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Cathe Lift, Move, & Restore 2 Elevated Upper Body Elevated Upper Body clocks in at just over 48 minutes. After a thorough resistance cord warm up, Cathe take you through a series of upper body core inspired exercises.  There were several exercises where you felt your core working as well as the upper body muscle group.  While the resistance cord was used in the warm up, the main part of the workout mainly used dumbbells and body weight. Sometimes, you were working with just a single dumbbell. The rep count range was between 8 and 24 reps. Cathe gave weight recommendations as she moved through each exercises and she gave her typical tips and encouragement. 3 & 3/4 stars

Functional Upper Body is a 48 minute workout.  Cathe uses a resistance cord to warm up the upper body. Once in the workouts, you are using a combination of weights, resistance cord, and a yoga block in the various exercises. There were very few isolation type moves in the workout.  Most of the upper body moves include the lower body or core (balance) to make the exercise more functional. These are multi-component exercises I felt the last group of exercises were more core based than upper body based. Cathe offers modifications throughout the workout. 3 & 3/4 stars  

 Cathe STS 2.0 Muscle & Recovery Phase 2 Upper Body workouts contain exercises for the chest, back, shoulders, triceps and bicep muscle groups. Upper Body 1 has a running time just shy of 58 minutes.  Cathe focuses on one muscle group before moving on to the next muscle group.  Cathe gives you a minute rest in between each exercise.   There is a huge equipment list in this workout that include:  bands, STS Pull up/Chin up bar, bench, barbell, mat, and dumbbells. In UB1,  you start off working chest, then back, biceps, triceps and you end with shoulders.  There are 5 premixes. Upper Body 2 clocks in at just over 59 minutes.  This workout starts off with back, then shoulders, Cathe combines chest and triceps before ending with biceps.  For the weighted exercises, your rep count fall between 8 and 10 reps.  The equipment list is the same as UB1.  There are also 5 premixes on this DVD. Because the STS 2.0 is a series that is...

Body By Simone Arms, Back and Core i s a 60 minute workout. It is a cardio and upper body/core workout.  The workout features a cool upbeat soundtrack and all the moves are timed to the music. For some of the exercises, there are two modifiers that show alternate ways of doing the move.  The workout uses two pairs of dumbbells and a band. The sections of the workout are : Warm up Dance Cardio 1 Upper Body 1 - 3 pound weights Upper Body 2 - 5 pound weights Dance Cardio 2 Band Work 1 Band Work 2 Seated Band Work Body Weight Exercises Dance Cardio 3 Prone Series Abs Stretch It is a solid low-weight high-rep upper body workout.  Simone does give you rest periods in between. Simone also incorporates standing core work with the upper body weighted segments.  I did not care for the band work as much. I also did not like that the DVD was not chaptered.  60 minute plus workout, it would be nice to be able to jump around and maybe just do all the upper body segments or al...

  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....

Strong Body Stacked Sets: Upper clocks in at just over 35 minutes.  This workout follows the same concept as the lower body version.  In the upper body version, Cathe is stacking 5 to 6 exercises one-on-top-of-the-other. There are three groups.  Round 1 groups triceps and chest Round 2 is shoulders Round 3 groups biceps and back Each grouping gets repeated twice.  Cathe varies the rep count, rep pattern and rep tempo depending on the exercise we are doing.   This workout flies by and I like that. It is a get in, get it done workout.  The equipment used in this workout  include step, mat, and dumbbells.   DVD Menu Getting Started Play Chapters Basic Premixes  (total 9) Timesaver Premixes (total 10) Scrambled Premixes (total 5) Bonus (6 Pack ABS #2, Pyramid Pump Lower Body, Extended Stretch #2) Audio Settings 4 stars

Disc 1 of Build & Burn features two workouts. They are Cardio Core and Upper Body Superset. Cardio Core clocks in at 27:39 and it features an optional step.  Kelly alternates  cardio moves with core based moves. All the core moves are functional and/or body weight exercises.  The cardio moves are athletic in nature. With each move you doing two sets of 30 seconds on and 10 seconds off. There are two other participants. The participants show various modifications throughout. Upper Body Supersets   contains two exercises per body part.  You are performing each move for three sets and you are doing 8 rep per set.  The workout starts with shoulders and then moves on to biceps, triceps, chest and back.  After back, Kelly takes you through 4 rounds of a 30-second burnout.  This workout clocks in at 26:20. The workout uses a bench and variety of dumbbell. There are 8 premixes on this DVD that range in time from 14:38 to 30:13. Cardio Co...

Ramped Up Upper Body is one of the new workouts in Cathe's new series Strong and Sweaty.  Ramped UP Upper Body clocks in at just under 47 minutes and it is an entire upper body workout. The workout works one body part at time. After the warm up, it starts with back, then chest, triceps, shoulders, biceps and then the stretch. Cathe uses various tempos and various rep patterns and sequences to shock the upper body.  For example, for some exercises there are two sets, some three and some there is just one set. If there are two sets, most likely the second time through you are varying the tempo count. The workouts uses a variety of weights, the step bench, and a sculpting cord (the kind with handles). Cathe really moves from one exercise to the next for most of the workout. There were times I didn't have enough time to write down my weight or how many reps I did. Speaking of weight, at the beginning of each muscle Cathe does tell you the weight selection that you will n...

Chiseled Upper Body is a 42 minute workout that works the upper body using a variety of functional type moves and some traditional exercises.   After the warm up, Cathe  takes you through a series of moves. Before each moves, Cathe explains the exercise.  You then perform the exercise for a series of reps before moving on to the next exercise. Many of the exercises are multi-component or compound in that a particular exercise typically has multiple parts to it. I was really looking  forward to this workout because most of Cathe's upper body workouts are split workouts and I was excited about having an upper body workout from Cathe that worked all muscle groups in one workout and in under 42 minutes.  However, overall I didn't really care for this workout.  I think there were to many functional type exercises and many of the exercises could have also been placed in a core workout. This is also a workout where Cathe really highlights what Amanda is ...

Lift It Hit It Chest, Triceps & Shoulders clocks in at 39 and 1/2 minutes. In between the warm up and cool down, Cathe works the chest, shoulders and then the triceps. This workout followed the same pattern as the Back, Biceps and Shoulders workout. You will do a heavy weight exercise for three sets and then follow with a finisher exercise. For the chest portion of the workout, the finisher exercise are push ups.  So you are doing three sets of push ups because there are three heavy weight chest exercises. I thought the tempo of the shoulder exercise was way too fast. It seemed as if Cathe was speeding through the exercises in this segment.  It felt more endurance like than strength based. For the shoulders, there are two super sets and each super set is followed by a finisher. Triceps follow the shoulders.  There are four exercises, two heavy sets and 2 finishers. I felt this workout the next day.  If fact I am still feeling it. I did this workout...

Clocking in at over 52 minutes Lift It Hit It Back, Biceps & Shoulders is the longest workout in the Ripped With HiiT workout series by Cathe. This workout starts of with a brief warm up.  After the warm up Cathe does  six exercises for the back.  This is followed by four exercise for the rear shoulders.  After shoulder work, there are six exercises for the biceps.  A stretch concludes the workout. In each of the segments, Cathe stars with a heavy weight exercise - usually twelve reps for three sets. She immediately follows this with a "finisher" exercise which uses lighter weight but higher reps. Dumbbells, a barbell, band, mat and step are used in this workout.  The step is only used as a bench. There are 11 premixes on this DVD ranging in time from 19:46 to 63:34. This was a nice workout. 3 & 1/2 stars

Ripped With HiiT is Cathe latest workout series.  The series contains a total of 9 workouts plus two bonus ab workouts.  The concept with this series is that Cathe is combining heavy weights with high intensity interval training. HiiT Circuit Upper Body is the first workout I did in the series.  It clocks in at just over 46 minutes.  While the title of the workout is HiiT Circuit Upper Body, I felt that  it was more total body focus than just upper body as most of the upper body exercises incorporated legs. There are 8 rounds.  Each round features a compound upper lower body exercise and a high impact cardio blast.  There are some isolation upper body exercises included as well. There are 8 premixes of various length. The DVD is very well chapter. The music is decent. Sometimes you are working to the beat of the music and at other times you are not. The set is a nighttime setting of a metropolitan city. I like HiiT Circuit Upper Body. 4 ...

Back & Biceps is a 52 minute workout.  The cardio portion of the warm up is 2 & 1/2 minutes.  The stretch portion of the warm up is 6 & 1/2 minutes.   The pattern for this workout is two back exercises, followed by two bicep exercises. There are a total of 24 exercises with a water break after exercise 12. The exercises are time based. One thing to note about the time, when Tony has a left and right side to do, the times are not even. It is not just this workout; I notice the uneven times in other P90X workouts as well. As an example, the time will pop as :42 for the left and then for the same exercise it will show :44 for the right.  So when you see two times on the worksheet, that is why. The last exercise is a drop set bicep curl exercise and there are four rounds and thus four different times.  The majority of the exercises are pull ups or some form of it and bicep curls. The workout concludes with at 2 & 1/2 minute cool down. Equ...

Chest, Shoulders & Triceps clocks in at 55:45. There is a long -almost 9 minute warm up, that start with cardio warm up moves before going into an extensive stretch segment. After the warm up, the workout alternates exercises  for the chest, shoulders and triceps. There are a total of 24 exercises with a water break after exercise 12.  The exercises are time based and the time varies. Please see workout sheet for the times. The thing that annoyed me about this workout was that all the chest exercises were push ups.  It was that way for the Chest & Back workout too. Is there not another chest exercise? The workout concludes with a 3 & 1/2 minute cool down and stretch. Equipment:  Push up bar, dumbbells, bands, chair 3 & 1/4 stars

Shoulders & Arms is the next P90X workout that I did and even though I had a 48 hour break from when I did Chest & Back, I was still feeling it in the shoulder area from all the push ups that I had done. Shoulders & Arms clocks in at just under an hour.  Again, there is about an 9 to 10 minutes warm up - features about 3 minutes of cardio exercises and 7 minutes of static and ballistic stretching. There are two rounds in this workout as well. However, the format is slightly different in Shoulder & Arms. You do three exercises (one for the shoulders, one for the biceps, and one for the triceps) and then you repeat those three exercises immediately. After you do the second round you get a break before starting the next group of exercises. Again, Tony tells you to set a goal with how many reps you are going to do. The time in which you have to do each exercise varies. Equipment - dumbbells, bands, chair 3 & 1/2 stars

  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:...

Ballet Body Upper Body clocks in at around 45 minutes and it is essentially divided up into two parts, a floor plank section and a standing light weights section. For the plank section, there are full arm extended planks, side planks, front elbow planks, side elbow planks, and reverse planks.  In these various plank positions you do several exercises altering the tempo or rep pattern throughout the sets.  In the plank segments, the shoulders are getting worked constantly.  The standing weight segment uses hand weights.  Leah recommends 2 to 5lb dumbbells.  There is a lot of shoulder work in this section as well, but also there is some chest, rear delt and triceps work.   Circles and more circle - there are a lot of sets where you are circling the arms in one direction and then you reverse and circle in the opposite direction. This workout was challenging for me. I had to take lots of breaks. Also in this workout, I didn't think Leah's voice...

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...

 Burnsets is disc 3 in Cathe Xtrain Series. It consist of two upper body workouts.  Both workouts follow the same pattern but work different upper body parts. The first workout listed is Chest, Back, & Shoulders.  This is a 51 minute workout. The second workout is Bi's & Tri's .  This workout is 37 minutes in length. For each body part you are doing four exercises.   The first three of the exercises are done for three sets.  In the first two sets, you are lifting for 10 reps.  In the last set, you are to lift to failure.  The four exercise (Cathe calls it the Burn Set) is only for one set, but the reps vary according to the exercise.  The resistance tubing is used in several of the Burn Set exercises. The Burn Set exercises appears as Bonus Workouts on several of the other disc in the series.  There is only one Bonus workout on this DVD and it is the Core#1 workout.  The DVD has premixes but not one of premixes c...

Xtrain Bi's & Tri' s is disc two in Cathe Xtrain Series.  It features nine round alternating bicep exercise with a tricep exercise. Along with dumbbells, a stability ball, mat,and medium resistance tubing in used. Most of the exercises are performed for 16 reps.  Cathe states that "your weight should be heavy enough so that by the time you reach the 16 rep it should be difficult. However, if you can't get at least 8 reps, your weight is too heavy." Along with Cathe, there are five other cast members, two of which are men. There are four bonus workouts and 14 premix workouts on the DVD. The workout is almost 46 minutes in length and it is a solid bicep/tricep workout. 3 & 1/4 stars.