Roll off the Pounds

My local library recently acquired several workout DVDs from "Bodhi Lifestyle", one of which was "Roll Off The Pounds" with Lucy Knight. I did this today and thought I'd do a mini-review because I haven't seen anything about it here. The workout is described as follows:

"Roll off the pounds is an innovative Gymball workout, designed to burn fat and lose weight fast. The program takes you through warm up, a full aerobic routine, a fat burning circuit, tummy toning and a stretch."

The workout is done outdoors and the scenery is lovely. I think this may be a British production because the instructor, Lucy Knight, has an English accent. I had no problem following her cuing (and love the way she refers to "your bottom"). It is roughly 60 minutes long and consists of the following sections:

Warmup - 9 minutes of moves and stretches on the ball and some moves holding the ball.
Aerobics - 15 minutes mainly standing moves (i.e. grapevines with turns, mambos with turns, marches, etc.) holding the ball almost the whole time, with a few "bounce" sits on the ball and right back up again.
Circuit - 17 minutes consisting of 30 second "intervals", generally alternating between high impact (modifiable) and low.
Abdominals – 9 minutes of pilates-type exercises.
Stretch – 10 minutes of stretching moves.

The workout is an interesting mixture and the time went by fast; however, personally, I don't care for cardio-type moves holding a ball, but I can feel it in my shoulders now so it obviously works the upper arms. She did a lot of turns/spins and I found that they made me a bit dizzy and I couldn't keep up so just did what I could (I'm very coordination-challenged and I workout on a carpet which affects spinning moves – other people may find this part super easy and enjoyable). The circuit part had a good variety of exercises - there's a lot of up and down, moving between standing and getting on the floor and back up again. I don't mind that myself, I just consider it part of getting exercise. The abs section was good using standard pilates moves with the ball. I can't flip my legs over my head so just did reverse curls. The closing stretch was fairly thorough.

I'm glad I got an opportunity to try this one and I would say that the workout description quote is accurate. However, I wasn't crazy about the aerobics part because of having to hold the ball through the whole thing which makes it cumbersome. I'd rather do a straight cardio workout followed by a toning workout on a ball rather than trying to incorporate both, but that's just me.

(P.S. I have no relationship with anyone whatsoever involved in the production of any exercise videos).

Instructor Comments:
Professional, pleasant, lovely accent.

Fiona Galbraith