Kelly Coffey-Meyer is one of my favorite fitness instructors, but I tend to have more of her strength-focused DVDs than her cardio ones. However, I enjoy plyometrics and was curious about this DVD, so I decided to give it a try. Like all of the offerings in her "30 Minutes to Fitness" series, this DVD contains two workouts, each approximately 30 minutes in length (although the routines run a bit long here, which is actually one of the things I don't like). Kelly teaches the workout live with her two usual background exercisers, Lauren and Samantha. Lauren modifies the first workout without use of a step, and she modifies the second workout to be mostly low impact.

The Main Menu offers the following options: Introduction - Workout One "Athletic Step" - Workout Two "Plyometrics" - Premixes - Chapters. The Chapters Menu lists the warm-up, the five step combos, and the cool-down, for the first workout, and for the second workout, each exercise is listed individual along with the warm-up and cool-down. I have provided additional details below.

WORKOUT #1 (36.5 minutes)
The 5-minute warm-up includes squats right-left, step and shoot, alternating knees, step/lunge back, tap on/over the step, insole taps on the step, and punches. Kelly teaches the step combos in an add-on, "take it from the top" style, but once she is finished a combo, she moves on to the next one.
*Step Combo #1: Start with basic step; adds speed bag with lift back. Next, turn step and knee with thrust punch. Add squat moving down the step and triple insole.
*Step Combo #2: Start with a tap on/over step; add a side hop. Perform double side hops over the step. Add front-back step touch.
*Step Combo #3: Begin with triple knee and pulsing lunge back; add triple corner jab with jack. Next, jog with "shoot." End with side step with side kick out.
*Step Combo #4: Start with low squat v-step followed by jack. Add knee "charleston" and then L-step with shuffle. Finish with power tap with knee.
*Step Combo #5: First move is a jack followed by heel pump; add squat with punches, then hamstring curl with jack. Pivot over step squat to finish.
The short stretch (<2 minutes) for this workout uses the step and targets the hamstrings, hip flexors, side, shoulders, inner thighs, and back.

WORKOUT #2 (35 minutes)
The long warm-up (6 minutes) for this workout includes slow side steps, knee wraps, hamstrings curls, jobs, leaps to the front/side, and squats/squats with knees. There is also a brief round of stretches for the hip flexors, calves, and quads. The exercises are performed in two sets of eight (really, 16 right in a row), which is then repeated once. Here they are as listed on the chapter menu:
*Squat Jump
*Jacks Over Square (Kelly uses a folded towel)
*Hop Overs
*Tuck Jumps
*Long Jumps
*Heel Digs
*Splits on the Move
*Jump In Straddle Out
*Side Lunges
*Power Knees
The 3.5-minute aerobic cool-down incorporates jogs and marches and then repeats several of the stretches from the warm-up to finish.

There are only two Premixes on this DVD: they are Step Plyo Blast (41 mins.) and Step Plyo Blast (49 minutes).

I found both of these workouts to be just okay. For the step routine, I definitely liked that the choreography was not too complex and that Kelly incorporated kicking and punching. On the other hand, I thought that the combos dragged on too long, and there were WAY too many jacks for my liking (on of my least-favorite moves). For the plyometric workout, I thought that some of the moves were a lot of fun and easy enough to modify the intensity to your own level (e.g., I like to jump, but I do smaller jumps than Kelly for the "squat jump," and I love that she included lower-impact moves such as the "heel digs" and "power knees"). Despite this, I felt that there wasn't enough variety in this routine, and I just can't see using it on a regular basis. Finally, the premixes didn't offer much variety, as they just weave the pylos into the full step combos.

As with all Kelly's DVDs, these routines are well-produced, and they are likely to appeal to intermediate exercisers. They just did not fit with my particular needs.

Instructor Comments:
As noted, Kelly is one of my favorite instructors. I thought she cued well here; I could generally follow her for the step even though 1) I usually don't do step workouts, and 2) I was just using the top portion of my Fanny Lifter (I don't have a full-sized step).

Beth C (aka toaster)