denise personal training/caribbean pilates plus

[Guest guest]

hi everyone!

last night (thurs) i thought i would pull out denise austin's

'personal training system' dvd to see if i want to keep it or not (im

working on my trade list

there are a whole bunch of 10 minute sculpting workouts, plus a

cardio workout (20 mins) and a cardio+sculpt (20 mins) on the dvd....

besides the 2 cardio workouts, there are three 10 minute workouts for

the upper body (low, medium, high intensity), three 10 minute

workouts for the lower body (low, med, high intensity), a 10 minute

ab segment and a 10 minute stretch. so, yep, 120 minutes of workout

on this one! the dvd's menu system allows you to pick and choose

which segments to play and you can play them in any order. also, it

provides the option of turning off denise's voice!! what a bonus!

anyway, ive previously used the dvd, doing the low intensity cardio

workout and the low intensity upper and lower body segments.... and i

wasnt that impressed with that combo. this time i chose to do upper

(med), lower (med), upper (high), lower (high), abs, stretch for a 60

min strength workout and i liked this combo quite a bit!

i enjoyed the variety between the segments (the segments contain

different exercises and the high intensity segments combine

exercises, like bicep curl and overhead press for example -- the

'high' segments do not merely add on reps to the exercises done in

the lower levels). the abs and stretch segments were also well done.

this combo ended up feeling like an upper-intermediate workout for

me. i have doms in my triceps and my abs are a bit sore (i also did

pilates afterward). denise doesnt use weights for the lower body,

although that option is demonstrated. i used my usual dumbells for

the upper body but did not use dumbells for the lower... my legs did

get tired at some points, and felt heavy afterward for quite some

time but i do not have any lower body doms today. i will make a note

to add light dumbells next time.

i am more interested in trying the cardio+sculpt workout on this dvd

now and will put that into my rotation sometime soon. i recall not

enjoying denise's personality during the cardio workout but

surprisingly, i didnt find her to be that annoying while doing the

sculpting workouts.

after denise's workout, i put in caribbean workout 'pilates plus' and

did the 4th segment, 'back basics'. this was ok... frankly i felt a

bit tired after doing the sculpting so i didnt do my best with this

pilates in this one, but still enjoyed it, especially any stretching

done on the back.

:*carolyn.