. You can go very heavy with this workout. The cardio is minimum with most of the cardio coming in the form of the "tall box climb". There is a short plyo and kicking section that is also cardio based. What I love about this workout is that it is a super no-nonsense workout that gets in, works the muscle and then gets out. Everything seems to just fit and every exercise has its place. There is not a lot of waiting around. You do the exercise and you move on to what's next. Tracie is of course superb and the music pretty good too. One of Anna Benson's best. 5 out of 5 stars.