I’ve never been much for exercise DVDs, but in my quest for different types of workouts while avoiding the gym, I decided to use part of a Christmas gift card to give a couple of DVDs a try.
First up: Rodney Yee’s Yoga for Beginners (link to my Amazon account, but on sale at Target this week for $11.99) A yoga-instructing friend had expressed a profound adoration of Rodney Yee early in her yoga practice, so I thought this might be a good choice. I’m not disappointed. The DVD contains two routines: a series of morning poses for energy and an evening routine for relaxation and rejuvenation. More importantly to me, it contains a separate segment focused solely on poses–their purpose, the correct positions, common mistakes, etc. Everything a klutzy girl needs!
I’m going to seriously work at developing an almost-every-day practice, but at minimum, I’ll work through some of the poses each day. This DVD will definitely get some use.
My second DVD choice was based solely on blogger community popularity. I bought it despite the fact that I’m not a huge Jillian Michaels fan (keep your tomatoes; it’s nothing personal!) The DVD I’m referring to is, of course, Jillian Michaels – 30 Day Shred.(link to my Amazon account, but on sale at Target this week for $8.00) If you’re one of the 12 bloggers who hasn’t tried this DVD, I’ll dish: It’s based on a 3-2-1 formula, which is 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of ab work. Repeated several times, in circuit fashion. There are also active stretches to warm-up and stretchy stretches to cool down. All together, it’s a little less than 30 minutes for each workout. There are three total, and within each there are demos for a beginner and a more experienced exerciser. (Note: in all honesty, even the beginner level would’ve been too difficult for me 100 pounds ago.)
So far, I’ve only tried one workout and wasn’t able to fully execute it. My workouts normally consist of heavier weights with fewer reps, which meant I wasn’t able to do all the reps with the weights I have. (I went to fail on each circuit, then tossed the weights on the bed and continued the exercises in proper form, sans weights.) I’m also accustomed to 30-60 second recoveries between sets. Not having those recoveries was tough, but that may have been because of the too-heavy weights. I’ll try again with lesser weights. (I’m thinking I’ll fill a couple of empty water bottles with sand and see how that works. Or I’ll cave in and buy some lighter weights at Target. They’re also on sale this week.)
Another problem I had was with the cardio portion of the workout. It has a lot of jumping about and for the girl who has leftover belly flab, jumping about is very uncomfortable. And not in a good way. I’ll have to figure out a workaround for that. It’s do-able.
The bottom line is that I didn’t hate this DVD. In fact, even in the one partial workout, I liked most of the exercises (yaaay! squat punches!) It’s a good workout and due to the lack of recovery periods, it’s a quick workout. If I have the proper equipment, it might be just the ticket on days when I need to save a few minutes.
So there you have it. I haven’t fallen in love with exercise DVDs, but I’m not sorry I bought either of these. One will get ongoing use and the other will be a good fill-in during the cold dreary days of winter when the long, 20-yard sprint from the car to the gym door is too much to bear.
Your opinions on these or other exercise DVDs are always welcome and greatly appreciated!
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