Step Reebok: Extreme Step

Gin Miller
Year Released: 1998

Categories: Step Aerobics


If you are contemplating getting Gin Miller's Extreme Step, thinking, as I did, that it will be like Intense Moves or even better, you may be disappointed. I bought it, and I wish I hadn't. I give it a "B", at best. I thought that "Intense Moves" was a definite "A". LOVE IT! But this one has bad camera angles, weird moves that just don't look like as much fun, and some "intense" moves that seem somewhat risky.

Intense Moves had very clear, straight-on camera angles. But in Extreme Step, the camera moves make it seem like your waaaaay out of the action. There's a "big guy" in the front row, who for no apparent reason, cues a "transition move" (hop back from the step, hop back up toward the step) once in a while, while the "low impact modifications" are done by a women who is hidden so far back that you can't see what she's doing! Nor are the modifications explained well.

There are numerous one-armed pushups that look especially unfun. Maybe one or two sets of them would be o.k., but she keeps coming back to them over and over. My carpal tunnel syndrome wrist says "ouch" just thinking about it. Since I like all the other videos I have from Gin (especially Intense Moves and the Reebok Circuit Challenge..fun!), I found myself wondering who designed this tape. How could Gin, one of my favorite instructors, forget how to do a good video?

I also had the impression that the video wasn't all that "extreme" (though you get a perceived exertion check *every two minutes*!) At least, any DOABLE moves didn't really make it intense enough. There are intense moves like a "whip yourself around in a 360-degree circle" thingy, that you can modify by doing a quarter turn, a half turn, or a three-quarters turn (help, I'm getting motion sick!). I thought that move, as well as some others, were not very effective, but just thrown in to make the workout "extreme". Maybe Gin has a contract w/Reebok that requires her to pump out a new video every few months. Time was running out, and her boss came to her one day to say "Gin, you either make a new video, or you're out of a job". Under pressure, Gin threw together this workout, getting ideas from anyone who offered them (especially the "big guy", whose main contribution was that ever-so-inventive "transition move"). This could also explain the repetitiveness of the choreography.

Kathryn

09/23/1998