In Shape is an older workout (circa 1994 or so) which basically gives you a total body weight workout in just under an hour. The look isn’t dated and music is sort of bland instrumental. Rachel does the whole workout alone. The set is relatively plain, done in solid colors (no fuchsia or anything extreme).

The workout is divided up as follows:

SHOULDERS: Side lateral raise, military (shoulder) press, rear delt lifts, upright rows. You do 2 sets consisting of 12 reps of each of these.
ABS, CHEST, BACK: Ab crunch sitting at the end of a bench, lean back slightly, bring legs up bending knees to meet chest. Pec flies lying on bench, lat raises. You do one set of 20 ab crunches and 2 sets of 12 reps of the other exercises.
ARMS: Tricep kickbacks, hammer curls turning wrist so it’s a regular bicep curl, wide bicep curls, lying tricep extension (arm goes laterally over chest), pullovers with one dumbbell. Rachel says she invented the tricep extension done that way.

Upper body ends here about 24 minutes into the workout.

ABDOMINALS, BUTTOCKS, LOWER BACK: Oblique crunches—sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Lean back on your hands, bend your knees and pull your legs towards your chest, twisting to alternate sides to work the obliques. Several pelvic lift variations. Ab crunch lying back on elbows with one leg straight out, the other with knee bent so it points straight up and foot is even with other knee. Bring the straight leg up to work the abs. Full sit-up with one leg bent (sort of a teaser variation). Oblique crunch lying on side with legs straight out, lift both legs (sort of like in Cathe’s workouts or Tamilee’s I Want Those Abs).
THIGHS (FRONT AND BACK), BUTTOCKS: One set of deadlifts, one set of plie squats.
CALVES, HIPS, THIGHS, WAIST: Standing outer thigh lifts, calf raises standing on one leg only, squats, one leg standing hamstring curl (Rachel has her leg in sort of an awkward position for this).
THIGHS, BUTTOCKS, LOWER BACK: Seesaw lunges—lunge on right leg, rise bringing left foot forward to meet right leg. Dip back with left leg, bringing right foot back so you’re standing in starting position again. Alternate sides. Back extension—lie on stomach, extend legs straight back and lift one leg at a time.
COOL-DOWN STRETCH: Lower body only.

This workout really does hit every muscle, and it moves slowly enough that you could go pretty heavy if you wanted to. Modifications are shown in little insets for most exercises. Rachel gives form pointers via voiceover, but the funny thing is, the voiceover goes over the regular instruction, rather than the regular instruction being muted or left out. During the upper body section, she stretches at the end of every segment, which is why the cool-down at the end is only for lower body.

Rachel’s form isn’t good on some of the exercises, though maybe at the time, it was considered proper form. Also, she does strange numbers of reps, like only doing one set of deadlifts, but two sets of most other exercises. I felt sort of unbalanced afterwards, but since I did feel this all over the next day, that may have been more mental than physical.

I think if you know proper form and want something relatively quick and simple, this might be a good workout for you. It is currently only available on VHS. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this to beginners because of the problems with form, but it definitely isn’t the worst thing out there, despite its age.

Instructor Comments:
Rachel seems to have quite an impressive educational background related to fitness. She explains the moves well and briefly demonstrates each one before you do it. She looks very fit, but not overly skinny like many instructors today. Her manner is very calm and encouraging. On the back of the cover, they show her doing various poses rather than the workout, but she isn’t at all “fluffy” in the workout. Rather, she seems calm and authoritative.

Pratima