Tae Bo II Get Ripped Advanced Workout

Billy Blanks
Year Released: 2001

Categories: Boxing/Kickboxing/Martial Arts


I am wishy-washy about this tape. One second I think "I liked it!" and the next minute I think "that was disappointing. . . "

It was, well, your standard Tae Bo! I liked the workout. I felt that it was pretty intense but I am WAY de-conditioned to Tae Bo workouts so that probably factored in. It wasn't a total intensity, go-go-go every minute workout (like I hear, via the grapevine, that the blue advanced tape in this series is). There is enough marching, shuffling, and half time movements interspersed with the intense stuff that it would probably feel fairly moderate to someone who is conditioned to kickboxing. I think the reason I swing back and forth about this video is that the workout was FUN and intense and I liked it. But the music was so-so. In fact, I hardly noticed it. When I previewed TB AL 8 which I recently got in trade, I could hardly stay on the couch because the MUSIC was so fun!! So I have a preconceived notion that Tae Bo = great music. In this case, I still really liked the workout, BUT it was just less inspiring without the great music. There was still Billy, talking to the camera, gettin' in your face! It was motivating in that sense. But it just didn't make my feet want to hop and jump like some of the Live series.

The workout was excellent, it started with a 6 minute vigorous warmup. As Billy is prone to do, he just jumps right into it instead of TRULY warming you up (which my reluctant body wasn't ready for this morning!), then goes into a nice series of Tae Bo stretches. The workout itself (excluding the warmup) is 49 minutes and (true confessions time) I couldn't do it all! He does some standing glute and ab work interspersed in the aerobic section but you definitely stay aerobic or close to it during that stuff. About 42 minutes into the workout he stops you cold at the bottom of a plie squat and proceeds to keep you there for 51 long, long seconds. One guy is making horrible faces which made me want to laugh ("hey I'm a GIRL and I don't have to make faces like that!!" --of course, I didn't stay for the whole 51 seconds, either. . . I guess my theory is that if you have to make faces THAT horrible you should either be in labor, or if exercising you should take a water break. It made me laugh which broke the concentration it was taking to stay there!). Then you go into a brief floorwork section. At the end is a power move that was, well, fun to watch anyway (yowza!), then you go into a tai chi cooldown that is WAY too short, some stretches, and a motivational speech by Billy.

Tae Bo is so endearingly quirky. . . Yeah the warmup is too suddenly intense and the cooldown astonishingly inadequate, but we're all educated enough consumers to deal with modifying that if we need to. Overall I felt like this was a good abs and glutes workout, and a fairly long, fairly high intensity aerobic workout (probably moderate to confirmed Tae Bots) that was enjoyable to do. The only real disappointment was the lack of good, driving music.

Susan Phillips

03/05/2001