Workout DVDs
If your Pilates practice has gotten a little stale or that boot camp workout has become tedious, it’s time to shake up your routine. Try fusion.
Fusion workouts combine different types of exercise, such as yoga, cardio and calisthenics, in a way that challenges your body and helps you shake off the boredom. We reviewed recent video releases to come up with a short list of the best exercise mashups for every body. You can try a calming yoga- and ballet-inspired workout, a sizzling boot camp/dance blend that torches calories, or something in between.
Fusion Flow: The Studio by Ellen Barrett
(Buff Girl Fitness)
Torn between tranquillity-inducing yoga and a more vigorous strength workout? This is the video for you.
Veteran Pilates and yoga instructor Ellen Barrett fuses ballet toning, calisthenics and deep breathing-assisted stretching, ultimately leaving you calmer, stronger and more loose than before.
The 45-minute beginner-intermediate workout sneaks up on you, building gradually from subtle strength work (deep plie squats, half-moon bends) to more intense lunges before moving into mat exercises (planks, modified diamond push-ups, seated back kicks) for your rear.
No equipment is required; all of the strength work is done by lifting your body weight. And Barrett gives viewers a little oasis of stretching and movement between more challenging segments.
Barrett herself describes the workout best: “It’s intense, it’s demanding, but it’s also blissful, relaxing and fluid.” Blissful may be a stretch, but it will certainly challenge your muscles, without stressing you out.
Price: $14.98, available online
Yoga Meltdown
(Lionsgate)
Most types of yoga aren’t fast-paced enough to burn serious calories. But when trainer Jillian Michaels of “The Biggest Loser” leads a practice, the results will leave you breathless — literally.
Michaels moves between yoga poses such as warrior II and extended side-angle pose in fast, calisthenics-type circuits that get your heart rate up and burn calories. The experience is far from Zen-like, with Michaels shouting out instruction on form and coaching you to “Rep it out!” during crescent pose lunges. You’ll either love it or hate it, but it won’t waste your time.
The DVD has two 30-minute workouts, progressing from a challenging Level 1 to an intense Level 2, with some advanced poses such as crow and backbend that may prove too difficult for beginners. Be prepared to feel this one the next day.
Price: $14.98, available online and in stores
Bootcamp Boogie
(Petra Kolber Inc.)
Take the bark out of boot camp, add a splash of dance aerobics and some cheerful world music — and you’ve got Bootcamp Boogie.
This 55-minute workout, led by the always entertaining Petra Kolber, is a little bit of everything — sports drills, boxing, Latin dance — yet somehow it all seems to work.
Each of the three 16-minute segments can be done separately or together, with a yoga stretch and cool down at the end. (If you want boot camp results, you’d better do the whole thing.)
The segments start with basic athletic moves before switching to dance versions of the steps. Boxing morphs into mambos, and hamstring curls become hip shakes. These aren’t moves you’ll take out on the dance floor: They’re more Jane Fonda, than JLo. But they do add variety. Some, such as the “Sudoku” series of hops and scoots, will have you focusing more on the count than on how hard you are working.
At the end of each routine, there’s a 45-second cardio blast — hops, jogs, lunges — to get you breathing heavily, then a 30-second “active recovery” of deep breathing coupled with slow plie squats and side lunges.
As much as I dislike traditional aerobics moves such as the “repeater knee” — which is in heavy rotation in this workout — I found myself coming back to the DVD again and again.
Price: $17.99, available online
Marisa Tomei: Core & Curves
( Gaiam)
This workout includes not just Pilates and resistance training, but also balance work to challenge your legs and core. Designed by actress Marisa Tomei’s New York City-based trainer Key Son, it alternates between strength exercises using a resistance band and skips, push-ups and other moves to get the heart rate up and burn more calories. (I say, “burn more calories” because intermediate exercisers may not find themselves breathing hard from just the short and sweet sashays on tiptoes.)
There are three workouts on the disc, including a 20-minute complete toning program, a 15-minute Best Legs workout and a 10 moves in 10 minutes total-body workout for those days when you’re pressed for time.
A series of modified lunges, one-legged squats, floor touches and leg lifts against the resistance band work to shape the legs — especially the area above the knee. (Son comes back to this area time and time again.)
A grueling abdominal routine of more than 100 reps of various types of crunches, combined with leg raises and a series of planks will leave your midsection burning. However, the workout comes up short when it comes to arms. Other than the push-ups and a series of traveling planks and a few twisting punches, there’s no real arm work to speak of.
The chemistry between the often-silly Tomei and the stern, serious Son is also M.I.A. Still, the workout does provide a nice change of pace for beginner to intermediate Pilates buffs who want to tone, but hate to pick up dumbbells.
Price: $14.98, available online and in stores