20 Minute Yoga Makeover - Flat Abs

Sara Ivanhoe
Year Released: 2004

Categories: Abs/Core , Yoga


I really love this workout as a complement to traditional ab work. While I wouldn't replace my Cathe ab workouts with this, I think the slow controlled movement in this workout is a nice change of pace from the fast paced ab work Cathe and others do. The emphasis is on less reps with lots of stretching.

The workout begins with a nice warm up with side bends and twists along with the levitation move found in Core Max. As an added bonus, all the twists and stretchs in the workout really got the kinks out of my back and neck. It also increased my range of motion with my neck.

Following the warm up is a nice series of planks with inverse crunches (bringing the knee to the forehead.) This requires quite a bit of upper body strength as you hold yourself in plank and 3-legged down dog for quite a while. I found this challenging but also effective.

Next is seated postures like boat pose wtih twists. She starts out simple so that beginners have their pose right away but then goes into the more advanced postures. In the future, I'll probably go right into the advanced postures.

She finishes with some upper body work that includes slow bicycles with bent and then straight legs. She also does some crunches that she calls mundra crunches. Basically, you do a crunch and then hold it for a few breaths. Very nice change of pace from traditional crunches. She also does some twists where you lie on your back and take bent legs or straight legs to one side and then the other.

The music is in this workout is all instrumental. I really enjoyed it. There are some driving piano melodies along with some new age stuff that sounds like Yanni. I really liked it a lot. It wasn't intrusive but was upbeat and added to the workout. I also liked how she had stretches between each exercise. The time flew by. I would highly recommend this workout to someone who is bored with traditional ab work and wants to try something a little different.

Instructor Comments:
Very down to Earth and encouraging. Some might find her patronizing. She shows excellent form and clearly knows her stuff.

Elisabeth (pipsqueak3211)

05/12/2005