This is one of the 10 DVDs in the Supreme 90 set, led by Tom Holland. As Lindsey mentioned, it is a brief 30 minute circuit style total body routine. Tom leads four exercisers (two male and two female) who demonstrate moves while he comments on form, poundage, etc.

This was my first Supreme 90 class, and I was a little taken aback that the warm up started in a prone position (with the nearly 200 videos I own, I have to say that’s a first!) for bridge work. A strong pet peeve of mine is unnecessary floor to standing to floor to standing transitions, so I did some marching in place until Tom transitioned to standing, about one minute into the warm up. He followed us through a quick series of unweighted squats and lunges, military march, jumping jacks and jogging, etc. The warm up was about 5 minutes.

In the actual workout, which lasted from about 5:00-25:00, there were several circuits, in which one of the girls (in a separate scene in which she is alone) demonstrates all of the moves, before the whole class commences the circuit. It was not immediately obvious to me to use this time as a breather between circuits (since Tom didn’t mention to) but once I caught on it was certainly refreshing.

The circuits, as Lindsey said, included three strength moves (often functional), followed by a plyometric move, then the whole circuit is repeated three times before moving on. I generally don’t care for workouts that repeat exercises over and over, but the transitions were so lightning fast that it was impossible to get bored (it was nearly impossible to keep up for that matter, but I’m hoping this will get easier with a learning curve after several uses). I liked the style of doing heavy work for the upper and lower body, then really burn out the muscles with a plyo set. For instance, in one circuit you might do weighted lunges, clean and press, deadlifts, then plyo lunges – really burning out those legs especially after having done weighted lunges.

Other exercises included a variation on double crunches paired with a variation of elbow planks (felt fatigue in the core), kettlebell swings (demonstrated with one heavy dumbbell although you might choose to use a kettlebell, as I did, if you have one), double arm row, deadlifts, squats, pushups, plyo pushups (as a strength move – I was able to execute these a little easier on the rebounder), prone bench press, cleans, clean and press. The plyo work at the end of the circuit included squat jumps, plyo jumps (as I mentioned), and a really fun explosive hop forward several feet. As an intermediate exerciser (moving up towards low advanced), the hop forward looked a little intimidating, but I tried it, and found out I could do it, do it well with good form, and it was fun too! That was a confidence booster for me.

My complaints are minor but include:

(1) For a “total body” workout, there was a very heavy emphasis on the chest, back, and legs, but not any attention given to triceps, and very little given to shoulders, biceps, and core. I compensated for this by doing prone triceps presses instead of the bench press. I might tinker around with this in future uses to get a more well-rounded workout.

(2) The music was quite generic, so I used my own music, which helped. Very minor quibble. A lot of workouts these days don’t have great music, not a big deal.

(3) Tom encouraged you (including the women, which was great!) to use very heavy weights, but it was hard to go very heavy and also execute as many reps as he instructed (generally between 8-12) in the time allotted – when I focused on reps I found myself to be woefully behind all the others. So instead I executed the moves at my speed (and tried to use a challenging weight – I used 12# all the way through but will try to go higher as I get more comfortable with the routine) and moved to the next exercise when most of the class transitioned. This worked okay, but did require me to constantly watch the screen to keep up – every time I focused on my reps, I realized I was one or even two exercises behind everybody! However, it did keep my heart rate up there and I still felt I got a very good workout.

(4) The workout is not chaptered, and there was a faint sense of general disorganization, maybe because all of the exercisers went at their own pace, so sometimes they were all doing different things. But for $20 for TEN DVDs, who can complain about that? Based on this first look at the set, I am confident that I’ll get my money’s worth.

I am not going to do a full S90 rotation, just planning to integrate these workouts into my regular (non) routine. I think I can utilize this workout like a Jillian workout – I felt I exerted about the same amount of energy here as I did in, say, a Ripped in 30 workout. There was a little of everything for strength, some challenging but not redundant cardio, and it was all over in about a half hour. Due to the length of the workout, I could give it my all, but know I would feel energized, not drained, at the end. Definitely an enjoyable circuit routine. I would say this is high intermediate – if it had been an hour of this, it would have been advanced, but with the shorter time of the workout, it is very doable for somebody at an intermediate level. You could always challenge yourself by adding something on at the end, if it doesn’t feel like quite enough. Really for the retail of the set ($20) I feel like there’s a very low risk factor in trying it, if you have any interest in it at all. Overall grade A- (only because of the lack of triceps work and the too fast transitions). I’m overall pretty pleased at the quality of this product for the price.

Instructor Comments:
Tom was a good instructor. He was encouraging and supportive of his exercisers, and I liked that he encouraged everyone (including the women) to use challenging poundage. I think he would be amenable to many because he doesn’t have any annoying tendencies (overly chatty or jokey, yelling at you, showing off, etc.) I look forward to trying his other S90 workouts.

Emily B.