(Fitness Plus)
2005
What is it?
A 55-minute whole body, weight-training workout geared towards toning and shaping your muscles. Canadian fitness expert Jari Love instructs.
Who is it for?
Intermediate to advanced exercisers. This is rather an equipment-heavy workout, but there are lots of options. You'll need a step bench and at least two or three pairs of dumbbells. Most of the exercises are also shown with a barbell (you can use a couple of weighted exercise bars as an alternative). Also optional are a large fitness ball and a smaller, inflated ball. (And in case you're wondering, all this equipment is worth having.)
What to expect:
If you're one of those people who think that most exercise DVDs are a little on the frou-frou side and you want something that'll give you a real burn, here's your workout. Jari Love may look like a typical fitness DVD instructor — blonde, beautiful and toned to the max — but that's where the similarities end. Love is encouraging but no-nonsense. She talks softly and carries a big barbell. She keeps the reps coming in a variety of counts until your muscles fatigue. The secret to this workout is that the weights are relatively light (although they won't feel that way by the end of the sets), and the repetitions are high so you enhance endurance and burn calories while building long, lean muscle. Some of the moves are similar to a Body Pump class, but Love has her own unique style. The three people exercising along with Love show different modifications for those who are using dumbbells, or who want to use a fitness ball for their ab work, or who need to go a bit lighter. The DVD tells you how much weight Love and her friends are using, but you don't have to go by this gauge — in fact, if you're new to this DVD you may want to use extremely light weights or none at all the first time you try it out, so you can familiarize yourself with the workout. This 55 minutes is time extremely well spent, and it will get you results faster than just about any other DVD out there.