The Firm: Core Cardio

Tamela Hastie, Carissa Foster, Dale Brabham
Year Released: 1999

Categories: Floor Aerobics/Hi-Lo/Dance


As a long-time fitness professional and studio-owner myself, I often need strong videos to take with me on vacation or when travelling to our vacation home where I don't teach. With that in mind, I purchased the trilogy of The Firm's new videos, expecting something good. That's what I got - something good, but not terrific - nowhere near the calibre of Cathe Friedrich's videos.

As an advanced exerciser, I did work up a good sweat in Core Cardio 1, but the workout was shorter than I'd have liked. People with severe time-constraints will find this a good short-ish workout.
Here's what else I liked: the workout was varied, the music was good, but it should have been a tad louder so the beat could have been heard over the barking of one of the instructors. The other two instructors modulated their voices just fine.

I liked the workout my calves got - most videos give short shrift to calves but that's probably because calf-work, like hamstring work, is so deadly dull.

I liked the "tall box" work (a step with 4 sets of risers will do) but it wasn't long enough.

Here's what I found unnerving about this video, and I join the others who don't care for it:

The abs segment had the right idea, but the wrong spot in the video (after the warmup) and not enough of it to matter. They could have just as well omitted it for all the good it did.

There were two fatal errors in anatomical information: one was when she said that the "hip swishes" trimmed the waistline (they don't), and when a reverse crunch she was doing in the abs segment was designed to work the "spinal erectors". Nope, sorry - it works the lower area of the rectus abdominus.

You went from high-impact/high-intensity cardio work directly to the floor for final stretching. This is downright dangerous.

The use of the ball is contrived and probably designed to sell more product, but in fairness, the video did state that other props could be used in its stead.
With my expansive library of exercise videos spanning the spectrum from old Kathy Smith videos, through CIA videos, to the more current Karen Voight "Energy Sprint" (a superb video), to old Cathe vids (she's honed her style almost to perfection by now), to Jodi Cohen, and Classic Firm videos and Jane Fonda (remember her?).....I believe the Firm is on the right track with CC1 but their editing department and instructor-training rigidity needs a bit of work to appeal to the advanced exerciser.

Beginner-to-intermediate exercisers and even some advanced exercisers who haven't tried the Friedrich or the Voigth vids, will probably enjoy this video from The Firm. As for me, it sits on the back burner for when I want a change of pace. That's about it.

Instructor Comments:
As a former Firm Believer, I find the monotone, studied and rigid teaching techniques used by Firm instructors to be annoying, and at times (especially with this video), cloying. If she said, THIS IS FUN!" one more time, I was going to ralph. Little-to-no instruction is given, especially where it's needed; during the weights segments. Cueing is often late or absent. They cannot follow traditional 8-counts, which may not bother many exercisers, but drove me nuts. I don't care for these instructors' techniques.

Meriam Matthews

04/12/1999