Classic Firm for a classic home exerciser

[Aunt Famous]

Sound the trumpets, fellow vidiots! Raise your voices in glee, and gather round to hear my tale:

Classic Firms were my gateway to home exercise, and in the late 80s/early 90s, I scraped together my pennies for those coveted VHS clamshells for $49.95 each. I did the six classic volumes constantly.

Last week, I purchased a used copy of Classic Firm Vol. Four, and I did it this morning. (Let me mention here that I remembered about 85% of it, right down to the cheesy jazz hands introduction of Kai Soremekun, in her dazzling Firm debut.) It was the perfect workout for 47 year-old me, and I plan to add it into my rotation.

And here's the good news.

As I did it, I had this realization: I am in better shape now than I was when I was 25.

When I was doing it as a 25 year-old, it was all about the size of my butt. And now, 20+ years out, I am pleased to report this happy epiphany: No, no, it was really all about keeping me in good health for the rest of my life. As a youngster, I would have never thought that 47 year-old me could kick 25 year-old me's (slightly smaller) butt. But I could. Not that I would want to.

It's a Christmas miracle. Or . . .is it that consistency is the key to results?

AF

Check out my blog at www.typeALC.com

[videofit]

Firm Vol. 4 was my first Firm in the early 1990s. The only home exercise I had done previous to that was Cher's step workout with Keli Roberts. So I popped in the VHS and was breathing hard after about five minutes. I was proud I could keep up -- until I realized it was only the warm-up!

[Nuggie's Auntie]

AF, that's my experience, too. I remember huffing and puffing through all the classics years ago. Now I can do the all with greater ease and heavier weights than I did 20+ years ago. I don't look as good as I did then, but apparently I'm in better shape!

[bee]

Love this post! It's fun to go back to those original Firms. Seemed like it took me many times to finally do Vol 1 in its entirety back then.

[bzar]

Originally Posted by Aunt Famous

Classic Firms were my gateway to home exercise, and in the late 80s/early 90s, I scraped together my pennies for those coveted VHS clamshells for $49.95 each.

As I did it, I had this realization: I am in better shape now than I was when I was 25.

good for you! yay!

I've always wanted to ask this question to the early adopters of the firm classics that were going for $50/pop + s/h:

how did you convince yourself, prior to clips being available online, that spending $50 for 1 workout would be OK? I realize collage was around back then, and Shape magazine did a few reviews. VF came into existence sometime around the mid 90s(?). so, I get that you could read some of the descriptions from these other sources.

videos back then were expensive - that's how video rental stores succeeded - because they could recoup the costs by renting videos to customers. I was late to the Firm party and by then, they were selling the vids for around $12 at Blockbuster (sealed & brand new).

I have to agree with you about being in better shape now. I was ashamed to say anything about it for fear of sounding boastful! I experienced what you mentioned when I did the original callanetics video a few months ago.

[FirmDancer]

Congrats! That's a great story to share

[Mickey12]

I used to see The Firm commercials and I really wanted to try them but $50 was just out of the question for my budget. I used to tape Charlene Prickett's It Figures show and they aired the commercials all the time. They were very convincing. It is hard to believe they sold any at all though. I don't think I would pay $50 for a single workout DVD now even with a lot more expendable income than I had then. It must have seemed even more costly 25 years ago.

Kim

[CatInTheHat]

Workout videos weren't really in mass production like they are today, so it seemed like the Firm videos were super high quality and I remember the first one I bought was #2. I can't remember what I paid though, I really might have paid $50. It would have been in 1993. Then I bought Volume 5 and Volume 6, but I'm pretty sure they were not $50. Anyway, I think it was just par for the course, right? There were so few choices out there for workout videos so it was that or join a gym. Shoot, I remember finding an XXX video in my parents closet and the sticker price was $89.95!!!!

Continuing in my vein of inappropriate price comparisons from the 80's, I read that back then a gram of cocaine was something like $600, where now it's like $75-$100. I guess it's all about expectations. Besides, what else was there to spend money on? There weren't electronics, ipods iphones ipads laptops, etc. Now there's just so much to buy!!!

Of course I could be remembering all of this wrong, but with the Firm the first thing I ever heard about them was how amazing the videos were, and they had the results in 10 workouts guarantee, I figured, how can I go wrong? Sort of like Starbucks selling coffee for $5 a cup, you figure, wait, if it's expensive it HAS to be good!

[muddjeansgal]

I don't remember if I even saw the commercials, but the ads in Shape and Muscle and Fitness looked magical to me. I bought Volume 2 first and was hooked.

[dbclark44]

I paid the going price for all the volumes as they came out. The infomercials had me hooked. This was in 1987. You have to remember back then, women and weights were just beginning to come on the scene with Jane Fonda. The Firm put out a very classy compelling infomercial to promote their workouts and I was hooked line and sinker. I was in love with the Firms until I discovered Cathe in 2000. Firms took a back seat while Cathe took the front. She's been driving me around ever since.

However, I have all 5 volumes upgraded on DVD and will never part with them. This thread makes me want to do a Walk Down Memory Lane Rotation soon. Have to check out my new Cathes first though.