Michelle Dozois
Rockin' Body Cario Jam is part of Michelle Dozois' Your Body Breakthru series, which also includes two other workouts, one strength and one circuit. The circuit workout was the first one I tried, and I loved it, as it combined short, fun cardio segments with toning intervals which included both dumbbells and band work. While I didn't like this workout quite as much--some of the cardio moves were a bit "fussy" to me, requiring a bit of a learning curve--overall, it's still a fun and intense cardio workout. The DVD Main Menu offers the following options: Full Workout, Express Workout, Chapters, Testimonials, More on Your Body Breakthru, Michelle's personal message, and Contact. The Full Workout is 51 minutes and consists of a warm-up, six cardio intervals, and a cool-down, while the Express Workout provides a shorter (30 minutes) version of this. No equipment is needed for this workout.
The 5-minute aerobic warm-up consists of simple choreography, gradually adding more movement and concluding with about 30 seconds of dynamic stretching. Each cardio chapter is about 6-7 minutes long. As she does in the circuit workout, Michelle gradually builds on the moves, starting with footwork, then adding arm movements, and also incorporating some higher impact here and there (one of the four background exercisers always shows low-impact modifications). She alternates right and left lead, moving through each choreographed series a total of four times. The exercise are quite similar in feel to the cardio moves on the circuit workout: they tend to be more athletic, with lots of knee lifts plus some kicks and punches, but there are also a few more dancey moves as well. As with the warm-up, the 5.5 minute cool-down is choreographed, gradually reducing the heart rate and then ending with about 1.5 minutes of stretching. The Express workout includes the warm-up, Cardio chapters 1, 3, and 5, and the cool-down.
All of Michelle's background exercisers in the Body Breakthru series are from her classes, and their stories are featured in the testimonials section. They are quite inspiring, as is Michelle's "personal message," which details her struggles as the mother of an autistic son (the DVD case indicates that it is "Promoting Autism Awareness"). I consider myself to be an advanced intermediate exerciser, and I found this workout to be suitably challenging; although modifications are offered, I think that beginning exercisers might have trouble keeping up with Michelle's fast pace here. Similarly, the choreography of this workout is a little more complicated than in Michelle's circuit workout, which might leave some users a bit frustrated, especially since Michelle's cueing sometimes falls a little late. Overall, however, I think that this is a solid cardio workout for intermediates and above, and I give it a final rating of 4 1/2 stars.
Instructor comments:
This series is the first time I've really clicked with Michelle; as mentioned above, I really love Your Best Body Circuit, and I think she seems more down-to-earth in these than in her older videos. Michelle generally offers very good mirrored cueing, although she sometimes cues a little late, which caused me to struggle a bit the first few times with this workout.
Beth C (aka toaster)
December 30, 2007
This is the all cardio workout in Michelle's Body Breakthrough 3 DVD set.
It is about 50 minutes including warm up and cool down. Both the warm up and cool down are about 5 minutes long. I would rate the workout as intermediate. It consists of 6 short combinations. Each combination you do 3 times through on each side, then it is on to a new combination.
The choreography is fairly basic. There are some shimmies and hip rolls thrown in (I guess that is the "rockin') part. Most of the choreography is fairly athletic, however. In each combination she includes some stationary moves.
The music is fairly nondescript instrumental stuff. The lighting is kind of weird and the colors of the outfits/set are not my favorite (browns and oranges mainly).
This is longer but not as intense as her floor aerobics routine from the Shape Bikini Camp Transforming workout. The impact is mixed, but there is one person performing the routine low impact.
This workout is pretty good. I think I prefer her Walk Your Way Slim workout which is similar, however. The set is brighter, and some of the moves in this workout are a little fussy (although, for the most part a large range of movement is used.)
I'll keep it, though. It is not my favorite, but it's pretty good.
Instructor comments:
Roz
3/19/09
