This one is not for the faint of heart.
I love workout videos. I love the fact that I can get up in the morning and work out without having to get myself presentable enough to show up at the gym without scaring people.
That said, I’ve done a lot of them.
I’ve also done a lot of videos that promise a complete, tough workout in 20 or 30 minutes. Yeah, right!
And I’ve found that a lot of the “celebrity” videos about trendy shows are often lightweights. I’d never heard of Jillian Michaels, I had just heard she was a reality TV star (on the Biggest Loser and as a guest on other reality shows.) I don’t watch a whole lot of TV and I’m not impressed with the reality TV that I’ve seen. Too much hype and drama, too little substance.
So, I was skeptical about this one, which had those two credibility strikes against it to start with. But this one actually delivers. It’s one of the toughest workouts in my collection. It’s also the shortest.
It actually ends up being more like 30 minutes if you count the warm-up and post-workout stretch. But I love the format, which does three circuits of 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of abs. This is really motivating and actually makes me “leave it all on the mat.” When I do longer workouts, I save some energy in reserve because I know I’m in it for the long haul. This workout is more like a sprint. You think to yourself, oh, I can do ANYTHING for three minutes! So you work harder, and you get better results.
And the “done-in-30-minutes” format gets me to work out on some mornings when I otherwise wouldn’t because of time constraints.
I noticed the best (and fastest) results in my shoulders and quads., but I also feel it pretty much all over, which is a great thing.
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I love workout videos too and had a big dvd collection. Now I use the Wii and I love it. Jillian released one workout for the Wii which had bad reviews but I still got it because I like to make up my own mind about things and not rely on what other people say. And today she has another 2 coming out that I will be reviewing sometime next week as I am still working on my thoughts about the new Wii Fit Plus.
I am not a big fan of reality shows either especially the Biggest Loser but I have watched her a few times and I just like her (and she is beautiful too lol).
Jillian does have a fun personality. She sounds like someone I’d like to have as a friend – tells you what she thinks straight up, no BS. But also cares about people.
-Paula
I am quite interesting in this topic hope you will elaborate more on it in future posts