Shock Cardio Athletic Step

Cathe Friedrich
Year Released: 2009

Categories: Step Aerobics


This is one of Cathe’s step DVDs from her STS Shock Cardio set. It’s described as a 45 minute step routine with athletic step moves, rather than dance-like step moves. Overall, I liked this DVD more than the Step Moves one (see my 1/3/10 review).

I am a long-time Cathe fan and have every DVD she’s ever put out.

The format:

--lengthy warm-up (6+ minutes)
--3 step routines
--3 step routines all together
--athletic drills
--NO cool down
--stretch.

What I liked about this workout:

--the lengthy warm-up

--the step routines were fun. The routines were more complex that I would have expected from a DVD billed as “athletic step.” I like complex choreography, so I didn’t mind. This makes the routines more interesting for me.

What was neutral about this workout:

--the music. It was more of the techno hip hop music that Cathe uses in her recent DVDs. It was okay, not as annoying as in the music in her Step Moves DVD. The routines were on the beat of the music, which is a plus.

What I didn’t like about this workout:

--Some of the moves are very twisty and turning, and hard on the knees. In the 1st routine, there’s a core repeater off the step, you then twirl around to the back and walk to the back of the room. No way was I going to risk wrenching my knee on this move since I workout on carpet.

--In the 2nd routine there’s a skip across the step move. My feet get all tangled up and I’m really afraid of tripping, so I skip this move as well.

--the athletic drills after step routine 3. They seemed to be just stuck in there to fill time. Maybe the workout description should read “athletic step and drills.” They weren’t that intense, so I didn’t consider them to be drills, more like additional moves.

--NO cool down. At the end of the drills, Cathe states that we should cool down on our own before doing the stretch. Well, that’s not going to happen for me. It might have been better if the warm-up was a tad shorter. This routine is not that difficult or intense that a 6+ minute warm-up is needed. Cutting 2 minutes from the warm-up and using this for a cool down would have been good.

Overall, this was an okay workout. I’ll do this one more frequently that I do Step Moves. Will I purchase more Cathe Step DVDs? Probably not. I prefer Amy Bento these days, mainly because of I like her energizing music selection.

I still have a soft spot for Cathe since I credit her for starting me with heavy weight lifting.



Instructor Comments:
Cathe is somewhat subdued in this DVD. Her cuing was okay for me, since I don’t like a lot of explanation for a move.

Nancy Loderick

01/07/2010