I knew this video was either a hit or a miss,considering my past experiences with Denise Austin's tapes.

In general, her tapes are too low intensity, but I do like to mix my workouts up--by doing low, medium, & high intensity workouts. I have been exercising with videos for over 10 years, and I consider myself an advanced exerciser, with my favorites being Kari Anderson, Cathe Friedrich, and Charlene Prickett.

On with the review: I have done this video only 2 times so far, but I really do like it! There are actually 2 workouts on this tape--they are a little over 20 minutes long each, but I do both parts at a time, skipping the cooldown on the first workout. Denise (or maybe I should say John, since John Griswold is listed as the choreographer at the end of the video), warms you up thoroughly, sprinkling the basics of kickboxing in among the stretches--jabs, cross punches, uppercuts, and front kicks. The workouts themselves alternate between these kickboxing moves, adding side, back, and roundhouse kicks to the moves above, and aerobic moves: marching, jump rope jumps and skips, side touches, jumping jacks, and high knee jogs. I particularly like the way the jumping jacks are integrated into the workout--they are spontaneous and fun, the way jacks are supposed to be.

I am not a very flexible person, and my hamstrings are particularly tight, so I was a little worried about being able to do the kicks. I really didn't have much trouble--the aerobic moves kept my muscles warm, and when I couldn't kick as high as the exercisers on the screen, I didn't feel like I had to (kick high even when I couldn't) to feel like I was getting a good workout, because of the aerobic moves and because there was enough of a combination of kickboxing moves so that I wasn't worried about my heart rate being in range.

Denise is very encouraging, and when she tells you that it's okay not to kick real high if you can't, it makes you listen more to your body and not push it too far. The cuing on this tape is typical Denise Austin- awful; she is the worst I've ever seen at cuing, a few times the people in the video cannot follow her either. This made me mad at first (but it also gave me incentive for my kicking & punching), but the second time I did the workout, it just seemed funny.

Anyway, the moves are basic enough that you can follow the workout without too much trouble. I would rate this video at medium intensity, if you do both workouts together and low to medium intensity if you only do one workout at a time. The first workout is low, and the second workout is medium. This is a very fun video, and it left me wanting more kickboxing! Good job, John!

Instructor Comments:
Denise Austin is very energetic and motivating. She can really encourage you to believe in yourself if you have doubts. However, she is probably the worst "cuer" around, and her tapes are usually of a bad quality--I think that most of the tapes are recorded in EP mode, making the tracking seem to be a little "off" all the time. The quality of this tape is much better than previous Denise Austin videos--I think that this tape was recorded in SP for a change.

jennfier