Bellydance Fitness for Beginners: Arms and Abs

Bellydance Fitness Arms and Abs is designed to tone your upper body using bellydance-inspired movements. In the first half of the workout, you will do a variety of arm movements, most of which require you to hold the arms at shoulder level or above. Although the voiceover instruction suggests that these moves will tone your biceps and triceps, I felt them mostly in my shoulders, which quickly became fatigued. Eventually, you move on to working the chest and ribs, mainly through isolation movements. The final ten minutes of this workout are performed on the floor. You'll start with several non-traditional abs exercises--eg, leg lifts while propped on your elbows--and then you'll work on more traditional crunches. The workout finishes with several yoga-inspired stretches, and the total time comes in at about 28 minutes.

Overall, I found this to be an okay light toning routine. However, because the workout concentrates on the upper body, there is no footwork, which removes the fun factor (as well as the cardio work) that exists in other videos of this series (eg, Basic Moves). If you're interested in toning the arms and abs and are looking for something a bit different, this workout might be for you, but if you want to experiment with some fun bellydance moves, you'll probably want to try one of the other videos in the Bellydance for Fitness series.

Instructor Comments:
Veena and Neena are obviously both very competent dancers. They teach through voiceover instruction, and they generally display the movements in a simple, easy-to-follow manner.

Beth C (aka toaster)