Resistance Stretching with Dara Torres - my review
I bought this DVD, and actually received it a few weeks ago, but I just got around to trying it yesterday. I had done B&G on Saturday, so I had some serious DOMS in my lower body and I wondered if this would help me stretch it out a bit. It is supposed to help with flexibility and prevent injuries due to overstretching. I am already very flexible, but I could definitely use help with injury prevention.
The general idea is that instead of just lengthening the muscle as you stretch, you do it while applying resistance, usually using your arm or another part of your body to push back. One or two exercises use gravity as resistance. I liked that I could control the resistance very easily...if I wanted more resistance, I just pulled or pushed harder. It would be a good workout for beginners for that reason as well.
The DVD has several chapters, most of which are devoted to describing Resistance Stretching and teaching the moves. Chapter 4 goes through the entire workout slowly step by step, breaking down each of the 17 exercises and going through body position and mistakes to avoid. Chapter 5 is the actual workout with Dara Torres, which is about 25 minutes long. There is also a chapter specifically devoted to tight hamstrings. There is a lot of emphasis on the hamstrings and quads throughout the DVD. They mention that tight hamstrings can often be related to back issues. The workout is divided into lower and upper body sections, and each exercise is chaptered separately, so I was easily able to repeat a couple that I hadn't quite gotten the first time around.
Overall, the DVD is fairly "dry". (Not nearly as much personality as a Cathe DVD
) The music is not particularly interesting. The workout itself moves at a pretty good pace. Dara demonstrates the moves, while the two trainers describe what to do. They don't really count reps, so I was unsure how many to do or when to stop when I wasn't looking at the TV. They say to do 6-8 reps, so I guess it is personal preference what speed to go at. The workout felt too short when I was done (it was my only workout yesterday), so I went through it again a second time. I sort of felt like I needed a more traditional stretch afterwards...I was tempted to do a segment of Stretch Max, but I didn't have time.
They claim that over time the stretches will help prevent injury, which definitely interests me, as does the claim about improving posture. We'll see as I keep doing it if I see any difference. For the lower body, I definitely felt that my sore muscles were nicely stretched, and my DOMS is gone (although it might have been gone by now anyway.) This morning I woke up with DOMS in my upper body, especially my shoulders. I guess this is because of the pulling I had to do with my upper body to provide resistance to the lower body parts. Since my lower body is stronger, my upper had to work harder.
Overall, I felt it was a good stretch, if a bit ho-hum in presentation. I will try to do it a couple of times a week. I am curious to see if it lives up to the claims. I would recommend it if you're looking for a slightly new way to stretch, but I wouldn't say it's a must-have.
