Sound Mind, Sound Body

I found this routine on YouTube. On Amazon, the subtitle is "Ultimate Fitness Boot Camp," and throughout the routine, instructor David Kirsch does repeatedly refer to it as a "boot camp." I generally don't enjoy that style of workout, mainly because of the high impact and push-ups, but this routine seemed to have other things I liked, so I gave it a try.

The setting for this workout is nice, outdoors on a beach. David is joined by 5-6 background exercisers. Although the year of this workout is 2003, it looks and feels more like mid-90s ESPN. ;) The workout incorporates light weights (2#, 3#, or 5#--David says that 5# is "heavy"), high impact moves such as jumping jacks, body weight moves such as push-ups and squat thrusts, and random other things, like kickboxing.

The first part of the DVD was a doable mostly cardio routine. Although the weights are used, I thought they mainly enhanced the cardio effect. I found some of the high-impact moves difficult and potential unsafe with the weights--e.g., jumping jacks with overhead press. I modified for the impact (which I don't enjoy anyway), and this was doable.

Most of the second half of the workout was on the ground. I believe that David does about 5 separate sets of push-ups total plus crab walks and tricep dips; I found myself doing my own thing quite a bit. He finishes with pretty traditional crunches and then a brief stretching segment.

I had to modify this workout quite a bit to make it more to my liking. I don't mind that so much and actually might have considered doing the workout again if not for David's poor instruction. His performance was totally off beat, and his cueing is completely lacking--you could see the background people trying to figure it out! Sometimes he would count down and often finish just as he was saying "2 more..." ??? Plus, he tended to refer to himself in the third person regarding certain moves being his specialty. (insert roll eyes)

This is a pretty tough workout. Not as tough as Cathe's Bootcamp, but still pretty tough and thorough. It includes squats, lunges, frog jumps, mountain climbers, crunches, crab walk, jumping jacks and shadow boxing to name a few. The length is about 42 minutes.