Very acsessible ab wrokout for all levels
I don't know what the the reviewer below was writing about, when s/he lamented that there were not enough crunches. The entire video, with the example of the brief warm up comprises soley a variety of crunches. I love this vidoe because it makes the dreaded crunches accessible for me, by making them fun and giving good terms to visualize proper form. I don't have the motivaiton to do as many when I don't use the video.With the exception of belly dancing, I hate stomach exercises, because too many videos and use positions in which it is dificult to keep correct form in as I grow tired, or the form is never well defined. In exercise, form is everything. It makes sure that you exercise muscles properly - very important for abs because bad ab form can translate to thicker abs, regardless of the number of crunches. Good form also prevents neck and back strain. The positions that the instructor, Terry, gvies on this video tape make the exerciese fool-proof, and I have never strained anything doing this video. I do feel tighter abs after the workout. And right now I am in pretty good shape (from long distance running, Bikram yoga,belly dancing, and occasional pilates), so that I don't always benefit from work out videos. However, when I first purchased this tape, many years ago, may abs were fairly neglected. Yet I was able to finish the tape, and amazed that a half hour of ab exercises had passed by the time that I finished my thevideo, as I had grown to dread ab exercises, particularly crunches, becuase I associated them with bad back and neck pains, regardless of how much I tried to keep good form. True, Terry does talk alot, but she does not stop the program to do so, and I feel that the dialogue makes the time pass quicker, even after having heard it hundreds of time. It's too bad that this is not available in dvd because my copy is geting shabby. Also, because the tape is divided into three sections, excluding a warm up and cool down. Therefore, if you don't feel that you have time for the entire tape, or if you want to refine a group of exercise (after all these years, I am still not sure if I am doing the last exercise in the last group before the cool down correctly - the reason why I did not give the tape a 5), then you could just play one section, but it is so much trouble with video tapes to fast forward until an isolated section is ready to play; particulalry when you are shor on time. Also, I thought the music could be more motivating, but music tastes are very subjective. Sometimes I play my own in the background.
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