I'm rediscovering this series after a long time (two years!) away and liking it a lot. Cathe and four backgrounders do slow and heavy sets, usually three sets of eight reps, to exhaust the muscles and build mass and strength. You'll need dumbbells and a high-step-as-bench (or regular weight bench) for this workout.

After a brief warmup, Cathe and crew move to chest work. These are basic isolation exercises: bench press, flyes, incline bench press, incline flyes and pushups. The slow count - two down, six up - really fries your muscles. I was shaking at the end of the second and third sets. If you want to vary the count, you could do a set with six counts down and two up. Cathe takes a minute between sets and offers form pointers and light chatter.

The back work is also basic: bent-over rows (a real killer when done slowly with the elbow moving back instead of up and down), pullovers and deadlifts. You then go to the floor for supermans and planks.

There are brief stretches between sets, so the closing stretch is very short.

Modifications: you could use a barbell for some of the exercises so your hands don't get sore from gripping heavy dumbbells. I might also put the supermans/planks section after the warmup and before weights; my planks suffered in form and duration after that lift-to-failure chest workout.

Instructor Comments:
Cathe's form pointers are great in this series and her weights are impressive. She mixes up 'sets' and 'reps' a lot in this series; I try my best to ignore it.

athompson10