The FIRM: Power Sculpt Review

 The FIRM: Power Sculpt
Allie Del Rio, 2006

This 20 min dvd is led by Allie in an open room with white brick walls, foggy windows, and hardwood floors. There are 2 Firm instructors as background exercisers. No beginner modifications are shown. It is all sculpting, no cardio, but some of the moves can provide a cardio effect. It moves right along and the 20 minutes really fly by.

This dvd comes packaged with a 9 lb bright green weighted body bar that can be screwed apart to make 3 smaller 3 lb bars. I bought the dvd used without the bar and just used my old 8 lb Firm sculpting stick. Because the 8 or 9 lbs is really not enough weight to do much I did the following things to up the intensity of this one: I wore my 20 lb weighted vest, 1 lb weighted gloves, and attached my 2 lb pink Firm weighted balls to my stick. At the end I even put on my 2.5 lb ankle weights (yes Im sure I looked hilarious!). With all these additions I could actually feel my muscles being worked very well and my heartrate did get up.

Allie goes through a series of lunges, squats, bicep curls, shoulder work, tricep work, and some lying inner and outer thigh work before she finished with some ab work and a stretch. Keep in mind this is only 20 minutes and you are supposed to be using a 9 lb bar so dont expect to be feeling a whole lot by the end if done as is. But you can easily just use dumbbells instead of the stick, a heavier stick, or do what I did and add all sorts of crazy equipment.

Allie cues well and does a great job leading this workout. I would rate it as beginner or low intemediate because of the weight of the stick. I actually really enjoyed this workout. If I had a 20# or heavier bar, this would really be a great 20 minutes spent.