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The FIRM FIRM Basics Sculpting with Weights features Tracie Long in a 45-minute workout designed for beginners. DVD Menu Hot/Stretch Warm-Up Weights & Cardio Posture Pelvic Contractions Pecs, Core, Hips & Thighs Stretch The workout alternates cardio and toning segments. Some of the cardio segments uses light dumbbells for 4-limbed movement. Dumbbells are used to work the upper body but for the lower body,  you are mostly using your own body weight as resistance. Equipment list includes a tall step (fanny lifter), dumbbells, and a dowel.  I do these workouts when I want an Active Recovery day or when I am coming back from an illness or injury.   Tracie Long is outstanding in the workout as the lead.   4 stars

June 2022 Monthly Rotation Sundays will be treadmill followed by a stretch. Saturday's combination of rest days and dance days with Lisa Nunziella. The other days will be a mixture of workouts from Jessica Smith's new Strong & Centered series, The FIRM Zip Trainer, Aerospace, and CoffeyFit Raw. I will conclude the month with Suzanne Bowen BarreAmped and Jaana Kunitz Figure 8 Fitness workouts.

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.  

  The  two workouts in Metabolic Strength are Rock Solid which is your Volume 5 and Volume 6 is Heat It Up . Both workouts clock in at around 30 minutes.  The workouts are a combination of compound strength moves and functional cardio. There is no cool down. In both workouts, the workout ends abruptly.  I like the length of the workouts. I did not care for the cardio in Heat it Up, but I like the weight and strength exercises in both workouts. See table to list of exercises.   Rock Solid - 3 & 3/4 stars Heat it Up - 3 & 1/4 stars

Core Movements Vol 5 & Vol 6 contains two 30-minute workouts. The two workouts are Bottoms Up and Push Back .  The DVD cover has Vol 5 as Bottoms Up and Vol 6 as Push Back. When you bring up the DVD menu, it is opposite. Push Back is listed  as Vol 5 and Bottoms Up as Vol 6. These two workouts feature intense exercises for the core and lower body. Tracie throws in posture, balance and mobility work as well. I really liked both of these workouts.  See table for list of exercises. Bottoms Up - 4 stars  Push Back - 3 & 3/4 stars

  September 2020 Monthly Rotation Week 1 - Finish up week 4 of Beach Body Barre Blend Program. Week 2 - Tracie Long Core Movement, Metabolic Strength and CIA Latin Xplosion Week 3, 4, & 5 - Tracie Long Longvity, Reboot, Stronger Longer and Focus workouts. Sunday are Treadmill and a Beach Body short Yoga Stretch from the Beach Body Yoga Studio.

  Metabolic Strength Volume 3 and 4 Volume 3 Well Built is a strength workout and it is 30 minutes long.  Tracie uses compound moves and isolation exercises to work the entire body.  After the warm up, Tracie breaks the workout into three distinct segments. 1. Medium Weights 2. Heavy Weighs 3. Pec Fly Pullover The medium weights segment includes step squats, kick backs, rear delt work.  The heavy weight segment include renegade rows, french press, plies with bicep curls. The pec fly pullover segment is floor based and along with doing a chest fly and pullover, you are also doing core work. This workout is solid. Volume 4 Full Steam Ahead is a cardio strength workout that clocks in at around the 32 minute mark. Tracie uses a medicine ball for increase intensity in the cardio segments and for added intensity with some of the core exercises. There is a good bit of plank work.  Other exercises include a series of kicks, burpees, goblet squat and renega...

Core Movements Volume 3 and Volume 4 . Core Movements Volume 3 The Bottom Line is a core and buns workout.  The workout starts with band walks.  Tracie keeps the bands for floor work. Floor work with the band is performed in both the supine and prone positions. Next comes concentrated core work. This is followed by Turkish Getup series and then a Windmill series.  Tracie finishes the workout by working the hips with mobility hip circle moves and inner thigh adductor work. I enjoyed this workout. Trace really took time teaching the different positions of the Turkish Getup.  I also like the time spent on the Windmill positions. Core Movements Volume 4 Make Your Move is a mobility and stretch workout with.a little bit of strength. Tracie takes you through various range of motion and stretching exercises.  After a strength segment including mobility squats and shoulder press, Tracie moves into stretches for the hip and hamstring.  Tracie uses a chair....

Tracie Long's Metabolic Strength Vol 1 and Vol 2 DVD contains two 30 minute workouts. Coming on Strong is your Volume 1 workout.  This workout is mostly a sculpting with weights workout. In the Bulgarian Split Squats segment, Tracie does include controlled mountain climbers.  The Metabolic Finisher segment contains burpees. The workout ends rather abruptly.  Equipment:  step, dumbbells The DVD Menu 1. Play All 2. Warm up 3. Push Ups/Squats 4. Dead lifts/Rows 5. Bulgarian Split Squats 6. Single Arm Row 7. The Gun Show (Arms) 8. Metabolic Finisher Get Up & Go is your Volume 2 workout.  There is a lot going on in almost all segments of this workout. Throughout the workout, Tracie is using multi-component and compound exercises to move the body if a variety ways.  Tracie uses weights and a medicine ball to increase the intensity and to add power to the movements. There is quite a bit of jumping in this workout. Equipment:  dumbbel...

Tracie Long's The Studio Series Core Movements Volume 1 and Volume 2 DVD contains two 30-minute workouts. The first workout is Brace Yourself.  This is a functional based workout that uses a variety of tools to work through stability and balance core type movements.  The DVD Menu 1. Play All 2. Loop  Band 3. Sliders 4. Core Rotations 5. Back Strengthening 6. Transverse Abdominals Brace Yourself uses a band, disc (or paper plates), dumbbells, and a ball.  Loosen Up is the second workout.  This workout uses a foam roller, yoga block and yoga strap to stretch the body and help increase range of motion and improve mobility.  Loosen Up also includes a Turkish Get-Up segment where Tracie really breaks down the mechanics of this exercise.  This workout also uses a dumbbell or med ball.  This was my favorite of the two workouts. The DVD Menu 1. Play All 2. Hip/Quads 3. Pigeon (Butt) 4. Thoracic 5. Adductors 6. Hamstrings 7.  ...

Signature Series Volume 2 is the second iteration of Tracie Long's 2020 workout release. It is similar to Volume 1 in that it is roughly broken down into the following three sections: Mobility Exercises Weights & Cardio Core & Final Stretch Flexibility and range of motion is the focus of the mobility segment. Tracie does include weighted exercises for more intensity. Again, I felt like I needed a warm up before getting into some of these exercises. Weights and Cardio segment follows next. This segment starts with cardio. Half way through the segment, there is a medicine ball mountain climber series.  In between the cardio and med ball series, you are doing a series of weighted compound exercises. This segment really flows into the Core segment. I could not tell where one ended and the other begin. Maybe  with the dead bug pullover exercise? Equipment in the workout includes, dumbbells, med/sculpting ball, stool/stand and a mat. Tracie is the only...

Signature Series Vol. 1 is a 50 minute workout led by Tracie Long.  The workout is broken down into three segments. 1. Mobility Exercises 2. Weights & Cardio 3. Floor work & Stretch The workout starts with 15 minutes of mobility work. Some exercises are performed standing and some, you are lying on the floor. This segments features range of motion exercises for the spine and hip area.  You really just jump right into this segment and I did not feel quite warmed up for some of these moves. The next segment is Weights & Cardio. In this segment, Tracie includes lots of multi-component compound moves.  In almost all exercises you are working the upper and lower body at the same time. Towards the end of this segment, there is a cardio focused segment where you are dong a bit of jumping. The floor work segment contains a lying side leg lift/ shootout series.  In this series. Tracie uses ankle weights.  This is followed by core and plank work. ...

April 2020 This month it is Tracie and Jessica and little bit of Zumba.  I am upping my Sunday treadmill runs to 2.5 miles. On the 27th and 28th of the month, I will be doing Jessica Total Body Strength workouts. The other Jessica workouts will be 30 minute Walk On workouts. The two Zumba workouts are also 30 minute workouts.

Grand Total Geared Up is the third volume in Tracie Long's Grand Total series. Geared Up clocks in just over 48 minutes. The workout is broken down into chapters. Each chapter features either a weighted segment or a cardio segment. One of the cardio segment uses a medicine ball and the other cardio segment contains floor work (i.e. mountain climbers). See attached table for a list of weighted exercises. The ending stretch segment uses a band. The workout is synchronized to music. Each chapter has its own tune and there were some pretty catchy tunes. I enjoyed the music selection. Equipment list includes dumbbells, medicine ball, and band. 3 & 1/2 stars

Grand Total Vol. 2 Rarin To Go is a 50-minute total body workout that is lead by Trace Long.  Tracie is the only cast member. In this workout, Tracie takes you through a series of weighted exercises and functional cardio movements. The workout is broken down by chapters. In fact, the DVD menu immediately comes up and allows you to select or start with any chapter point you like.    Each chapter title features that move plus more complementary exercises.  See attached table for the list of exercises. Each chapter is accompanied by a music selection. Some of the tunes were unique to this workout; meaning they are not tunes I heard in other Tracie Long workouts. At times, the song would finish before Tracie was done with the last exercise.  I did like the tempo and flow of the workout. At no time, did I feel rushed during the workout. Equipment used in this workout, include dumbbells, slider, loop band, and a medicine ball. I liked the workout and from t...

Grand Total Vol 1 Going Strong is a 45-minute metabolic sculpting workout.  The workout is divided up into 8 chapters. Some of the chapters are interval based The chapters are: Warm up Power Step Split Squats Fast Cardio Squats Upper Body Floor Work Stretch This workout uses a club step and dumbbells. The workout starts with about a two minute stretching -slightly dynamic warm up.   The power step segment is one of your intervals. Tracie mixes power step work with weight work. Some of the exercises are power jumps, plank burpees, dead lift row, split jump squats, and side squats. The split squat segment is mostly strength training. You are doing a series split squats along with push up step outs, french press, brake squats and plank work. In fast cardio you are using the top of the step.  In this segment, you are working on and around the step.  The squat segment requires the use of a prop (some type of step, box or chair). You are doing single leg...

August 2017 Monthly Rotation Breakdown Sunday - Treadmill run and stretch Monday - Tracie Long Tuesday - Tony Horton P90 Wednesday - Tony Horton P90 Thursday - Les Mills On-demand, BodyCombat and Sh'bam Friday - Tracie Long Saturday - Active Recovery workouts from Classic Stretch season 9.

FitPrime Live G-Force 3 and G-Force 4 . This is a two DVD set. G-Force workouts are rebounder workouts created by Anna Benson of Fitness Favorite, FitPrime and The FIRM fame. In G-Force 4 , Carissa Foster, Tracie Long, Cindy Thorp and Eleanor Washburn takes you through a 53-minute fusion style workout. This workout encompasses a medicine ball, a rebounder, weights, tall steps and includes sculpting, cardio, pilates, and yoga style moves. The ladies trade off; each teaching a particular section of the workout. The workout was filmed as part of the FitPrime-Live Vacation Workshop.  The workout is of an actual class that took place and you can see this in the filming. You don't get to really see the class participants, maybe just their shadows but the instructors do change in and out. There were some equipment problems that the instructors had to work through but for the most part, it did not interrupt the flow of the class.  I thought the workout itself decent.  I woul...

Figure 30 Butt Volume 2 is a 30 minutes workout that focuses on the rear end. The DVD has the following chapter points: Warm up - 5 minutes Weighted Butt & Balance - 10 minutes Table & Bridge - 10 minutes Stretch - 5 minutes With this series, I think Tracie was really trying to change up the "warm up".  In both her Figure 30 workouts, I found the warm ups to be the most intricate parts of the entire workout. And I really can't say I felt warmed up. The weighted Butt & Balance section used one dumbbell for the first group of exercises - which were single leg squats and single leg dead lifts and two dumbbell were used for the sumo squats and dead lifts. There is a bit of power thrown in the the form of single leg track jumps. The Table and Bridge segments use ankle weights in the table exercises and your own body weight  is used for bridge workout.  This segment also includes superman butt lifts.  Tracie stretches you throughout the w...

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....