Crunch Total Resculpt

An intermediate-level sculpting video, with signature Crunch look. Airy, bright hardwood-floor room apparently set in a city high-rise (though I think the "city views" may be fake). Typical 20-something It girls backing up Kendall, but they seem less fake and annoying than those in some previous Crunch videos.
Didn't notice any outright gaudy outfits or mugging for the camera (standard-issue bare midriffs and some navel rings). Music is familiar to anyone who has done a lot of workout videos, Dynamix, that soundtrack from Caribbean workout, and techno/house muzak, playing very softly.

Kendall leads you through a methodical routine for lower body and upper body. Stiff-legged deadlifts. Lunges and knee lifts that eventually combine together. STationary lunges with pulsing squats. Plie squats. Regular squats with front raises. All of these are great, and if there had been more reps of them, the overall workout would be more intense.

Upper body includes bicep and hammer curls, with a variation on the Crazy eights theme. Tricep kickbacks and overhead press, and a rather tough shoulder series with front raises, military press and pullback combined at the end. These were tough with 8 lb weights, but I found 5 lb weights to be too light for the other exercises. It was strange to me that the gang NEVER seemed to adjust their weights.

There were also standing rows for the back (8 lb weights were too light for these) and pushups and flies for the chest. No ab work per se.

A decent 45-minute light sculpting workout. If you like Crunch workouts, this isn't bad to add to your collection.

Instructor Comments:
Adorable and professional. He manages to sound constantly enthusiastic without being forced. Excellent cuer, easy on the eyes, great instructor. I still wish he would make an advanced-level video--cardio or sculpt!

acey

I was looking for a shortish (40-45 minute) total body workout to alternate with my favorite strength workout -- the upper/lower body workout included on Cathe's Basic Step/Body Fusion DVD.
This is what I want in a strength workout: I don't want to use too much equipment. I don't want too many reps, and I want the speed to be slow enough to enable me to use heavier weights.
This workout pretty much fills the bill. I like it. I don't love it as I do the Cathe workout mentioned previously.
Like the add ons from BS/BF the workout is split into upper and lower body workouts. I never split them-- preferring to do all my strength (minus abs) on the same day.
The lower body section starts with plie squats. For some of them you are doing arm raises. I omit this move and use heavier weights. I don't see the point of adding the upper body moves if it forces you to use a lighter weight.
Kendell then has you do lunges and then lunges with a leg extension. he continues the lower body/balance work with deadlifts and then deadlifts with leg abductions.
That is it for lower body. I was surprised there were not any regular squats.
The upper body seemed a little more comprehensive although he does suffer from Karen Voight syndrome (the belief that one pair of weights may be appropriate for all exercises. Sorry, but I can use a much heavier weight for lat rows than bent over flys.) For the most part there is enough time to switch weights, although I did have to pause the DVD a few times.
There was nothing particularly new or fancy with this workout. Kendell uses some tempo variations to mix things up at times, but the exercises are pretty standard. The one more "unique" thing he did was combine a bunch of arm/back exercises together for a few reps. If anyone has ever done Gilad's Arms of Steel workout, it is reminiscent of what he does near the end of that workout.
Kendell finishes off on the floor, working chest. There are push ups, flys, and chest presses. I found the one armed flys kind of awkward and difficult. I think I will make them double armed in the future.
Each workout has its own warm up. I preferred the upper body warm up and will probably just use that one in the future. One problem is that the warm up is not its own chapter. The first set of exercises for each workout is included in each warm up, forcing you to fast forward through one warm up (I don't see the point of doing both warm ups.)
The set is typical Crunch. The class is fairly large, as is typical with Crunch workouts. None of the outfits stood out as horrible, as is atypical of Crunch workouts.
The music is not particularly memorable, but I don't pay much attention to music in strength workouts.

Instructor Comments:

Roz