I just did this workout this morning and wanted to share my thoughts on it.

I'm a certified personal trainer who specializes in In-Home and Workplace fitness. I always enjoy seeing how various other fitness professionals put together workouts, especially those that are meant to be done in someone's home with minimal equipment since that's the environment I work in.

The best trainers I know aren't afraid to learn and assimilate new ideas in any and every way possible and dvds are one of many great resources available to supplement their knowledge or at least trigger some new ideas.

I have reviewed Jari's first "Ripped" dvd previously and I definitely felt this one was far superior in so many ways. Obviously Jari's approach has evolved between the original "Ripped" and this program and "Ripped to the Core" reflects that growth.

On this program she put together a workout utilizing many compound and combination movements which use a lot of muscle mass throughout the body and also helps to develop neuromuscular control of complex movements.

Though not a beginner workout in my opinion, she does show lots of modifications and has some of the various "students" on the dvd demonstrating different variations of the exercises. Still, in spite of the modifications, there's very little here I would do with a deconditioned client and it would take time for them to physically adapt to these movements in order to perform them safely.

Each section is individually chaptered which I like because each segment is pretty intense and requires a certain amount of muscular endurance. By having each segment separate it give one the opportunity to get a little extra rest between segments, or easily pause the machine to get hydrated or just additional rest. This is a positive because that extra bit of recovery allows you to "go all out" on the next segment.

Only a few things bother me about this dvd. One is the over emphasis on constantly referring to the calories burned, or the idea that it's burning carbohydrates specifically etc. Besides seeming a little hard to conclusively prove, I feel that an over emphasis on trying to give caloric expenditure is somewhat irrelevant.

What I mean is that if one's goal is fat loss then diet is going to play the biggest part of that process. No matter how many calories you expend during a workout, if you're diet isn't supporting the exercise then you won't see much in terms of physical results. Certainly if one hasn't exercised, maintains the same diet and then exercises they will be burning more calories than before, BUT, you probably aren't going to get "ripped" if you don't get serious about how you eat!

To put it another way, if you eat cleanly then exercise will help you get fit and tone, but if you exercise properly but eat poorly, you will get more fit but you can still have a lot of body fat no matter how many calories you burn during exercise. To burn 500 calories takes a monumental physical effort, to eat 500 calories takes about 2 seconds of poor food choices.

The other thing that bothers me is the unsupported bent over rows. To me (and also exercise physiologist Douglas Brooks), the risk isn't worth the reward for this type of exercise and I think it's setting a lot of people up for injury. Even though Jari does constantly remind people to modify if at risk, I think it's a poor choice to place these types of exercises in home dvds where folks don't have someone to monitor their form. Most folks can't tell if what they are doing is safe, they'd be better off with a supported one arm row.

From a practical standpoint, I think for many people the length of the program can be problematic, since it's about an hour or so long. It would be more practical to take a workout like this and divide it up into two 30 minute workouts, each with a warm-up and cool-down, but that's just my opinion on how it might better serve more folks, it isn't something that is an indisputable negative.

Instructor Comments:
I do like Jari as a dvd instructor, she is very business like and not a perky annoying instructor. You never feel like she is speaking down to her audience which I think is a positive. Some folks may find her a little dull, but I'd take a little dull over someone who is too perky. Personally I like folks like Tony Horton who have a sense of humor and still inspire one to work hard, but Jari does a perfectly good job in her programs, is very likeable and sincere, and has good presence.

Scott (Yogadad)