This one’s for the ladies …
Today we review Total Resculpt from Crunch Fitness. About 10-15 years ago, Crunch Fitness came out with a line of DVDs based on classes available at their gyms (they list 11 other Crunch DVDs on the back cover, and I know there are more that aren’t listed there).
The DVDs are starting to show their age a little, and they’re not all winners (I’m talking about you, Cardio Salsa), but I’ve found quite a few gems from this series. Ellen Barrett, one of my favorite instructors, got her start at Crunch.
Total Resculpt features two strength training workouts led by instructor Kendell Hogan: one focusing on lower body and the other on upper body. Each is about 20 minutes, including a short warmup (about 5 minutes) and an even shorter cooldown (less than a minute) with each. The two workouts are strung back-to-back (I think this started out life as a VHS tape), but if you are only doing the upper body workout, you can easily skip ahead to the right section.
Both workouts use fairly standard strength training exercises, mostly standing, with light hand weights. Even the male instructor uses what look like Barbie weights, although his look to be maybe 5 pounds compared to the female exercisers’ 3-pound weights. The exerciser in the orange pants looks so emaciated, she might fall over if she lifted anything heavier. No danger of obtaining a healthy body image from this DVD.
Instructor Hogan does mention that you can up the intensity by adding more weight. I ended up using lower weights for this workout than I would use for other strength training workouts, just because of the number of reps, the speed of the reps, and the amount of time spent holding the weights in various positions until my arms were shaking.
The warmups featured more complicated choreography than I really expected, but I can forgive that since it is only a few minutes and the point of the warmup is to warm up. As long as you are moving around, it doesn’t matter if you can follow all the moves the instructor is doing for a warmup. Plus you feel super cool when you do manage to follow along.
During the main part of the two workouts, there are a lot of strength training exercises that he refers to by name, without a lot of explanation. So, unless you already know what a stiff-legged deadlift is, you’re going to have to sit out the first couple of reps while you watch and figure out how to do it. By the time you’ve done the workouts a couple of times, though, it is pretty easy to keep up with both of the main workouts.
The warmups are going to take a few more run-throughs before I get the hang of them; they are still confusing for uncoordinated me.
Reading back through what I’ve written so far, it sounds like I don’t like this DVD that much, but in practice, it is one of my favorites, and I wish Kendell Hogan had done more workout DVDs. Why is that?
It’s because Hogan’s got a powerful motivational weapon … I could listen to this guy talk all day and night. Yes, my secret is out – I’m a total sucker for a low, rumbly voice. I even think Brit Hume’s voice is super sexy [now we’ll see if people I know actually read my blog, because I can’t imagine anyone of my acquaintance letting that Brit Hume comment slide without serious mocking].
Everything Hogan says sounds vaguely dirty (if you don’t believe me, listen to him say “Walk to me.” in the first warmup). Hey, whatever motivates me to get up and work out in the morning … and motivate me it does.
Overall this is a pretty solid strength training DVD. It is challenging from a strength perspective, but not frustratingly complicated. There is enough variety to keep it from feeling like a never-ending grind (like so many other strength training videos). Best of all, I get to listen to that voice for 20 minutes every morning.