Total Body Blitz!

I recently bought a new workout video.  It’s a two-disc set called SHAPE: Make Over Your Butt, Hips, and Thighs!  Normally these types of workout routines make me cringe – you know what I mean. Ten girls with perfect bodies, perpetual smiles, and NO SWEAT WHATSOEVER (!) strategically placed around the fitness instructor – who, amazingly enough, has the ability to move at a break-neck speed while non-stop talking and yet never looks out of breath.  Go figure.  Then you clue in: this isn’t a workout video!  It’s synchronized dancing.  No wonder you feel stupid.  You’re prancing around your living room, alone, frantically waving your arms in every direction because, hello, the routine isn’t as simple as it looks.  Not to mention you’re wearing your pajamas.  You didn't know you also needed to buy spandex (preferably a rainbow-colored sports bra and matching biker shorts).

For whatever reason, my new workout video is different.  The host, Lisa Wheeler, is a dance and fitness professional who has also worked for SHAPE magazine.  Subsequently, her workout routines are geared to incorporate cardio and body sculpting through a series of ballet, pilates, yoga, and other dance moves.  Along with my thirty-minute daily elliptical routine, I’ve been making a point to do her twenty-four minute lower body workout as well as the bonus feature called Total Body Blitz (manages to hit every muscle in just twelve minutes – no really, it does).  My favorite, though, are the leg workouts.  They target muscles you can’t reach with just regular cardio so you get a more defined look.  Paired with Tony Horton’s Ab Ripper X workout (he may come off as a pretentious jerk but his routines are incredibly effective), you’ve got a full-body fat-burning muscle-toning routine!  

Now if Wheeler would just restrain herself from saying “You’re going to have a stronger, shapelier derriere!” every three minutes, I’d be perfectly happy.