Maximum Intensity Strength

Cathe Friedrich
Year Released: 1998

Categories: Total Body Workouts


It's interesting to look at this video from the perspective of a few years.. This was a watershed video. Up until this time (1998) there were no real serious strength training videos on the market. The Firm had their videos, but they were not straightforward gym style strength training. Their production values kept the "femininity factor" high so as not to scare women away from using weights. Kathy Smith had released a set of strength videos, where she touted the benefits of using heavy weights, but proceeded to demonstrate the exercises with light weights, or none at all in the lower body tape.

This was not unusual at the time. Woman were training with heavy weights in gyms all over the world, but in the fitness video industry it was widely believed that videos requiring the use of weights, especially heavy ones, simply wouldn't sell.

Into all this comes Cathe Friedrich, a fitness instructor and gym owner from New Jersey. She had built up a reputation by making step aerobic videos that were tough and fast paced with interesting choreography. "Maximum Intensity Strength" was a total departure from this. One of her previous videos "Get In Shape for Your Wedding" had had a strength training section, but it was the typical light weight workouts shown on videos at the time.

"Maximum Intensity Strength" was a blast of cold fresh air. It was the first of its kind. Cathe, a short, tiny woman demonstrated gym style weight lifting using substantial weights on a video tape for the first time. The step aerobics warm-up is in Cathe's traditional style, except that she does include a few calf raises at the end of it to compensate for the fact that they're not included in the workout itself. Then she and her crew appear with real barbells loaded with real weights (35lbs, she tells us) and proceed to do at least two sets of 40 squats, and move on from there. There's no doubt about it, this is real weight lifting. It's not some sissified version of it. It was the first time a serious free weight workout had ever been shown on a tape at all, much less one geared to women, and it was Cathe Friedrich who had the courage to do it.

The opening leg workout is about 20 minutes in length and consists of a high number of repetitions done with what would be considered moderate weights in most gyms. However no one had ever demonstrated a leg workout with such heavy weights on a video before, or, for that matter, such a high number of repetitions. Trying to equal Cathe's feat of doing the workout with a thirty-five pound barbell on her shoulders pushed many women to a new level of ftness prowess that they didn't know they could achieve. The leg exercises are done in straight sets, one after another with only slight rests between them. This is followed by an upper body and ab workout which is structured somewhat differently.

It is divided into sections for each of the major upper body muscle groups as well as the abdominal muscles. She does two sets of three different exericses for each upper body muscle group. Again, the lifting is done in straight, uninterrupted sets with much heavier weights than you usually see in most videos. Cathe also gives brief little snippets of instruction on form before doing each exercise. The set is basic CIA, and the only equipment required are dumbells, a barbell and an aerobic step used in place of a weight bench. You can't get much simpler than that, yet this tape will get your muscles into better shape than most expensive home gyms. The upper body portion, because it's divided into sections, is longer than the lower body portion of the workout. The abdominal section is about 10 minutes of intense, traditional ab exercises, followed by a gentle ending stretch.

This is one of the main drawbacks of the workout. It's just plain long, at least 75 minutes including the warm-up, abs and cooldown. Very few busy people have that kind of uninterrupted workout time. Still I'm glad Cathe put the workout on one tape rather than two and charging more. I would suggest that the best way to use the tape is to split it up and do it over two days rather than all at once. This allows you to really concentrate on the half of the body you're working. Then if you get a free day, try and do the whole thing, because if you do have the time, it will certainly build your endurance level and be a real calorie burner, especially if you use challenging weights.

One question frequently asked on the forum is, "can it be modified for beginners and intermediates?" The answer is, "it depends." Almost any weight training tape can be modified by using less weight for the exercises, but it's not always that simple. Since this tape is long, it requires a lot of endurance just to get through it, so beginners and intermediates should definitely divide it up. The step warm-up could also cause problems for a beginner, so it might be best to warm-up with another tape or on your own. The lower body portion is challenging even if you use nothing but your own body weight as resistance, so beginners should not try and do every repetition. They may also have to go slower than Cathe does because the pace is fairly fast. The upper body portion (except for the push-ups and tricep dips) is much easier to modify because you can simply lower the amount of weight used. The ab workout is also high in fast repetitions, and comes at the end of a very long workout, so beginners shouldn't try to keep up, and should consider performing this section on the following day.

Cathe uses both dumbells and a barbell. It's not necessary to have a barbell to do the tape, but the viewer must have enough knowledge to know how to hold the dumbells to substitute for the barbell. You don't always hold them in exactly the same fashion. With these precautions, I think the tape could be used by beginners and intermediates, but, let's face it, this would be an intimidating tape with which to begin weight training. The same qualities that make it so attractive to advanced exercisers who want to use heavy weights may turn off some beginners. That said however, you defnitely get a lot of workout for your money, and the video provides lots of room to grow and grow. You can go from using no extra weight all to the heaviest weights possible for the number of repetitions demonstrated. For my money, that makes it one of the best fitness investments I've ever made. This tape not only deserves its "Hall of Fame" status, it's the tape that revolutionized weight training at home, especially for women. However this tape is so challenging that even men pay it proper respect. I don't think anyone who is serious about weight training at home should be without this video.

Jane P

12/28/2000