DVD Review: The Abs Diet For Women Workout

Difficulty: Beginner/Intermediate

Length: 55 minutes (for all the workouts) 

Instructor: Jessica Smith

Year: 2008

Calories: 491*

Grams of Fat: 27*

Stars: Four

Tools: Hand weights and a matt if your are working out on a hard floor

This dvd has 7 workouts including the warm up. As noted above if you do all of them together they add up to 55 minutes. The other workouts on the dvd are: Warm Up, Abs Workout 1, Abs Workout 2, Cardio Interval Workout, Total Body Strength, Pilates, & Yoga. However, I am not sure how long they are individually because I timed the workout as a whole. All the workouts include a beginner modification to help ease you into it.

~Warm Up: Short & brief. It is a basic warm up made up of easy to follow moves. Great for beginners. I liked the warm up but I felt that it could have been a little longer and get my heart rate up a little bit more.

~Abs Workout 1: This takes place on the ground. There are five moves to target your abs and you go through them twice. I found it effective and got a good burn.

~Abs Workout 2: This workout consists of both standing and mat work for your abs. It has 5 ab targeting moves but unlike Ab Workout 1 you just go through the moves once. This workout had different moves that I haven't seen before so it was a good switch up from the same old ab work.

~Cardio Interval Workout: The cardio workout switched between low jogging intervals and high intensity intervals. This interval workout uses the pyramid method. You start marching in place, then jogging, then you do 30 seconds of high intensity, then jog, then 45 seconds high intensity, jog, 60 seconds high intensity, jog, 90 seconds high intensity (top of the pyramid), jog, 60 seconds high intensity, jog, 45 high intensity, jog, 30 seconds high intensity, jog, march in place. Making the pyramid 30,45,60,90,60,45,30 seconds. When I used to do this workout a few years ago this used to kill me. Today when I did it I found it challenging but do able

~Total Body Strength: There are 7 strength moves and you do the circuit twice. All the moves involve peripheral heart action. That means it involves upper and lower body. Helping send your blood to all parts of your body and burn more calories in a shorter period of time. I didn't find this part of the workout effective for me because I am more advanced. In the DVD they say to use 5 pound weights so I did my first time through and it was to easy so I upped my weight to 8's and it was still to easy. However this is perfect for a beginner.

~Pilates: I enjoyed this section. I don't usually do pilates so it was a nice change. It is geared towards abs and man I felt it! This workout was awesome and short.

~Yoga: This is the last workout of the DVD and feels awesome to get a good stretch in at the end. It to targets your abs. I found this workout perfect to finish things off.

Overall I think this is still a good DVD for anyone. I did complete P90x last month and I still got a burn. However I would high suggest this for beginners because it has a good intro into everything so you can get a feel for everything. 

You can buy this workout on Amazon for $11.16 right now from the link below.

 http://www.amazon.com/The-Abs-Diet-Women-Workout/dp/B00104AYZQ

*This was my results with my Sportline SX Heart rate monitor. Your results may vary.