balanced life robin long enrollment open

[hotncmom]

How are the workouts organized on the membership site? Upper body/Lower Body/Core/Full Body? By length? Both so you can pick and choose? Is there a lot of duplication of the content in her challenges?

Oh, and one more question - does she have any workouts where she uses bands or the circle?

I think I'm just going to work through her Youtube stuff and see how I like it and what the challenge level is, and then if I like it, I will ask for a gift subscription for Christmas. This is bad timing because I just signed up for Callanetics a little over a week ago so I'm trying to see how that goes. I've done about 6 workouts and find it repetitive, boring, and am experiencing some back pain, so I'm not sure it's for me.

[donnamp]

Hi,

I just logged in to check and you can search workouts by category: Abs, Barre, Booty (I hate that word !), Cardio, Full Body, Legs, Monthly Workout, Prenatal, Stretching and Upper Body. There is some overlap in the categories and I think is to be expected b/c Pilates tends to be a full body workout - you can work arms, but you are also working abs/core, too.

In general, her challenges do follow this format: abs, arms, booty, legs, guest instructor, pick your workout, and stretch. Her 7 Day Back to the Mat was a little different w/ more full body workouts. Her monthly theme workouts tend to be longer and more total body focused (30-40 minutes). Her monthly calendars tend to be - short workouts on M-W-F and the monthly workout and one longer workout on Tues-Thurs. In general, for the month her calendar has you doing the monthly workout once week (so for Sept, you would do September's workout every week on Tues or Thurs). I find the format of her monthly calendar to work well for me b/c I do like to do other workouts besides Pilates and it is easy for me to get the short workouts in as an add-on and then to fit the longer ones in around my other workouts - either on Tues, Thurs or Sat or Sun. I do like the site better now than when I previously subscribed. It also looks like you can "favorite" workouts to refer back to them at a later date.

I think she does have some workouts that use a Pilates ring, foam roller and core ball, but they are probably the shorter workouts on her site (10-20 minutes) - she probably does this to make her workouts more user friendly for those that are new to working out/Pilates and may not have acquired any toys yet.

Warning - she does close her membership from time to time and I think membership closes on Thursday. But, it is likely she will re-open it again - possibly in six months - she usually does a challenge in March and would likely re-open membership at that time.

I have been a little scared of Callanetics b/c the "vintage" version did hurt my back w/ all the tucking. I haven't tried the new intepretation of it yet, though, b/c I'm a little scared of hurting myself

Hope this helps -

Donna

[hotncmom]

Thank you, Donna! I've never done a single workout of hers yet, so I think I'll wait to subscribe, but it looks like she sells gift memberships as well and I can't imagine that she would turn away people wanting to buy as Christmas gifts! I'm going to try out her free stuff and see how I like it in the meantime.

I used to subscribe to PBL, but found it repetitive and there were way too many reps of a lot of the exercises for my liking. I did like the scenery, though!

[donnamp]

Hi,

Try out her 30 days of Pilates on You Tube, it is her most recent challenge that she has kept up on You Tube (I think it is from 2016). She has taken down the last two challenges - 21 Days of Pilates and Back to The Mat and put them on her Sisterhood site.

Personally, I wish she would leave those challenges up longer - I think it helps her promote her business, but I guess she also wants to have "added value" to the Sisterhood site by not having so much on You Tube.

I bet you are right that she will open it up for Xmas gifts!!

Donna

[sillygirl]

Enrollment is open now until 9:59pm (PT) Friday, 12/15, in case anyone is interested. I already have too many DVDs, subscribe to two streaming sites, and a member of a local Pilates studio. Hoping I can wait this one out again.

[mandie123]

What is the monthly fee for the balanced life and pilates by Lisa?

[donnamp]

Robin's fee is $19 (or $19.99 - I can't remember exactly!), and I think Lisa's is about the same once you convert the currency. I like Robin and have joined her Sisterhood twice (once at the prior rate of $9.99 a month which was much more reasonable!), but I think Lisa's site has more to offer in terms of the number and variety of workouts available. Robin's has some other features like recipes and forums (book club, etc.) but I didn't make much use of those features and $19 was a lot to spend for what I got. She only posts one new workout a month - it is typically around 30-40 minutes long. She does create a new calendar every month that repeats the new workout once a week for the month, adds one older long workout and includes 3 shorter workouts, some of which are on her You Tube channel. Basically Monday-Wed-Friday she has a short workout scheduled (10-15 minutes, some of which are on her You Tube Channel) and on Tuesday and Thursday she schedules a longer workout - typically, Thursday's workout is the current month's workout.

Bottom line for me, I canceled after 3 months b/c I got bored w/ the workout selections and I wasn't using the other features enough to justify the cost.

Next time I subscribe to a Pilates site I think I will chose Lisa's - she offers a lot more workouts and a lot more variety. You can also come and go as you like - meaning her enrollment is open all the time and you can cancel and re-enroll at any time. I think you may still have to e-mail her to cancel, but whenever I have done that she has been very responsive and I have had no issues w/ charges to my card after cancellation.

Cancelling Robin's is pretty easy - well, I hope it is. I cancelled, received an e-mail confirming and hopefully will not see any charges on my CC!

I wish more services used PayPal, it is so easy to cancel recurring subscriptions on PayPal.

HTH!!

Donna

[sillygirl]

Yes, $19/mth or $171/yr.

[mandie123]

Thanks for the info!Thinking I may try PBL and see how it goes.

[Usia]

Originally Posted by mandie123

Thanks for the info!Thinking I may try PBL and see how it goes.

Well worth it! Lisa provides weekly schedules, and also has 3 Challenges per year that are free to all members and her workouts are tough but doable. No wasted time here. I just renewed my annual subscription for another year, and with currency conversion, my annual subscription came out to about USD 15/month. As far as I'm concerned, this is money well spent. Oh, and Lisa is having New Year's Challenge starting on 1/1/18.