Body Bar: Energy Action Circuit

Mindy Mylrea
Year Released: 2001

Categories: Body Bar , Circuit Training (cardio and weights)


I finally did this tape this morning using my 18 pound bodybar and trust me, that was plenty enough weight. This tape is a 60 minute workout and is basically a cross between Mindy's Extreme Interval's and Pump Party.

She starts with a quick and simple warm-up with the bar on the floor. She then has you pick up the bar and get into squat formation. If you like squats, you'll love this tape because you do a lot of them. She ends the section doing killer plyo squats. This section definitely gets the HR going too.

Next is the cardio portion (like the squats weren't already enough!). This is typical Mindy cardio. The bar is on the floor and you do things around and over it. The intervals are very quick and don't last too long so they are do-able. A lot of the moves are familiar from her others tapes, like the football drill. No complex choreography here. In between the drills, Mindy has you walk in place to bring your heartrate down before going into the next interval.

After the cardio section Mindy takes you right into upperbody work. I did this with my 18-pound bodybar and it was plenty. Mindy says she is using a 472 pound bodybar, but I wouldn't recommend trying that at home. She works each body part with one specific exercise, but you do about a million reps so those muscles are getting fatigued. She also adds in some compound moves to each exercise. For instance, when doing bent rows, she has you balance on one leg with the other leg stretched out behind. When doing military presses, you are on one foot doing one-legged squats. With biceps you do calf raises (I think - my memory is going), and with triceps you work the shins.

Next is more cardio and legwork again. She brings in those plyo squats again and finishes up the section with jumping lunges. After the first set of jumping lunges, Mindy looks behind her and realizes her background exercisers wimped out on the lunges, so she decides to torture us and do them again.

The tape concludes with a few sets of pushups with a few variations. Mindy throws in a very quick plank section and a few Supermans to work the back. This section is also very quick. There is no abwork and the stretch at the end is short. Mindy does plug the other Bodybar videos, saying there are some good ones out there that fill the void on this tape with abs and stretching.

Overall, I really enjoyed this tape. It is an advanced workout and similar in style to Extreme Intervals and Pump Party. I will use this tape often as it is a good fat-burner and keeps the heartrate up through most of the tape. Yes, it is higher impact but the intervals are nice and quick and Mindy has you march in place after each one to bring the HR back down. Mindy is her usual chatty self, which I love. I actually had to stop two separate times during this tape because I started laughing so hard at some of her comments. The nice thing is that I was able to use one piece of equipment through the whole tape and was challenged, especially during the plyo squats and lunges, but even during the upper body section. So, if you like Mindy and her intensity, and you want a shortened combination of her Extreme Intervals/Pump Party, you'll enjoy this tape.

Janet W.

04/20/2001