Filmed in the Palace Theater in Calgary Canada, Charlene performs center stage with exercises for the body. Most of the exercises have 2 sets and for the upper body, she uses heavy weights and few reps. There is no warm-up. She recommends warming up for 6 minutes before ther workout.
The workout begins with blasting the reverse abdominal muscle. Charlene wants you to make it "your slave". The exercises are very similiar to her ABSolutely tape. No endless ab crunches. It's the new 90's ab work of stablilizing the abs with bicycle leg work and then adding more variety to the exercise to make it harder. Then you hold your trunk in a neutral under stress in a prone push-up position but on your elbows. You hold this for 2 sets of 30 seconds. No oblique work.
Then Charlene has you do stationary lunges with a wobble board. Pete (a background exerciser) shows dumbbells for overload. It's 5 seconds down and 5 seconds up. 8 sets of each. There is no music for this section. I don't know how Charlene can talk during these leg exercises! She has her front foot on this wobbly board and it really looks hard! Then is on to Trunk stability using a ball. It's called bridgework. Renee (the other background exerciser) uses no ball and then Charlene does the hardest version. She lays her back and shoulders on the ball and lifts her leg out. She says she "loves!" this exercise! Then it's back to another set of stationary lunges(5 seconds up and 5 seconds down) using the wobble board. Charlene then does another ab stabilization exercise in a pushup position except you are on your elbows and use different leg and arm movement. On the second set of planks, you lift one leg and the opposite arm up. Hamstring and glute work is next. Charlene uses the ball and Renee and Pete do hamstring curls with ankleweights. Then it's a very very long hamstring stretch while Charlene chats about exercise. Deltoids and shoulders are next. You finally use dumbbells. Front raises and side lifts with palms up. Only one set. Then they do shoulder presses. One set. Charlene does an incline shoulder press on the ball. Charlene is known for her few rep/heavy weight work. Next is calf muscles. Charlene does single leg calf raises. After 9 reps, you stretch it out. The upper back(the muscle between the shoulder blades) is worked next . Charlene uses rubber tubing and Pete shows a dumbell version. Then there is scapula wall pushups and then scapula floor pushups(6 reps). Then regular pushups(6 reps). She stretches it out after this using phone books. Next is concentration curls for the biceps(10 reps each side). Then the end of the workout finishes with a bicep stretch and also outer thigh and hip stretch. This video is a typical Charlene Prickett video. Chatty and slower than other weight video's. I felt it moved a little too slow for me and I wasn't fatigued enough in my upper body. I'm used to doing super sets for the upper body (doing more than one exercise for the biceps). I also felt that the tricep work was neglected in this video. But the ab work is excellent and as always, I learn something new from Charlene every time!
Charlene Prickett does a good job with form and chats up a storm. Always giving tons of advice on form and exercise theology, Charlene never ceases to amaze me at her incredible shape and wisdom.
Mandy Lee
GJamesLee
10/31/99
