's Mat Workout

[Guest guest]

Just thought I'd pop in and give a quick review of 's

Mat Workout which I did today, since there was talk a while back of

her comments about not using more than 3 lb. weights.

The workout is 57 minutes long and is in widescreen format. You can

get directly to the workout by going to " Chapters " from the Menu and

selecting " Mat Routine " . The workout breaks down approximately as

follows:

Warm Up (stretches and wavy moves): 5:20

Standing Legs (with chair for balance): 15:10 (split between right

and left sides)

Standing Abs (standing dancy moves, rotating midsection): 4:00

Arms (no weights): 8:00

Arms (with weights): 8:10

Floor Legs (pretzel and leg lifts): 6:40 (again both sides)

Floor Abs (straight forward crunches, moving arms and legs): 5:40

Cool Down (wavy and stretchy moves): 4:00

She talks LESS than ANY instructor in any vido I've EVER done. She

says to do the move and you just keep doing it until she says to

change; although you have to watch because she doesn't cue every

single move (particularly in the warmup), but the moves are all

fairly straightforward, and it's actually a very good toning workout.

I thought the arm work was a killer. She does say not to use more

than 3 lb. weights, but if that becomes easy (hah!), you can do the

arm section twice (as if!). I used 1½ lb. weights and that was quite

enough to start with because the first part of the arm workout

without weights pre-exhausts your arms and then some. Also the arm

moves are fast, so you wouldn't want to be using heavy weights.

About her " infamous " comments on not using more than 3 lb. weights,

my thought is that she's all about image, building " lean " muscle and

not " bulking up " ; she's not about increasing strength as such

(although I figure she must have arms of steel!). I can't help but

wonder if people who lift heavy weights actually would find the arm

work in this video easy or not – you're holding your arms up and out

so much which is very tiring. Is there anyone here who regularly

lifts heavy like to comment on that? I know when I first did Ellen

Barrett's Fat Burning Fusion, I thought my arms were going to fall

off from holding them out so much – that's hard work and really works

the shoulders.

The floor abs portion consists mostly of zillions of straight forward

crunches done with assorted leg and arm movements. She doesn't do

any obliques (I have read that doing oblique work can cause the front

abs to stick out, or something to that effect. I don't know whether

this is true or not. It seems for every opinion, there's an opposing

one).

And talking about opinions, nothing I've said here is meant to start

any kind of argument or controversy. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing

with anything she said – it's just one way of looking at things.

Anyone else done this workout?

(Another really excellent workout along the same lines is Exhale Core

Fusion Body Sculpt which is a bit shorter and broken down into 10

minute sections, which is kind of handy if you only have a short

time. I'm waiting for their Pilates one that I'm getting in trade –

I think it's the same format).

Fiona