Aerobarre with Michael Olajide and Leila Fazel

I am in my 40’s, an advanced level exerciser, and my most reached for dvds are Powerstrike, Booty Barre, Squeeze, and Tracy Anderson.

I am reviewing this workout after doing it the second time. I did it for the first time 4 weeks ago. And that’s about how often I would expect to do this one, say once a month. It is a fun workout, and interesting to listen to Michael Olajide, who narrates, and watch Leila Fazel, who does the workout with you. Michael also composed the music, and you don’t tune it out, you are listening to the rhythm and the pauses. The music is more like a conversation, I like it very much. Leila Fazel is a ballet dancer and a boxing champion, and she is beautiful to watch. She has a shy but proud demeanour, a constant grin and attractive eyes. The reason I can’t do this workout more often is because it is for an intermediate level of fitness, with short rounds of exercise sequences, with lots of little rest breaks (ten!), but the boxing and dancing techniques are advanced and performed at expert speed. I’ve been doing kickboxing for a number of years, so the boxing speed is fine, it is advanced, but I have had a lot of practice at slower speeds, and I can do it at fast speeds with good form. But I have only a basic dance background, and do not have any workout dvds that ask me to maintain a turnout and perform fast jumping foot work. I don’t have the mind-muscle connection to move through the plie perfectly at that speed. So my little jumps are a poor representation of the controlled ballet dancing that Leila performs. All the same, I love to watch her and try to copy her. After the workout is over, there is some footage of Leila with her boxing gloves on, practicing her punches on Michael, who is wearing large pads on his hands like catcher’s mitts, and reaching out quite often to swat her back. They are both moving their hands so fast it’s a blur, and Leila is grinning the whole time. Really fun to watch the pros practice. So this dvd is a keeper, but not a serious contender in my rotation.

Desie