TLC: Train Like a Contender is the latest in instructor Kelly Coffey-Meyer's 30 Minutes to Fitness series. This an excellent series of DVDs for intermediate and above exercisers, with each DVD containing two main workouts running about 30 minutes each plus a bunch of included premixes, providing nearly endless variety and challenge. Although I love kickboxing workouts (Kelly's 30 Minutes To Fitness: Kickboxing is one of my favorites), I never thought I'd want a boxing-only workout, as I especially love to kick! However, I really enjoyed the shadow boxing sequences in Kelly's 30 Minutes To Fitness: Circuit Burn, so both that and the previews for this DVD made me think I would like TLC as well.

Kelly works out here with her usual background exercisers, Sam and Lauren, with Lauren modifying mainly for impact. Kelly's cuing is mirrored to the viewer's left and right. No equipment is required for this workout, although weighted gloves are optional (and a mat might be useful for the floorwork). The studio is bright, and the music is upbeat and varied, sometimes vocal (and at times I found it to be a bit too loud).

The extensive Main Menu for TLC reads as follows:

Introduction
Warm-Up
Quick Warm-Up
Workout 1 (Boxing)
Workout 2 (Conditioning)
Stretch
Bonus (Flip Up/Push Up)
Premixes
Boxing Combos
Credits

I have broken down each segment as well as have provided approximate times below.

WARM-UP, 3 minutes
Starting with marching/marching wide, Kelly moves through different punches, beginning with big uppercuts and then moving to a torso twist and hook punch. She also combines the hook punch with a squat/low hook, or body shot, which appears quite often throughout the workout. The second half of the warm-up begins with a shuffle/arm circle overhead. Kelly then moves into an alternate arm reach/body block down. She ends the warm-up with some squats.

QUICK WARM-UP, 1.5 minutes
This is simply the second half of the main warm-up (starting from the shuffles/arm circles).

WORKOUT 1 (BOXING), 28.5 minutes
During this workout, Kelly introduces a punch combination; you then repeat the combination for several minutes and move on. For most of the combos, Kelly has you stepping forward on a diagonal (similar to her 30 Minutes To Fitness: Kickboxing With Kelly Coffey-Meyer) and then switching leads halfway through. There are 8 total punching combos as follows:
*Combo 1: jab-cross-hook-upper
*Combo 2: jab-hook-double upper-shuffle twice
*Combo 3: lean side, jab-cross-jab-duck-jab
*Combo 4: hi/lo hook-double jab-4 single jabs
*Combo 5: jab-double upper-triple jab
*Combo 6: double cross-hook-upper-squat shuffle
*Combo 7: jab-duck-side lean w/body shot-triple cross
Brief BREAK (at 20 minutes into workout)
*Combo 8: jab-cross-hook-upper-opposite upper-punch down-body shot each side (a little more complicated!)
This workout concludes with a 1.5 minute stretch. Kelly starts with some quick stretches on the floor and then finishes standing with some nice neck stretches and shoulder rolls.

WORKOUT 2 (CONDITIONING), 32.5 minutes
This workout alternates between conditioning moves for the lower and upper body. Kelly goes straight from one move to the next without pausing at all, so she maintains a cardio effect throughout this entire workout. The exercises for this workout are as follows:
*Jenga step (alternating lunge backward)
*alternate reach and pull arms overhead
*quick pulsing squats
*alternating 1-2-3 punches, then continuous punches
*jump rope: 8 singles then 4 doubles
*alternating arms "push air"
*alternating pulsing front lunge for 4
*fast rolling uppercuts
*popping (small hop) plies
*with hands clasped, move hands shoulder to hip; first one side, then the other
*lunge and retreat; first one side, then the other
*speed bag
*jumping jacks with 1/4 and 1/2 turn jumps
*4 big uppercuts on either side, alternating
*standing side-to-side crunch with one leg behind; first one side, then the other
Move to FLOOR (at 23 minutes into workout)
*1 minutes of push-ups, then elbow planks with knee drops
*abs work: lying leg scissors in/out and crunches
This workout ends with a 4.5 minute stretch. Starting from a lying position, Kelly brings in one leg for a hamstring stretch and thread-the-needle; she then crosses that leg over the other for a lying twist before repeating everything on the other side. She comes up to kneeling and performs a brief child's pose before moving into a shoulder stretch on either side; she then does a hip flexor and hamstring stretch on each leg. She transitions to standing with a squat to stretch the calves and concludes with a quick standing side stretch.

STRETCH
The stretch off the Main Menu is the SAME stretch segment included at the end of the Conditioning workout.

BONUS (FLIP UP/PUSH UP), 7.5 minutes
In this segment, Kelly is doing push-ups (on her knees), Lauren is doing crunches, and Sam is doing squats. Kelly has a deck of cards with different numbers on them, and she flips over a card, does that number of repetitions, and repeats. That's it. I found the whole thing kind of gimmicky and rather unnecessary.

PREMIXES
Kelly includes a total of six premixes on this DVD. On the Premix Menu, she notes that most of the premixes include a warm-up and stretch. The descriptions and times listed below are as they appear on the menu.
*Coffey Fit Blend (Alternating Conditioning and Boxing Exercises), 47 Minutes
*Quick Blend (Selected Mix of Alternating Conditioning and Boxing Exercises), 19 minutes
*Kelly's Mix (Kelly's Favorite Mix of Exercises from Both Workouts), 36 minutes
*Upper Body Conditioning, 18 minutes
*Lower Body Conditioning, 16 minutes
*Cardio Express, 15 minutes

BOXING COMBOS
On this menu, the eight boxing combos can be selected individually along with the warm-up and the stretch.

Overall, I really enjoyed this DVD! I preferred the Boxing workout to the Conditioning one, although there were moves from the latter that were fun too; I think I will use Workout #1 more often as a stand-alone option, but I know I will get a lot of use out of both through the many premix options. The only thing I didn't really like (as mentioned above) was the Bonus Flip Up/Pull Up segment. However, this seemed to be a substitution for Kelly's usual abdominal add-on segment, and since I usually skip that anyway (I don't like to do crunches for abs), it's no big loss for me.

I would particularly recommend this DVD to fans of Kelly's 30 Minutes To Fitness: Kickboxing, as I think the Boxing workout in particular is most similar to the boxing segments from that DVD (as opposed to the shadow boxing work from 30 Minutes To Fitness: Circuit Burnt). I am so happy to add TLC: Train Like a Contender to my ever-growing collection of Kelly Coffey-Meyer workouts!

Instructor Comments:
Kelly is one of my favorite instructors! I find her very down-to-earth, and I thought she was particularly humorous here: she jokes about ending one set early, and at another point, she makes a joke about how when she goes "left," it's really her right. ;)

I didn't have any problems with Kelly's cuing, which is mirrored to the viewer's left-right. I did have issues following her cuing in her step-boxing workout (I think I tried Step-Boxing 2--that was WAY too complex for me), but I've had no problems following any of her 30 Minutes to Fitness DVDs, including this one. Sometimes her form isn't very distinct between a hook and a cross punch, so if little things like that matter to you, beware.

Beth C (aka toaster)