Video Fitness

Buns & Thighs/Fat Burner

The Buns & Thighs video is intense for me, an intermediate exerciser. Gay does about 45 squats, followed by 20 or so plies. And that's just for starters. She does lots and lots of lunges, too, then moves on to floor work. There, she does the standard inner thigh lifts, then rolls on her stomach for hamstring lifts and butt curls. It's an all over complete workout for your buns and thighs. The tape is only 30 minutes, but you get a LOT of toning in that time. Gay's exercise companions are a group of professional cheerleaders. On the positive side, the camera focuses in on several sets of legs, all different shapes, but all pretty. In addition to the long, lean legs, there are some chunky, muscular (what my mother euphemistically calls my type of "shapely") legs. What I don't like is the cameraman's shots of the cheerleader's breasts. Hey, guy, this is a video for improving the LOWER body! Another thing that bothers me about the cheerleaders is that they don't all have good form. Fortunately, Gay's form is perfect, so viewers should use her as the role model.

The companion video in this set is the Fat Burner workout. The cover deceptively says "approximately 30 minutes." Apparently that includes about 10 minutes of commercials for Gay's other video sets. The workout, however short, does raise your heart rate and is a lot of fun. It's low impact, and really moves. There's barely 10 minutes of work in your aerobic range, though. I like to do this video inconjunction with a toning video (like the Buns & Thighs), because you get some calorie burning without burning out before the toning. The set for the Buns & Thighs video is a park in the dark in a city -- if not bizarre, let's say, different. Occasionally the camera moves to the street where people seem oblivious to the bunch of well-endowed cheerleaders doing squats and lunges. The music is OK and has a good beat. This set cost me only $9.99 at a sporting goods store. It's well worth such a small investment for a killer lower body workout at least (to me, an intermediate exerciser). For the exercise grade, I give this an A-; on cheesy ambiance, it gets a C+. Overall, a solid B.

Instructor comments: Gay is one of my favorite instructors, and I've only just discovered her. She's fit, trim, pretty, but not intimidatingly so. She knows her stuff, and gives excellent pointers form and demonstrates it herself. Her cuing is excellent. She's exuberant -- "whooping" a little -- but that's fine with me. There are times in the Buns & Thighs workout that if you didn't whoop, you'd cry!

Lilly Anderson
11/10/98



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