This DVD has 1997 as the production date. Chico is wearing a yellow 'chicometrics' t-shirt with black spandex pants and the 6(ish) ladies with him are in hot pink chico t-shirts and black spandex shorts. The ladies' success stories are in the leaflet with the dvd and they all appear to be just regular people - no fake boobs, no tight shirts, no self-adoration. Just regular people. They all wear runners. I did not wear runners since I'm soooo enjoying workouts in bare feet. Chico has a hammy personality but certainly not over the top. He smiles alot and seems very infectious. A chair is used alot. eg. to work each inner thigh you put non-working leg up on the chair. 1/2 bun work is done sitting 1/2 on chair. He explains things just enough but not too much so the workout moves along at a good pace.
Chico's funny because he says what exercise we're doing and then will say "And, we're only gonna do 80 repetitions" with a big smile...and I'm thinking 80!!! ONLY!!! Then he says "Ready, and exercise!" and then he starts the movement.
He counts every rep. EVERY rep. And, in the first 1/2 hr the CD player seems to be on repeat and repeats the same 1 song over and over. Then after that 1/2 hr there are a few other songs on. I found the talking and counting a bit much after awhile so I turned the sound down a bit. So, the workout was lacking the auditory aspect (eg. WHFN) for me but oh well.

The ab section is long. Around 14 minutes or so I think. Too much for me at this point. It's great because he shows lots of options in the little corner square of the screen while you're already doing the main exercise so he doesn't waste time explaining while you sit and wait. The options are great and I may try some of them next time. Some are just for variety and some are for if your neck hurts etc. The abs are mostly crunches - upper and then upper and lower together and oblique crunches.

He is an official DR. so I must admit I trusted the suggestions he made. The form he explained seemed good to me and nothing hurt during the workout. My knees were fine during the leg/quad section. (which was also pretty killer and I had to modify a bit and take breaks)

The arm section was different. I was sceptical doing it without weights so I grabbed my girls little 1 lb pink weights and I felt it. You could do it with 3 lbs if you wanted and I think the arms would be sufficiently cooked.

There was also a killer (for me) calf workout which I couldn't complete either.
There is a one-armed tricep dip too - holy cow!! I did it 2-armed and that was enough for me!

All in all, I'm happy with it. It doesn't have the 'fun' factor so much and it is an hr long which is a challenge for me since I do tend to top off at 45 minutes max. But, it's not annoying and the exercises are very thorough for each body part with lots of reps.

This style of exercise is similar to Callanetics, Lotte Berk or Bar Method. Although there are some more traditional moves too.

The DVD can only be ordered new thru his website (as far as I know) and is pretty pricey (29.95 cdn). Is it worth the money? Yes and no. His website has claims from people saying his system is the best etc but then so does Callanetics and the others. I think this would be good to add variety and also as a longer workout, since the Lotte's are only 1/2 hr. I think I may use segments of this workout and add to other segments from other workouts to make a complete workout and then I won't get bored or dread using this workout - I do get bored pretty easily and enjoy frequent changes of 'scenery'.
The DVD is chaptered so you do have the option of just choosing abs, lower body or upper - very nice.

Instructor Comments:
I normally don't gravitate to male instructors since I'm just more comfortable sharing my Video workout experience with a woman on the TV. Chico was fine though - nothing he did made me cringe or feel uncomfortable. He has a very friendly, happy personality on the DVD without being over the top.

Tammy