The Firm: Volume 5: Abs, Hips & Thighs Workout

LaReine Chabut
Year Released: 1991

Categories: Lower Body Strength


I am a Firm believer, and I love most of their videos. After reading the reviews, I decided I wouldn't buy this one, but I'd try to get it in an exchange. I'm glad I got it, but also glad I traded for it instead of buying it.

This video has its good points and its bad points. First, the bad. I just do not like the aerobics portion at all. It's very basic choreography, and the arm work done with weights is done too quickly for me to feel in control. I don't really feel I get anything out of it. Now, let me qualify this by saying for years all I did was the Firm, but in the past year I have gotten into Cathe Friedrich and CIA videos big time. So, good old Firm choreography doesn't quite cut it for me anymore.

Second, the cuing issue. It is weird that the music constantly switches between waltz time (3/4) and march time (4/4), so that is tricky to get used to. Once you get what they're doing though, it's not too bad. The bigger issue is that LaReine is constantly late with the cuing. She doesn't cue before you do the move, she cues right on the beat on which you're supposed to do the move. Very frustrating. I'm spoiled by Cathe. I just had to keep doing this video enough times to know the routine well enough to know when to switch moves.

Now, why I went to all this bother learning this video. I think it is a pretty good lower body workout. After the aerobics, you do some standing leg work with tall box presses and squats, and you do floor work for hamstrings and butt (table work & bridgework), outer thigh and inner thigh. It's not as hard as other Firm tapes (I think Vol 1 & 2 have harder floor work, and the Hare does too), but it does the trick, and I do like variety in my workouts.

Second, I think this tape has one of the best ab segments of all the Firm tapes! Some others, my quads get tired from having my legs up in the air all the time. Some, I feel parts of the abs are being neglected. This one is thorough. It's one of the few ab workouts where at the end my abs are just burning and I'm not sure I can make it. But I do!

So, I use this tape in combination with others. I do either a cardio tape or an upper body tape, and then I skip the aerobics in this tape and start it when we go to tall box leg presses. It works for me!

Instructor Comments:
Well, she's nothing to write home about. LaReine's cuing is very monotone - I get the feeling that she is reading straight off the teleprompter. I don't get any sense of her personality. As in all the older Firm videos, she doesn't really give any form pointers. So, I'd say I like this video despite the instructor.

Mary Truscott

09/06/1998