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Old 05-27-22, 02:45 PM  
JENILU
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: AL
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Originally Posted by tracyb View Post
Good morning! Long time lurker feeling convicted to post a review lol. I did the Core Strength and Stretch in the fusion workout. I consider myself at a high beginner level with poor core strength after 2 c sections, a hysterectomy, and arthritic lower back. This was a great workout! I had to use her suggested modifications, but I felt like my whole core was worked. I did use gliders and probably looked like I was flailing around sometimes, but I have never felt my lower abs like I did with this one.

Thankful for this forum being here all these years.
Thankyou so much!! After several abdominal surgeries, I have become pretty weak, even with what seemed like a naturally stronger midsection in the past. I flail no matter what, lol, so I am gonna try it now!
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Old 05-27-22, 04:00 PM  
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Fusion Flow + Glow

I did the 30 minute Fusion Flow Sculpt today and loved it!

I have a couple sets of Gliding discs...the purple Gliding brand ones, Cathe's gliding discs (includes covers for use on hard floor surfaces) and Val Slides, which are more oval/rectangular in shape. I alternated between Cathe's and the purple ones, depending on whether I was on my smooth mat or hard tile floor. I have PF, so standing on a hard surface barefoot for any length of time can be problematic. But, anyone who doesn't like gliding discs (or workouts that use them) could just use some floppy big socks and slide on any hard surface that way, too!

I used three pound weight through most of the workout, and then switched to two by the end. There is a lot of lunging and hip hinged sits while gliding and using light weights for mostly Upper Body work. There are a couple row exercises, some work for biceps/triceps, and some balance (plus core) work towards the end. The majority of the exercises focus on shoulder exercises (while using a single glider on alternating feet) and working lower body/inner thighs. All of the exercise are done standing during this Sculpt workout.

Pacing was great! Jessica was wonderful in this! Set was nice and bright. Wish the Peanut statue was bigger or had been placed between sliding glass doors, so you could see it.

I know I will do this one time and time again. It's very good. I'm looking forward to trying out the other two 30 minute workouts, as well as the shorter Pilates core one!
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Old 05-28-22, 11:53 AM  
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Originally Posted by Rhonda View Post
Interesting that the digital downloads have the chapters, I have the DVD and don't have that option. My choices are Steady state walk; fast walk. Haven't seen any chapters.

I miss the countdown timer also.
I checked the Walk a 5k dvd today and both walks are chaptered every 15 min or so but no mile markers or anything.

I plan to try one of the walks today after the grocery store and library and am interested to see if there are any natural breaks that I can notice when the chapter marks are hit while I'm walking.

Keep getting the dreaded 500 error when trying to post this.
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Old 05-28-22, 12:52 PM  
Pam61
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Fusion Flow + Glow

Today I tried the 30 minute Full Body Flow and liked it, as well! It's very different from the Sculpt workout. This starts out a bit slower with warming up feet (ankles and toes) and is very gentle, calming and graceful. Very ballet inspired arms while using both gliders to work lower body. Some good balance exercises, too!

Core and plank work is done a little more than halfway through the workout. Jessica uses a chair and I used my Fanny Lifter. Don't like a big bulky chair taking up space in my small exercise room. I thought I would dislike this, once I saw the plank holds with gliding exercises. It was very do-able, because the pace is never rushed and you're not doing a ton of reps.

You can see the Peanut statue much better in this workout, too!

Today, I also had my Val-Slides out and found they are a slicker plastic than my Cathe discs or the purple Gliding brand. They were nice because of the cushioned foam that you're standing on...so more support and comfort for the foot. They worked very well on my printed yoga mat (that has a coating on it) making it a great tool for this workout...but can be too slippery for some yoga workouts.
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Old 05-28-22, 09:19 PM  
adawn
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Walk A 5K - Steady Walk (incl. w/u & active recovery)

Walk A 5K - Steady Walk (incl. w/u & active recovery series)


(ETA: I just submitted a version of this review on amazon so you may see it there too.)

Just finished this one this evening. I really enjoyed it despite going into it feeling tired and a bit unmotivated.

65min long (that includes the approx 7 min warmup series and approx 7 min active recovery series).

Just over 5200 steps. Usually I register about 1000 steps per 10 minutes, but I got less in this workout since you're not doing much stepping during the w/u or recovery (not a complaint, just trying to explain my step count).

It definitely felt like steady state cardio.

FWIW, I did the walk barefoot on carpet per usual.

My favorite parts about the walk:


1. Music*

2. Jessica switches the lead leg to the left leg about halfway through the main workout and lets the left leg lead all the way until the last few minutes of the workout. The walk felt more balanced because of this.

3. Outdoor backdrop was great (though the occasional close-up shots in the warmup looked a little hazy to me on my tv screen?).

4. Perfect amount of birds (seagulls?) flying past in the distance. Not distracting since they were far away but they were nice to watch go by in the distance every so often.

5. The usual Jessica positive energy & encouragement and posture check-ins.

Things of note:

-No backgrounders. I thought this would bother me but it didn't. I don't think there would have been room for them anyway where she's working out.

-No mile markers or countdown clocks. I tried to see if I noticed any natural "breaks" in the workout at the two chapter points but I did not notice any "break" points.

-She introduces the arm movement options that sometimes pair with the lower body moves rather late most of the time--after you've been doing the lower body movements for awhile. I feel she could have introduced/prompted the arm movement options just a bit sooner in most cases to keep the heart rate up.

-No spicy walk moves whatsoever or shuffling/cha-cha-cha 1-2-3, ball change stuff. Maybe one brief triple step run-run-run thing but that was it. This was a plus for me because she has plenty of sections in other workouts with these moves so it was nice to have something a bit more simple this time since sometimes my calves get tight with too much of that stuff and as for spicy walking, I can't spicy walk to save my life. I can do the shuffling, ball change, 1-2-3 stuff, and any "choreo" Jessica has ever demonstrated, but I can't seem to "spice up" my marching in place. Jessica says in another workout that you don't have to add all the spices to the soup every time. But for me personally, I make a bland soup every time.

-No kickboxing moves except a couple minutes at the end where you throw a double punch to front with the left lead and then the right. She even comments that she managed to throw a little boxing or kickboxing in at the end right after she does it. I actually like her little punching combos in other workouts and wouldn't have minded more but she kept it simple in this walk I guess.

-There was only one move that was new to me but I am familiar with most of Jessica's repertoire of moves. There were 2-3 slight variations of moves she's used before and then the rest of the usual fare. She manages to move around enough in all directions per usual so that you don't feel like you're just walking in place for 50 minutes.

-I liked the use of the chair to help me balance during the w/u series. I felt I could get a bigger range of motion than usual with ankles, hips, etc.

-I'm still unsure of the heel-toe zigzag walk move in the cooldown/active recovery series. I found it difficult to do in bare feet on carpeting and definitely could not match her speed when she did the second set (but she says as always to go at the speed that feels right to you).

Wishes:
1. More songs with vocals.
2. Slightly shorter warm up and/or active recovery.
3. Cue the optional arm movements sooner.
4. Mile or kilometer markers of some kind and a final 10 minute countdown clock.

*I really liked the music!!! Keep in mind this is relative to her other walking workouts on dvd. I thankfully didn't recognize any songs from her other walking workouts (because she sometimes reuses certain songs). The warmup music was unmemorable, but for the main walk I feel Jessica used better music than usual. Of course music is subjective. But four of the songs had lyrics and I happened to like the general vibe of them and the beat was always perfect with the moves. In between the songs with lyrics was an okay remix-y kind of music. I especially liked the first song with lyrics. The active recovery series/cooldown had a song with lyrics too actually.

I couldn't make out most of the lyrics except a bit of the first song. But keep in mind I'm working out with a big fan blowing on me since it's summer and I sweat a lot in the workout room even with the A/C set at 71 degrees (in the fall/winter we keep it at 63-64 degrees!). I'm guessing they're not hit songs but I liked having a hint of lyrics and (for me) the music was motivating. But, then again, I don't do youtube workouts that may have much better (hit/popular) music. So don't set your expectations too high with this one.

I definitely would NOT buy this dvd based on my claim of it having good music, but I wanted to point out that I feel the music is generally better IMO than in her other Walk On and Walk Strong workouts that I've done.
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Old 05-28-22, 10:20 PM  
CharM
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Steady Walk
adawn, great review! I chuckled when you mentioned the birds, because I couldn't help but notice and was wondering what kind they were.
I can't comment on the music because I couldn't hear it. My husband was playing movie samples at high volume, so it drowned it out. I could hear Jessica's cuing, though.

My dvds arrived late this afternoon and so I popped in the walk dvd. I did the first two miles of the steady state walk. It's disappointing that there aren't any indicators when completing a mile, so thanks to those who'd mentioned it, I knew to use my dvds on-screen display showing "chapter remain".

mile 1 is 15 minutes - at the end of that (or maybe just the beginning of the other) she asks something like, "how are you feeling?"

mile 2 is 16 minutes - this one ends with knee lifts, then walks before moving on to mile 3

mile 3 19 minutes
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Old 05-29-22, 08:18 AM  
katalina
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Northern Illinois
I stained my porch yesterday and Jessica's new Recover on her Stretch & Relax was perfect for loosening me up. Loved it!!
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Old 05-29-22, 11:57 AM  
Karyn
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Yesterday I did the full body workout from Jessica's Fusion Flow without the gliding discs. As with the sculpt one I felt I got a good workout without the discs for those who prefer not to use them. It probably helps that I workout on puzzle mats so I'm able to slide my foot along the mat for most moves. For the planks she shows how to do a similar move to what she's doing with the discs. I may try using them some time but only if a trial goes well using one disc with the sculpt. I'm pretty uncoordinated with the discs even though I've had them for a long time.
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Old 05-29-22, 01:08 PM  
DawnP
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Thumbs up Split Sessions Lower Body - pretty dang tough!

I don't usually like Jessica Smith's strength workouts, but I *love* this one! It's tougher with a more controlled pace and smaller intense pulsing moves. I guess it's more barre-like, slow and you can go heavy.

I usually do YT workouts by Caroline Girvan, Tiff + Dan, Tracey Steen or Sydney Cummings.

In Jessica's lower body workout, she does lunges, squats, deadlifts, glute lifts and more - but she does them by incorporating balance and often follows the basic moves with slow controlled pulsing reps.

But this is not the same as her Walk Strong 3 "Boost Metabolism + Muscle! Strength Training" workouts, which I felt moved too fast and had too many reps (32-64 reps sometimes!).

I am sore today. Also I love the mobility moves she does in the warm-up, something I need to do more of now that I'm almost 60 yo (!). Jessica has great form and the workout flows very well.

For those of you who are slow & heavy kinda folks like me, this might be the alternative workout you do on days when 5 sets of 8 reps of Romanian deadlifts just fills you with dread.

I liked the music, it changes up as you progress, but it's not obnoxious.

And another thing - the camerawork is priceless! She has multiple cameras showing side view, front view and believe it or not, overhead views! This is very helpful when you're trying to get your form right, and see how she organizes the equipment. It looks like a very professional production.

The overhead view was very helpful when she was demonstrating hamstring moves with gliding disks on the floor.

Well done, Jessica. I'm a new fan.

Dawn
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Old 05-29-22, 01:22 PM  
weener
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split session strength

I agree with what Dawn said above. I'm not good at writing but she explain this perfect. I haven't been able to do too much of Jessica's weight workouts with too much compound moves.

Split Sessions Strength was the workout I was most interested in. I did the lower body first – this was perfect for me since I can’t use weights for the lower body due to knee issues – expect for straight leg dead lifts. This workout you can use weights or just your body weight. There was a lot of balance with the first exercises using a step for “toe” dips. The first set Jessica doesn’t use any weights. For the 2nd and 3rd set she does. I did this with no weights and this was tough. I loved this workout – perfect for me. She also did a series of squats, standing inner thigh and one legged dead lifts using the glider. The floor work consisted of inner and out thigh workout, and hamstrings/glues using the disk.

I also did the upper body workout. I also loved this one. I liked the shoulder work which is not used in a lot of workouts. You get a thorough upper body workout – you make it easier or harder depending on weight selection.

I’m so happy with this DVD.
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