I'm hooked on these tapes. Upper body is my focus, and these tapes definitely fit the bill. After only three weeks I'm noticing serious changes in my arms and back. These tapes, while tough, are also easy in a strange way and very doable-- it requires no motivating myself whatsoever to pull them out.

This video is very different from her strength work in other tapes. First of all, it's a nice mixture of heavy weights/low reps and lower weights/high reps. She says that's for "specific shaping enhancements" and I believe her. She also includes some new exercises in this tape, such as a compound bench press/flye for chest, arnold press and seated clean and press for the shoulders, a v-shaped posterior delt flye.

First of all, you do about 11 sets for each body part-- extremely thorough. I really, really enjoyed the chest work in this. There are only two sets of pushups. She also incorporates an inclined bench here for much of the chest work, as this focuses on the upper chest, which gives you that nice upper chest "line" that I didn't see appear until I started using an incline.

The shoulder section is not what I expected and it disappointed me just a little. For one thing, she doesn't use a barbell at all-- no military presses, which make me feel all bad and strong. All exercises are done with dumbbells and there are quite a few sets done with low weights/high reps. Also, no upright rows. All the "heavy duty" shoulder work seems to be missing-- the arnold presses are the heaviest. You use moderate to heavy weights for these and there are three sets. You can't go quite as heavy as you do for military presses because the arnold press involves a twist and it's a little harder to accomplish. There are lots of delt flyes, though, which really did make my shoulders burn.

The tricep work is great, and NO KICKBACKS OR OVERHEAD FRENCH PRESSES! I hate kickbacks. This also includes a lying down cross-body kickback, which I love, you can really feel the triceps working on these. This section really made my triceps ache, and she ended with the famous and wonderful tricep dips with a barbell in your lap. Excellent.

The whole workout is about 40 minutes. Very easy to slip it in. Worth every penny and then some.

Instructor Comments:
See legs review!

Sara Whitney