Saundra

  Barre Break Thru is Jennifer Galardi's follow on workout to Ballet Body.  In Barre Break Thru, Jen takes you through a 69 minute total body workout.  The workout does includes an advance and beginner exercise modifier. The workout is also performed barefoot. The DVD offers the following menu options : Intro Play All Warm Up Cardio Barre:  Tone, Strengthen, Stretch, Lengthen! The workout starts with a seven minute warm up.  After the warm up, you move into the cardio segment which is around 15 minutes. This section includes lots of plies, kicks, lunges, and leaps. You also use your balance quite a bit in this segment. The Barre segment is 46 minutes length and it is divided into three segments. A standing barre segment, a mat segment, and an extended stretch segment.  The barre segment is about 13 minutes and include lower body and triceps work. The mat segment includes a biceps, core, plank and glute work and is around 15 minutes in length....

Tracy Anderson Mat Workout DVD is a 59 minute workout.  The DVD offers the following menu options: Play Chapters      Mat Intro      Mat Routine      Gwyneth Interview - MAT      Tracy Main Interview      Back to Man In the MAT routine, Tracy takes you through a series of movements that work the legs. butt, arms, and abdominals.  Tracy hits the legs twice. First in a barre/chair sequence and later in the workout in a floor mat sequence. Like most of Tracy's workouts, the leg and butt segments are easy to follow because they are more structured and Tracy cues them very well. The arms and standing abs segments are less easy to follow because the cuing is not as precise or it is non-existent.  Essentially you are just following along. There is a floor abs segment that Tracy cues well enough so that you can do the exercises as she does them. The workout does con...

Perfect Design Series Level 3 is a 51 minute workout that uses a chair for the butt/leg segment of the workout. Following the warm up, Tracy takes you through an intense glute/leg workout were you are doing multi-component exercises for a high number of repetitions.  In many cases, you are working through several planes and a range of motion as you extend, bend and sweep through the various exercise. During the warm up segment you are simply following along. The cuing instruction for the leg/glutes exercise is very precise and detailed. This segment is about 35 minutes of the workout.. Tracy starts out cuing the mat ab exercises but this turns into a follow along segment. This segment is roughly 5 minutes.  As usual in the Perfect Design Series, there is no cuing of the moves in the standing ab/arms segment although Tracy does give you instruction on the "intent of a move" as she goes through this segment which is roughly about 5 minutes. There is a very brief cool down ...

The second disc in Tracy Anderson Perfect Design Series is Level 2. Level 2 clocks in at just over 47 minutes.  In addition to a mat, this workout also uses a chair.  After a brief warm up, Tracy takes you into the glute segment in which you do a series of moves on the left lead (our left, Tracy does not mirror cue) and then you repeat the series again with the right lead.  Expect lots of reps per exercise. The next segment is the mat abdominal segment and Tracy moves through these exercises pretty quickly. The reps are significantly less than the glute segment and the transition between the exercises is very fast  Tracie does use the chair in the mat ab segment - mostly as something to work around. Next up is the standing ab and arm segment and like Level 1, Level 2 is free from. Tracy states during this segment that we "should get in tune with her cuing". The problem is that she does not cue this segment. You are just following along as best you can because it...

Tracy Anderson  Perfect Design Series Level 1 clocks in just under 50 minutes.  This workout uses a mat.  The soundtrack is excellent and the set is pretty cool too.  It looks like a studio loft, filmed at night with the city in the background. The DVD Menu: Play All Warm Up Exercises Interview with Tracy Audio Settings Voiceover & Music On Music Off Voiceover Off The workout. The workout is divided into the following segments: warm up, legs/glutes, abs, follow along, hips/legs, arm stretches, and cool down. I have broken down the leg/glutes/hip and ab exercises on a worksheet. Please see attached list. The follow along segment included standing abs, arms, freestyle, & balance work.  I thought that this part of the workout was a mess.  Essentially Tracy stopped cuing.  Although, she is still talking during this segment.  However, she is not cuing what she is doing. Truthfully, this part of the workout moved too fast for yo...

Tracy Anderson Slim + Sculpt Cardio DVD contains three 20-minute workouts. Two workouts are cardio based and one workout is sculpt based. The sculpt base workout uses a band. The band comes with the DVD. Cardio 1 is the first workout.  Tracy states this is an easier choreograph workout and one in which you should follow along.  It is a mixture of low and high impact moves.  So expect some jumping.  The moves are relatively simple to follow. The problem is that you do not know what is coming next.  The note I put next to workout was "that was a mess". At one point Tracy states that "you are not doing the same move over and over and that you have to focus". Well it would kind help to know what is coming next so that you are able to keep it.  The music was decent.  2 & 3/4 stars Cardio 2 is the second workout. .  Like the first workout it contain both high and low impact moves but Cardio 2 is more of a routine.  There is a lot of...

Mat Workout For Beginner contains three 25 minute workouts. The DVD has the following options: Play All Mat 1:  Full Body Beginner Mat 2:  Chair Mat 3:  Full Body Intermediate Each of the workout starts with an upper body sequence. Mat 2 and 3 use a set of hand weights during the upper body portion. Some of the notes that I took during this workout were: ** Tracy does not mirror cue, The cuing is lacking in the upper body sequence but in the lower body (chair and floor) it is decent. There are occasions when Tracy takes the time to demonstrate the upcoming move during the lower body portion.  Tracy also counts out the reps for you. Most of the time we are doing 20 reps. Towards the end of the sequence, Tracy ups the reps to 30.  Some of the reps are quick and Tracy will tell you to catch every other rep. For the lower body sequence (in each of the workouts) Tracy will do a series of moves for one side of the body before moving on to repeat those ...

Last up with the Barre workouts is Karen Voight's Ballet Bodysculpt. I have been racking my brain to see if I previously did a Karen Voight workout and nothing comes to mind. So I think Ballet Bodysculpt is my first workout from her. As an instructor, I thought she was very good. Precise cuing, excellent form, comfortable demeanor are all characteristics I would use to describe her. Ballet Bodysculpt is a barre workout. It is 40 minutes in length and contains the following segments : Warm Up Chair (barre) Exercises Abdominals Matwork 1 Matwork 2 Cool Down Along with a chair, Karen uses a mat and an inflatable ball. The segments are short but tough. I thought each section moved right along making for an efficient workout. The set is an outdoor set. It is Karen's ranch in Montana. When I first saw a clip of this workout, I remember thinking "They could have cut the grass." Karen is actually working out on what looks like hardwood floor placed over the grass. The mus...