Thumbs-up/down reviews for...

M

mini-natty

Cathlete
Recently purchased Exercise DVD's/Programs/Books. Please share yours :)

My thumbs-down is Jillian's Kickbox Fast-Fix. I was slightly (ok maybe a lot) disappointed by it. I own most of Jillian's stuff and I'm a huge fan of her's, but this one *IMO* is a dust collector :(. I was initially really excited for another kick-butt workout from Jillian, as her background is martial arts. Nothing off the charts, innovative, or intense here. I find her queuing not so great, she does not work both sides evenly with the same number of reps, and too many background exercisers who sometimes had sloppy form (which does not jive well with me). I'm sorry Jillian, I still love you though ;).

My thumbs up is Leslie Sanson's 5 Really Big Miles. It comes w/ a toning band, great music, and *IMO* Leslie is a great instructor and motivator. The time goes by super fast, and I love all the background exercisers of different shapes/sizes. The toning section with the band changes it up, and I'm a huge fan of band work, so that was a big + for me. My only caveat is that I would have preferred a beautiful beach/nature scenery background to look at while I'm walking. I guess that's what the outdoors is for though ;)

That's it, that's all :)

Natasha
 
Thumbs up for BodyRock TV, which is a free online workout. Now, this may be a controversial post because this site has a way of accentuating certain female body parts, ahem, in a very over the top way, but the women on this site (there is a new one, Lisa-Marie and there was another one named Suzana) are in tip-top shape. The workouts are short, usually 10-20 minutes long, but they have a lot of creative new moves that I have never seen before. They focus on going all out for a short period of time, and I did two of these workouts last week and I was sore for 3 days! I rarely get sore doing a Cathe workout, so I thought that was a great sign, in a fraction of the time. In just a few minutes, these workouts have me huffin and puffin like crazy, and I can get through just about any Cathe workout these days after the last rotation of Crossfire and TTM.

The other thumbs up is for Breathless Body 2 by Amy Dixon. This is a great tabata workout and she does a good job of keeping your heartrate up with challenging but doable moves. She also shows modifiers for EVERY move, which seems to be uncommon these days.

Eva
 
Jillian Michaels workouts

Has anyone tried Jilian Micheals Body Revolution, If so did what kind of results did you get? Thanks!
 
I give Dana Pieper's Kickbox Challenge a Thumbs Up! Her left/right cueing is a bit off at times, but the energy is great and the music is great! I wish she should would have done more kicking, but overall a great purchase.

I'm waiting for DeltaFit Speed Shred to be delivered, hoping that is another Thumbs Up!
 
Thumbs up for RushFit: Stength and Endurance. This workout IMO was like Afterburn except with lots of core moves. The instruction was good and the cuing was good as well. It's broken down into 5 minute circuit rounds with 4-5 exercises in each circuit. Each exercise is done for 50-60 seconds before moving onto the next one. After the round is over, there is a short active rest and then it's on to the next round. I like how there is a timer on the screen that tells you how much longer the current circuit is and how much longer you have for the workout as a whole. There were also lots of explanation on how to modify each exercise.

Natasha -- Thanks for the feedback on the JM kickboxing DVD. I was actually eyeballing that at Walmart the other day. It's good to know that's not a good one.

Eva -- Thanks for the info on Breathless Body. I saw good reviews on it at Amazon.com. How would you compare the tabata to Cathe's TTM and CF?
 
lulu68 said:
Has anyone tried Jilian Micheals Body Revolution, If so did what kind of results did you get? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Natalie (nkhansen1) just recently did this. She also started a thread on it a few months back. Perhaps PM her and ask, as I'm sure she'll be more than happy to give you feedback :)

Good luck!

Natasha
 
TRSTACIE said:
Thumbs up for RushFit: Stength and Endurance. This workout IMO was like Afterburn except with lots of core moves. The instruction was good and the cuing was good as well. It's broken down into 5 minute circuit rounds with 4-5 exercises in each circuit. Each exercise is done for 50-60 seconds before moving onto the next one. After the round is over, there is a short active rest and then it's on to the next round. I like how there is a timer on the screen that tells you how much longer the current circuit is and how much longer you have for the workout as a whole. There were also lots of explanation on how to modify each exercise.

Natasha -- Thanks for the feedback on the JM kickboxing DVD. I was actually eyeballing that at Walmart the other day. It's good to know that's not a good one.

Eva -- Thanks for the info on Breathless Body. I saw good reviews on it at Amazon.com. How would you compare the tabata to Cathe's TTM and CF?
Click to expand...

Trstacie -

Not Eva, but I also have both of Amy Dixon's Breathless Body DVDs. In my opinion, they're comparable in intensity to CF and TTM if you don't do too many of the modifications Amy offers. They are tough workouts and will indeed leave you breathless. Essentially the workout consists of eight tabata rounds. In the original BB, each tabata consists entirely of one move (20 seconds of air jacks, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds of air jacks, 10 seconds rest, and again 6 more times until that 4 minute round is up). Then you have a 1 minute rest until the next round starts, which again is done using only one move. It's a cracking good workout, but I personally vastly prefer how Cathe does her tabatas using different moves...I just remain more engaged, but I think that, technically, the tabata protocol was developed using one aerobic activity for the entire 4 minutes, so maybe this is a purer form of tabata? In BB2, Amy mixes it up a bit and you use different moves (i think there are two different moves?) in each tabata round,so at least there's some variety, but not as much as Cathe. The overall structure is the same as BB in that you do a full 4 min round, then take a 1 min rest...eight rounds total. Both are very high impact, although modifications are shown.

I recommend both DVDs and will buy BB3 if Amy creates it...they're awesome cardio. Amy is motivating and shows good technique. I do wish she would talk less, especially in BB2...instead of finding it motivating, I found it distracting and was actively wishing she would stop talking, just for a few seconds, but again, that's just me. And the music wasn't motivating, but it wasn't horrible. As one poster said recently about a different workout ( i think she was talking about CF or TTM and it totally cracked me up in the best way) you'll feel like a super hero when you're done. :)

Hope that helps!
 
Thumbs up...Horizontal Conditioning with Sandra Koulourides
The Volumes 1-4 and the Bootcamp are amazing workouts. I can't speak to the other, more beginner ones though. The production values are not nearly as polished as Cathe but the moves and workouts are very unique and my core has seriously never been stronger. I find that HC compliments my advanced workouts really well in that it makes many moves easier to do. I find plyo easier, as well as push ups, plank work, running man in AB, and the other day I discovered I could finally do all the dive bomber push ups in Drill Max! :eek: It's all because I've been doing HC twice a week for the past 2 months or so.

Thumbs down...well, I've noticed many workouts are skimping on the warm up lately. I seriously think Cathe is the only instructor that knows how to do a proper warm up. I went to do Patrick G.'s Extreme Calorie Burn the other day and popped it out in 5 minutes due to the lack of sufficient warm up. I did do that one another time and remember liking the meat of the workout but I need thorough warming up and I don't want to do it on my own if I don't have to! Another thumbs down...for the same reason...Toby Massenburg's Max 30. Do not make me jump up on a step if you haven't warmed me up sufficiently!! :rolleyes:
 
TRSTACIE-
I think Trixoo's review is pretty similar to my take on Breathless Body. I think Cathe's workouts are a wee bit harder for me, but BB is a nice workout and I feel very accomplished when I finish it. One thing that is unique about her workout is that she tacks on "the finisher" at the end, which has you doing all of the 12 exercises for 30 seconds without any rest, so it's 6 minutes of non-stop action. That is very challenging. It's similar to when Cathe strings all of the step segments into one big one at the end, and you go non stop. That really pushes me into high-gear aerobically. AND THEN IT'S OVER, which is nice!

BB is also a little shorter than TTM and Crossfire, I think. It also does not have an abs section.

I'm also checking out those horizontal conditioning DVDs. I saw some clips online and I was definitely intrigued. I'm trying to add more strength workouts, but I'm also thinking about just restarting STS instead of buying something new, since I had to cut my rotation short a few months ago when I got sick for a week. I've definitely got them on my to do list. It looks like that would be a nice thing to move on to after STS, which I'll probably start again next week.
 
Thumbs down - Cardio Karate. <heavy sigh> I SO wanted to like this. I like the instructors, but I get bored about half way through the workout :) Very repetitive 'pods'. And sorry, but some of the instructors are just too over the top ;) And you hear JB in the background of some of them kind of pushing the other instructors, it's distracting. Enh, it is my opinion.

Thumbs up - Turbo Fire. Because I can burn an extraordinary amount of calories and time just flies by. Some of the TF are better than others in the set, I like the longer EZ and Fire ones, not so hot on the HIIT because it's just a bit too much jumping for my knees.
 
Jillian Michaels

lulu68--I did Jillian Michaels Body Revolution and I really liked it. Personally the workouts were too short for me (30-37 minutes long), so I did them "doubles" fashion--I would do an hour of cardio (Insanity, a Cathe cardio workout, TurboFire, etc) in the morning, then after work I would Jillian's Body Revolution workouts. It is a progressive program, so Phase 1 isn't very challenging, but Phase 2 & 3 are.

Overall, I like Cathe, Jari Love, ChaLean Extreme strength workouts better--but it was a nice a change of pace to mix things up.
 
fav rushfit total body(2)
downs(more than1)
rf bonus workouts and-sorry cathe-everything in lis except slide&glide,after burn, and cardio supersets

laura
 
Hey Eva, Suzana has moved on her own. Here's a link to her facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/#!/ZuzkaLight

deineira said:
Thumbs up for BodyRock TV, which is a free online workout. Now, this may be a controversial post because this site has a way of accentuating certain female body parts, ahem, in a very over the top way, but the women on this site (there is a new one, Lisa-Marie and there was another one named Suzana) are in tip-top shape. The workouts are short, usually 10-20 minutes long, but they have a lot of creative new moves that I have never seen before. They focus on going all out for a short period of time, and I did two of these workouts last week and I was sore for 3 days! I rarely get sore doing a Cathe workout, so I thought that was a great sign, in a fraction of the time. In just a few minutes, these workouts have me huffin and puffin like crazy, and I can get through just about any Cathe workout these days after the last rotation of Crossfire and TTM.

The other thumbs up is for Breathless Body 2 by Amy Dixon. This is a great tabata workout and she does a good job of keeping your heartrate up with challenging but doable moves. She also shows modifiers for EVERY move, which seems to be uncommon these days.

Eva
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, Glenda. I did stumble upon Suzana's site a few weeks ago, and now I use both.When she first left Body Rock and the new woman came, I thought I wouldn't like her, but she's actually grown on me. She's got a good personality and she's quite a tough trainer. I was a little taken aback by how thin she is, but I've since come to learn that she is still quite strong.

Eva
 
Jillian's Killer Buns and Thighs

In a nutshell, I thought it was pretty good and decent! It was under $10 at Collage Video, and their shipping is only a few bucks. I think it is definitely worth it.

If you want more information I wrote a review below:

It has 3 workouts at 3 different levels - all about 30 minutes each.
I started at level 1 since I am new to JM and didn't know what to expect.
(I am looking forward to trying levels 2 and 3.)

I think it will be a nice and quick add on component to complement other various workouts... but it probably needs to be done first because by the end of Cathe's workous I'm usually spent (I was not spent at all after Jillian's level 1)... of course there is always the option of doing 2 levels or all 3 levels for an entire lower body workout. It's nice to have options:)

Jillian made me chuckle a few times, and the exercises were fine; nothing over the top (in level 1) or super impressive but overall it was solid.

She does many short circuits, each circuit repeats exercises 2 times (sort of like Round A and Round B for Cathe terminology) and then moves on to a different circuit.

They are mostly body weight exercises but some light dumbbells are used sometimes, and heavier dumbbells can also be substituted if desired.

There are two exercise models who do the same exercises but one does the advanced version and the other does the modified version.

There is a bit of cardio involved (some jump rope, a bit of plyo, some mountain climbers, etc). I actually decided to use the sliding discs for the mountain climbers since they make me work harder and faster.

I don't recall hearing ANY music at all, only Jillian's cuing which I really thought was done well. It didn't bother me that there wasn't music since Jillian was talking and cuing, but I think next time I will play some in the background.

I can't comment on her stretches at the end because I skipped it; I *planned* to continue my workout with one of Cathe's strength workouts. It didn't end up happening, though, but I won't bore anyone about that nonsense:)

I imagine levels 2 and 3 will be the same format with harder, more advanced exercises. But either way I think this is a good DVD to have in order to switch things up a bit.
 
More Peak 10 Cardio Strength

I just got this last week and have already done it twice. I love it!!! It is really a challenge and fun. It is well worth the money! I am an old FIRMie (don't do them much anymore) and have been doing Cathe since 2004 and have almost all of Cathe's dvd's (except about 5-8 that I just do not want). But the reason I say I am an old FIRMie is that I love the mix of weights and cardio as the FIRM used to do. And it seems to me that this is like the FIRM on steroids or something....or maybe what the FIRM should have morphed into for advanced exercisers.

Now, don't get me wrong by thinking that Michelle Dozois is kind of plastic like the FIRM instructors used to be (IMHO). No, she has a great personality. What I am referring to is the genre or style of the workout: cardio with weights. This is far, far beyond what the FIRM ever did in terms of cardio challenge or difficulty. It definitely pushes me cardiovascularly as well as mentally, because I keep thinking "I wanna quit"...but I don't.
 
mini-natty said:
Recently purchased Exercise DVD's/Programs/Books. Please share yours :)
My thumbs up is Leslie Sanson's 5 Really Big Miles. It comes w/ a toning band, great music, and *IMO* Leslie is a great instructor and motivator. The time goes by super fast, and I love all the background exercisers of different shapes/sizes. The toning section with the band changes it up, and I'm a huge fan of band work, so that was a big + for me. My only caveat is that I would have preferred a beautiful beach/nature scenery background to look at while I'm walking. I guess that's what the outdoors is for though ;)

That's it, that's all :)

Natasha
Click to expand...

That sounds like one I may want to try Mini!! I LOVE Band/toning work and have been wanting to try something different just to change things up a bit:)
 
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