21 Day Fix Lower Fix

Autumn Calabrese
Year Released: 2014

Categories: Lower Body Strength


This is a review of 21 Day Fix, the Lower Fix workout.

This workout is led by Autumn Calabrese. She is a personal trainer and bikini competitor. With Beachbody, she created a system utilizing color coded containers to use for portion control and workouts to be done in conjunction. The review is for the workout only.

Autumn is instructing a crew of 6 background exercisers, two of which demonstrate modifications. One modifier shows using tubing instead of dumbells, and the other modifier shows how to make the exercises less intense. Autumn is wearing a sports bra that is topped with what looks like a cropped sweatshirt and workout shorts and the other backgrounders are also wearing athletic clothing. One of the background exercisers, Eugene, can be heard periodically making comments in the background. I personally thought it was funny rather than annoying, but everyone’s perception of this is different.

The set is brightly lit and is meant to resemble a gym. The music is typical of Beachbody and is pretty non-descript and is not noticeably good or bad.

While Autumn says you will need at least two sets of dumbells for this workout, one light set, one heavy set, she only ever demonstrates the moves using the heavy set. For those modifying the intensity, you can choose heavy or light weights depending on the exercise. There is a background exerciser showing how to use tubing if you don’t have dumbells. As some of the moves are done in the seated position, you may want to use a mat depending on personal preference. A towel and water are also suggested.

The workout starts with a warm up, then goes into 4 different rounds of 2 exercises, a bonus exercise, and ends with a brief cool down/stretch. With the exception of the bonus exercise and cool down/stretch, everything is repeated twice before moving on. The total workout time is right around 30 minutes.

The warm up consists of jogging in place, jumping jacks, windmill arms (both forward and back), side reaches (both right and left), and alternating toe touches. The moves in the warm up are repeated again.

Each exercise in a round is done for one minute with 15 seconds rest to transition to the next exercise. The rounds are as follows:

Round 1: Side Lunge to Back Lunge (heavy weights), Squat to Alternating Knee Up (heavy weights). This round is repeated. The first time through the right leg leads on the side lunge/back lunge exercise, the second time through, it’s a left lead.

Round 2: Alternating Curtsy Lunge (heavy weights), Standing Calf Raise (heavy weights). Note that on the calf raises the last 10 seconds are a static hold. This round is repeated.

Round 3: Static Lunge (heavy weight), Sumo Squat (heavy weights). This round is repeated. The first time through the right leg leads on the static lunge exercise, the second time through, it’s a left lead.

Round 4: Seated Inner Thigh Leg Raise (switch legs half way), Seated Quad Flex Lift and Sweep (switch legs half way). This round is repeated.

Bonus Exercise: Fire Hydrant Variation (first on the right leg for a minute, then the left leg).

The cool down/stretch is brief and consists of child’s pose (forward, right, then left) forward fold, straddle stretch (center, right, then left), butterfly stretch, and standing quad stretch (right, then left). There are also very brief stretches for the shoulders and chest as well.

As demonstrated by Autumn this workout is a solid intermediate level. It can be made more advanced by using a heavier weight. There is a modifier and she shows the moves with no weight or lighter weights and showing easier variations that would make it suitable for high beginner/low intermediate.
Overall this is a good, solid lower body weight workout. It does cover all the bases and includes the calves which are often overlooked in a lower body workout. There are a lot of squat and lunge variations in this workout which may make it problematic for someone with knee issues.

Instructor Comments:
Autumn is a pleasant instructor and some of her talk in this workout was very gender stereotypical. Maybe she didn’t like Eugene’s comments, and she seems to pick on him and makes comments about his weights not being ‘manly’ weights, or making fun of his ‘ballerina’ arms. While not a deal breaker for me, it was the first workout of hers where I found her personality and talk bothersome.

Sabine Reuter

01/15/2015