I have owned and traded away several Kathy Smith videos of the last few years. I am not a huge fan of her and I really dislike her cardio workouts. But I had heard good things about this one, so I went ahead and bought the DVD. I am very glad I did. This is a great workout, and I think fans of Kathy will be pleased with it. I also have her first Timesaver weight video; the second one is similar in format and style, but she has made some improvements.
The first improvement is that she actually does a warm-up with this one. I always hated that the first one didn’t have a warm-up and I was expected to provide my own. She also does better stretching in this video. The first LWTW had very brief stretches in a kind of do your own thing format, but she leads two stretching sessions (one after lower body, one after upper body) that are pretty good. It did bother me, though, that I had to lay down for the lower body stretch and then get back up to do upper body. I think standing lower body stretches would have been more appropriate.
The second improvement is in the exercises. She has altered standard exercises like bicep curls by having you cross your leg over and twist your torso. I don’t know if this really makes the exercises more effective but it was a nice change of pace.
The third improvement is in Kathy herself. She is a lot calmer than in some of her other videos. And when she wanders around the class she actually gives good form pointers. In the past I have always felt like she was just walking around so she wouldn’t have to do all the work! But this time she seemed to have a purpose in it.
The video consists of a warm up, two lower body sections, two upper body sections and an abs section. I think the sections have been broken down in other reviews so I won’t do it again. I loved the abs section and am feeling it the next day, and I think I will use this video often.

Michelle (mchellet)