Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The FIRM Classic Volume 5: Abs, Hips & Thighs Review


Firm Abs, Hips & Thighs (Volume 5)
LaReine Chabut, 1991 **** (4 of 5 stars)

This is a 40 minute lower body & ab focused AWT workout led by LaReine with a variety of background exercisers in the original mansion set. You will need a variety of dumbbells, ankle weights, a short and a tall box for this workout. This workout also has a bonus rewind segment where you can do the standing portion 2ce to make this a 60 minute w/o. It was the VHS version of premixes.

I like this workout though its not a favorite classic for me. I only do the 40 minute version because the 60 minute rewind version is really quite grueling IMO. After a long warmup she goes into standing lower body work (with some upper body work interspersed). You will do leg press, lunges, squats, aerobic stepping and some lighter weight higher rep upper body work mixed in there. Though most of it is strength work my heartrate sores during this section!

After the standing work (that goes by fairly quickly really) you go down to the floor for a lengthy ab section-mostly upper & lower crunches-nothing very fancy but I sure feel it! From there you move into weighted & unweighted donkey kicks, inner and outer thigh leg lifts, some bridge work, and a few token pushups for good measure before you finally start your final stretch.

I would rate this w/o a high intermediate or low advanced-it really packs a punch in 40 minutes and besides the lengthy w/u there is really NO time wasted. My lower body is definately feeling it today. I like LaReine as a lead though her cueing (as w/ most the Classics instructors) is a bit off for whatever reason-its like they all cue a bit too soon or a bit too late. But none of the moves are hard to catch onto.


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