I’ve been doing the Firm for about 6 years now and Tough Tape 2 is my favorite FIRM video of all time! For the past 3 months I have been very unmotivated as far as strength training goes and this was the only tape I could bring myself to do. I did it faithfully 2-3 times a week since early November and the results are in - my upper body has so much definition, especially my shoulders!!!

Tough Tape 2 is culled from the Tri-Trainers and The Crosstrainers tapes. The workout starts with the warmup and stretch from Firm Better Body & Buns. The next part is from Crosstrainers Cardio - a set of pushups with Heidi Tanner followed by squats. Then another set of pushups followed by a set of step squats (also from Crosstrainers Cardio). Next is Tracy Long from MSB with squats and military presses, then Lat rows and biceps with Tracy followed by Triceps and shoulders and plyo jumps with Jen Carmen. Two sets each leg of Tall box presses from Crosstrainers Cardio, lunges/dips from Crosstrainers Strength. There is also a very brief tall box step up section (no weights) with Tracy from MSB (somewhat pointless, but the tape is so much fun I don’t mind). There is also another set of plyo jumps in there somewhere.

Then comes what I feel is the best part of the tape - the concentrated shoulder work. This tape pieces together all the shoulder work from Crosstrainers Cardio and Strength together, so you get a great burn. I always had a love/hate thing with Firm upper body work and the way it jumps around, but this tape’s shoulder work makes sense. There are some shoulder exercises earlier in the tape, but I treat those as a warm up to the later work, which is a shoulder superset. I could hardly finish this superset when I first started and I have finally graduated from the 5-8 pounders I was using for the longest time. Consistently using this tape has made the cap of my shoulder wider and I even have those little cuts that I’ve been wanting for so long!

After the shoulders there are leg lifts to the rear while holding on to your tall box. Taber Bruner does only one set of 8 on each side. The leg lifts are broken up with another set of lat rows on each side. To make the leg lifts more intense I wear a 10 pound ankle weight on each leg and rewind for 2 sets (sometimes 3 since I love floor-type leg work). Taber goes slow enough that I can wear such a heavy weight with no problem. Then there are pulsing plies with weights interspersed with glute "pinches" . I may be messing up the sequencing a bit, but near the end there is a set of triceps dips with Heidi Tanner from Crosstrainers. I wear a weight in my lap like Cathe F. in MIS to make this more intense. The final segment has some pushups with Lisa Kay. These pushups are more for the back then the chest.

This tape is by no means perfect (no abs, no chest work other than the first 2 sets of pushups), but it’s short and effective and if you use your heaviest weights, you really break a sweat. The only modification I made as I mentioned above is adding an extra set of leg lifts on each side with the heavy ankle weights. One set of lifts on each leg with no weight seems quite meaningless to me, so I feel this modification is necessary. Sometimes I tack on Firm 5-Day abs which makes the workout complete enough for me. The results this tape has produced for me are all the reason I need for saying this is my favorite.

Instructor Comments:
I’ve never had a problem with any Firm Instructor. Heidi, Pam, Jen, Taber, Lisa Kay, and of course the beloved Tracy are all motivating and pleasant. Heck, I even like Peluso and her bathing suit-like workout outfit!

Donna Alcott