Prevention: Walk Your Way Slim

Michelle Dozois
Year Released: 2003

Categories: Walking Aerobics


I’m reviewing this workout after doing it a number of times since acquiring it a year ago.

General workout breakdown: After a 5 minute warm up with some static stretching, Michelle leads you through 35 minutes of cardio (consisting primarily of basic aerobics moves derived from walking steps); she ends with a 5 minute cool-down and stretch for a total of 45 minutes.

Level: I’d recommend this to a fairly experienced beginner (i.e. someone who’s been working out for a bit but is still at the beginner stage or someone who’s returning to exercising after some time away) through a mid/high intermediate level. This is a great video to grow with. True beginners may find it a bit challenging because of its length, but you could stop at the half-way point and fast forward to the cool-down. If you wanted to increase the intensity of Level 1 (low impact) without adding the jumps, you could just borrow Level 3’s arm movements. I got this when I was a low intermediate exerciser, and I found that the Level 2 was just the right amount of challenge for me. Now that I’m more of a mid/high intermediate, I’ve moved up to Level 3 and get a good but not overly intense workout.
The workout shows low, mid-, or high impact variations of almost every move so you can pick how you want to do each move. There are some shuffles and some pivots, so keep that in mind if you’re on carpet.
The choreography is fairly basic, with most moves based off of walking (or stepping in some direction, such as a step to the side becoming a mini squat).

Class: 2 women work out with Michelle. One shows low impact modifications, one shows high impact modifications, and Michelle demonstrates mid-impact moves. This video is exceptionally well designed, as all three exercisers with their modifications are shown at the same time.

Music / Set / Other Production Notes: The beat-driven instrumental music is typical unexciting workout stuff. The interior set is brightly lit, although the colored (pinks, purples, blue-greens) backdrop is sort of dark. The exercisers are on raised carpeted platforms. I don’t see any problem with the sound or picture quality. I love the camera angles that always show all three modifications at once. (Why haven’t more videos done this?)

Equipment Needed: sneakers

Commets: You don’t need a lot of space for this workout. You need to be able to kick forward, take one large step back, and take two fairly large steps to each side.

DVD Notes: The DVD allows you to select your chapter, or portion of the workout.

Conclusion: This is a keeper for me. I got this expecting it to be a light day’s workout only, but I was wrong. As they say, you get out of it what you put into it. I suspect some people find this workout too repetitive, especially since Michelle’s cueing and phrasing is very consistent. I personally like this, because after doing the workout a few times I’m able to put my energy into my moves rather than figuring out what comes next or when. And it’s nice to have a break from my usual complex choreography (Christi Taylor, etc.).
This is a great routine if you want to learn basic aerobics moves. (In fact, I wish it had been available when I was starting out with exercise videos.) When you feel comfortable with the steps in this video, check out Kathy Smith’s TimeSaver Cardio Fat Burner, which has two short more complex aerobics routines, or her Peak Fat Burning, which has 3 levels and simple aerobic moves just like Walk Your Way Slim. Or look into Michelle’s 10 Minute Solution Carb Burner, which uses many of the same moves.
When you get up to Level 2 and 3, if I understand this concept correctly, you could do this workout as interval-style training by pushing yourself during the “hit your level” moves and letting your heart rate recover during the lead up segments.

Instructor Comments:
Michelle is energetic and enthusiastic but not too hyper or chatty, in my opinion. She mirror cues and clearly announces moves or changes before they happen, although sometimes she cues a little too much in advance.

KathAL79

09/07/2005