Power Up

Tracie Long
Year Released: 2010

Categories: Step Aerobics


This is Volume 3 in Tracie Long Fitness’ Focus Series.

I’m reviewing this workout after doing it three times.

General workout breakdown: Denise and Nyx have already described this workout well.
The total running time of this workout is closer to 28.5 min. The first and last segments are not quite 10 full minutes; the middle one seems to be closer to 10 minutes.
Here are a few thoughts from me: I agree that I need an additional warm-up before jumping right into this one. Normally I don’t like a lot of jumping on the step, but Tracie does it in a controlled manner and doesn’t do too many reps at once. The second segment is probably my favorite: lots of good plyo moves, again done with control and thought – except that Tracie seems to do the toe taps behind on one side for the ice skaters but not on the other. My least favorite segment is the third. The push-ups fit in with the plyo nature of much else in the video, but the dips and abs don’t obviously have as much to do with the rest. I have to confess the abs move felt awkward to me and I’m not the biggest fan of dips off the step, though.

Level: I’d also recommend this to intermediate through intermediate / advanced exercisers familiar with working with the step and comfortable with some impact. Someone on the lower end of advanced could find this useful as an add-on workout, too. Those at a lower intermediate level can also tackle this; Tracie offers a few (and only a few) suggestions for substitutions or modifications, and this is easy to break up.
Normally I’m at the int. / adv. level. When I’m at that level, I find this a decent challenge on its own, but still leaving me feeling more worked out than wiped out. Currently, however, I’m working my way back up to fully intermediate, and this was a doable but definitely challenging workout at that lower intermediate level.

Class: Tracie alone, instructing live.

Set: bright interior space (part of Tracie’s fitness studio, I believe) with a brick wall, windows covered with white blinds with cutouts, and exercise equipment tastefully arranged around the space.

Production: clear picture, mostly helpful camera angles, although sometimes I saw just feet when I also wanted to see Tracie’s arms, for example. While some people have complained about the sound issues on the earlier Focus series workouts, I can’t say I’m one of them. There are some fluctuations in sound from song to song, and sometimes Tracie’s microphone picks up some static as she shifts position, but that’s all I’ve noticed.

Equipment: You’ll need a step (Tracie uses a full-sized club step with one set of risers) and a pair of sneakers, plus maybe a jogbra (if applicable) and a mat (depending upon your workout room flooring.

Space Requirements: Tracie works out on puzzle mats; it looks like her set-up is identical to mine: 12 2’ x 2’ mats, giving an area of 8’ wide by 6’ deep. Neither she nor I came close to using all of that space, even when I left my step out and moved over for the second segment.

Comments: I have to admit I only pull this out when I’m doing a Tracie Long rotation. This one doesn’t call out to me otherwise, and add to that the fact that I can’t quite figure out how to fit this into my regular rotations, as I’m more of a straight up cardio one day, straight up strength the next kind of gal. One of my issues with the Focus series (and with the Longevity series as well) is that it’s still not immediate obvious to me how one is supposed to use them all together and/or with non-Focus workouts. I kept hoping that as the next one came out suddenly all would make sense, but Tracie seems to have completed the series, and I’m still scratching my head. (And yet I’ve bought 5 of the 6 Focus workouts and all 6 of the Longevity workouts and both of the current Figure:30 and both of the current Reboot workouts – you would think I’d learn…) In her opening remarks to the Focus series, Tracie says, “We believe if you rotate through these you’ll get everything you need in.” I think what she means is that you’ll work through the major areas of fitness: cardio, strength, endurance, power, balance, and flexibility, and given the fact that the ACSM guidelines now incorporate not only cardio, strength, and flexibility but also functional training, Tracie was ahead of the curve there. I would beg to differ that you’ll get absolutely everything in with regards to a balanced workout in terms of body parts; as things currently stand with the 6 Focus workouts there’s not as much back work, especially in comparison to all of the work for the front of the upper body, for example. I’m also not sure about working the upper body as much as Tracie does; she seems to include push-ups almost as often as she includes abs and lower body work.

Do you have around an hour to work out, both Lift Higher and Power Up, and a desire to feel that burn, baby, burn? Do you also have two DVD players hooked up to your TV (or, alternately, your regular player and TV plus something like a laptop with a DVD player) and room to leave your step out while you still have plenty of space to do squats and lunges? Have I got a “Franken-workout” suggestion for you: After a warm-up on your own (although I’ve toyed with the idea of using the lone all lower body segment from Kick Back as the warm-up…), alternate a Lift Higher segment with the two cardio segments from Power Up (so do something like Lift Higher #1, Power Up #1, Lift Higher #2, Power Up #2, and Lift Higher #3). If you only have one player or just don’t want to bother with the switching back and forth, an alternative is to do one, then follow it up with the other; I recommend Lift Higher followed by Power Up because I prefer to do my strength first, but if you’re a cardio first type of person do the opposite. You’ll get a pretty darn well-balanced lower body workout that will work your body from various angles plus increase your strength and especially endurance while also raising your heart rate and working on your range of motion. Note: I don’t want to suggest that you have to pair these two workouts together in one session in order to get an effective workout, nor do I mean to imply that if you don’t have that much time, desire, or ability to do more than one of these that you’re missing out or not working out how you should be. This is simply a suggestion from my attempts to figure out how to use these workouts in my own rotations. (I also realize this is a pricey workout recommendation, since each of these workouts retail for about $17 apiece, meaning that’s a $35/hour session! Even Cathe doesn’t charge that much for an hour+ lower body workout DVD these days… So please do not feel compelled to wreck this month’s family budget just to get these two workouts for this purpose. There are plenty of other options out there, probably many of them a heck of a lot cheaper. But if you already have these and don’t know how to use them, I hope this helps!)

Instructor Comments:
Tracie is, as always, a true fitness professional. She focuses on cuing the working, with some encouragement and some nice form tips from time to time and no extraneous chatter. Tracie mirror cues, meaning when she says “right” she means the viewer’s, not her own. I still wish she’d be just a wee bit more descriptive in parts; I feel like even after I’ve done the workout a few times I still need to watch her closely to make sure I’m getting all the movements in an exercise or make sure I catch the transition to the next move or am on the proper side.

KathAL79

07/12/2012