I've had this one around for a long time, and it has been languishing in a corner on my bottom shelf. In a fit of industriousness, I pulled it out tonight and now, I am sorry I avoided it. This is another solid workout from Kathy. After a lengthy plug for her other tapes and products, she presents two twenty-minute workouts, for upper and lower body respectively. There is a bonus ab section at the end. Each workout has options (with their own special cueing) for those using heavier weights versus lighter weights.

The upper body section was a lot of fun. Kathy rotates opposing body parts, pairing chest and back, biceps and triceps, then tacking on shoulders at the end. For each exercise, she does first regular reps, then pulsing reps, then regular reps again. Even using relatively lighter weights, I felt these. She also tells you when to use your heavier weights and when to jump back down to lighter ones. This workout just flew by.

The lower body section felt a lot slower. It seemed to have far more body parts in it than standard workouts. For example, Kathy classifies upper and lower things as separate, with calves, hamstrings, buttocks and legs in a general sense all getting separate sets with roughly equal numbers of reps. Perhaps recognizing that this might feel tedious, she frequently says we are almost done the workout, which only made me more impatient as it never seemed to be true. She would say "after this, we are almost done" and then launch into a lengthy round of numerous moves to target some part of the muscle I hadn't thought of. It was thorough, I'll give her that. And it was only 20 minutes. But it felt like forever!

Kathy cues well and offers several multi-part moves that up the interest level (such as a side squat-sweep-plie combo). She has an easy rapport with the class, whom she addresses from time to time, and she periodically wanders among them to offer form pointers. She shrieks a little more than usual in this tape, generally before she offers a motivational "good for you" after finishing a long set. I could see that getting a bit annoying, but in a workout so short, I am more inclined to forgive quirks like that.

I did the whole tape at once and feel I got a decent workout. In the future, I could see myself using the upper body workout more often. It is a pain to cue the tape to the lower body section for an add-on, especially with so many other quickie lower body tapes available (Quick Fix and Tamilee's I Want Those. tapes come to mind). Overall though, a solid tape and a decent workout.

Joanna