Breakthru Pilates Plus

Tracy York, Michelle Dozois
Year Released: 2002

Categories: Pilates/Core Strength


Breakthru Pilates Plus is a wonderful mix of several different exercise methods, with Pilates being only part of the workout. The entire video is about 46 minutes long, and it's broken up into four sections as follows:

Section 1: Michelle Dozios leads this stretching segment, which consists mainly of yoga-type stretches, including some sun salutation variations. About 8 minutes.

Section 2: Tracy York begins this segment, which focuses on Pilates. The exercises performed here clearly are rooted in Pilates, yet they are modified from traditional Pilates matwork. Some of moves are deceptively simple (e.g., leaning back to engage your abs and then punching to each side), but I could really feel the work in my abdominal area. Following the lying abs work, you roll onto your side for some additional unique abs moves as well as Pilates side kick type moves. A really challenging series containing plank moves combined with push-ups comes next; you will also do "decellerated push-ups," a slower moving tricep pushup. Michelle takes over to repeat the exercises on the other side as well as to do a second pushup series. At 17 minutes, this is the longest section of the workout.

Section 3: This is the ballet-inspired section led by Michelle. Using a chair for ballance, you will do simple plies, leg raises, and leg kicks, first on one side and then repeating on the other side. These exercises were definitely tougher than they looked, and I found it difficult to emulate Michelle and Tracy's perfect form. This section lasted about 12 minutes.

Section 4: This was the yoga segment, and it consisted of about 8 minutes of standing yoga poses, including warrior, side angle, chair, and standing forward bends. Tracy leds this section, and she provides good instructions on alignment. The workout ends rather abruptly with a very brief stretch at the end of this segment.

I really enjoyed this workout; the wide variety combined with the segmented format to hold my interest, and because of this, I know that I won't easily tire of this video. This is a perfect workout for intermediate exercises like myself who enjoy doing a wide variety of methods in a relatively short period of time.

Instructor Comments:
Michelle and Tracy were both good instructors who provided good cuing. They occasionally chatted back and forth, but not to the point of being annoying or disrupting the flow of the routine.

Beth C (aka toaster)

02/05/2004