Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this workout.

The DVD is divided into two 25-minute lower body toning workouts: Mega Moves, which targets the large muscle groups of the lower body, and Master Moves, which focuses on deep muscle conditioning by zeroing in on the smaller stabilizing muscles of the lower body. For the workout you will need one heavy dumbbell (you could also use a kettlebell), a medium/heavy set of dumbbells, and a light set of dumbbells; a mat for the abs sections; and a chair for balance. From the main menu, you have the option to select from the following chapters:

>Introduction (she explains the workouts, how they were designed, and what you'll need)
>Play All
>Warm-Up
>Mega Moves Legs & Glutes
>Mega Moves Abs
>Master Moves Legs & Glutes
>Master Moves Abs


You do not have the ability within the workout to skip through various exercises as the workout is not chaptered by exercise, but by workout.

This DVD offers two separate workouts, each with a distinct focus. Mega Moves utilizes squats, lunges and abdominal combinations to exhaust the major muscle groups of the lower body. She uses unilateral set building, supersets and changes in tempo to fatigue the muscles and keep them guessing. In this section you will find a variety of static lunges, first done slowly, while adding rotation and cross-body chops to challenge your balance, before picking up the tempo. Mega Moves also contains power-oriented moves such as swings and plyometric jumps to further challenge the legs and elevate the heart rate. She also throws in an unevenly weighted squat with rotation to overhead press move to challenge your balance due to the uneven weight load in each hand. I had never done a move like this and it seemed effective.

Master Moves utilizes sets of deep muscle exercises with a greater focus on balance and firing up the stabilizing muscles in the lower body. In this workout, you will find a variety of plie squats, wide and narrow stance, that get deep into the muscles. Using the chair for balance, she thoroughly exhausts one side of the body, using leg lifts and heel raises, before switching to the other side. She repeats the process with T-stance one-legged squats, flexing and extending the knee of the supporting leg, and curtsy lunges. Then she moves on to one-legged sit and stand chair squats and one-legged good mornings.

While this workout can be adapted to accommodate multiple fitness levels by modifying the exercises, varying the number of repetitions, adjusting the weights used, or doing the two workouts separately or together, I would rate this workout high intermediate to low advanced.

Michelle leads the workout on her own. She gives lots of good form pointers and explanations and encourages you to maintain good form. She just seems so very knowledgeable. I really liked her in this workout.

In general, I really liked the legs and glutes sections. I can't imagine doing both workouts at one time, but I have done more than just one of the legs and glutes sections at a time (more like 1.25 sections). I didn't really enjoy the abs sections because they seemed so very hard to me. I don't enjoy many abs workouts, especially ones on the floor, so this may have just been me. They would have been better for me if she had been quicker to offer modifications in these segments.

Instructor Comments:
She is knowledgeable, motivating, and informative in this workout. I like her.

Laura S.