Great Body Guaranteed

This is an early Beachbody production, apparently filmed in a corner of a gym. There are tons of club step risers stacked behind the exercisers, and you can see cars going by in a window or mirror at the back of the room. This doesn't really affect the workout much and isn't as distracting as it sounds. The exercisers each have their own little mat for the floor work.

The Beachbody timers are onscreen, albeit in a more primitive form than Slim Series or any of the newer workouts. Music–was there any? It was so short I guess I didn't care. Production values are obviously not up to the latest Beachbody standards, but I didn't really mind the simple setting. Though it's a slightly older production (her hair is REALLY short) the clothes and the set probably won't end up look dated.

As with the other Guaranteed workouts, there's no warmup or stretch, just 13 exercises done for 45 seconds each. It's actually not 13 different exercises as each leg counts as one exercise. All of them are done unweighted, though you could easily hold dumbbells or wear ankle weights. I didn't even bother to wear shoes.

Exercise 1 - Squats

Exercise 2 - Roundhouse kick (right leg)

Exercise 3- Roundhouse kick (left leg)

Exercise 4 - Rear kicks on hands and knees (right leg)

Exercise 5- Rear kicks (left leg)

Exercise 6 - Rear pulse with foot flexed, going straight upward (right leg)

Exercise 7 - Rear pulse (left leg)

Exercise 8 - Fire hydrant with leg bent going out to side, then straightening, then bending to come back down (right leg)

Exercise 9 - Fire hydrant (left leg)

Exercise 10 - pelvic tilts

Exercise 11 - pelvic tilt with right leg up

Exercise 12 - pelvic tilt with left leg up

Exercise 13 - Small, pulsing pelvic lifts

I got this on a VHS with Great Stretch and Great Arms. It was a good buy, but would probably be best on DVD so you could easily mix and match. On its own, it's a nice little add-on, sort of like Power Half Hour or Slim in 6 Lite. Of course, you could repeat the sequence of exercises for a longer workout.

The Great Body Guaranteed series seems like a good introduction to Beachbody for someone who's interested in Debbie or Tony but wants to be able to do a full body workout in an hour, or can only work out for short periods during the day. These could also be added on to other Beachbody workouts for a bit more sculpting, since Slim in 6 focuses a lot on cardio.

The biggest annoyance, which i'll start with right off the bat is that you can see cars driving by outside during some of the indoor segments.

No warmup, and Stretch is a separate workout.

I really enjoyed this dvd. I did Arms, Abs, Legs, Buns, and got a pleasant workout out of the deal for 40 minutes.

Really enjoyable, and I got free S&H and $19.99 price... so, imho, it was worth it.

Debbie's leg stuff is very slim series-esque. The upper body work is standard and not terribly challenging (but then, i'm p90xing it...), but it was a good short workout which will fill a need in my busy life.

If you can get the deal I got - it's totally worth it.

I got this in a trade not too long ago. I thought it would be a great DVD for add-ons and I was right. It IS great, if you like quickie, tough add-on workouts. What makes them great add- ons for me is that even though they are short, they are straight through work. there is no chatty, time wasting, overdone set-up period, no half-time moves. It's just pure work. The moves are simple, and they work. And they move fast so you will get a secondary cardio benefit too (well, maybe not even secondary in the standing leg work, which will get your HR up). I am very happy with this set.

A side note: This workout set is apparently one of the first in the Beach Body oeuvre. This is noticeable in the production quality and the sets - they are not at all unsatisfactory to me - they are professionally done, just not as polished as later Beach Body works, such as Slim Series (and presumably P90X, although I don't have that one).

Arms-A succession of arm exercises done one time through for 45 seconds each, for a total of 10 minutes. This one is led by Tony Horton. He's not as 'funny' as in PHH (thankfully, for me). This one goes through a series of arm exercises, but Tony uses no weight, he uses isometric resistance. Debbie (Seibers) and another exerciser are his backup people, and Debbie uses weights. I can tell you not many VFers would be into this one because of the obvious (Tony?!? where are your weights???) but if you use weights it's a decent add-on workout (providing you use the mental isometric resistance he talks about, as WELL as those dumbells ). I did this workout once, two times through, for a good quickie upper body routine. I'd definitely use it this way again. I think it's unorthodox that Tony chose not to use weights for this workout, but it is a very decent quick sweater of a workout WITH weights, and it comes on the disc anyway.

Thighs & Legs (2 separate 10-min workouts but I am lumping them together for this review) -A succession of leg exercises done one time through for 45 seconds each exercise, for a total of 10 minutes. These are led by Debbie Seibers, and I have to warn you OR make your day by saying that depending on how much or little you like the leg work in the Slim Series, that will be the barometer on how much you like these moves, because they are all 'Slim Series' type lower body moves distilled into two power- packed ten minute sweatfests. One is filmed on a beach, and the other in a gym. One of them has some floor work (tablework) as well, but I can't remember which. These I wouldn't use for stand-alone workouts (as with the arms workout), but they are GREAT add-ons. you could also do them each twice through, for a great cardioish leg workout.

Abs-A great, powerful 7-minute ab routine on a beach with Tony leading, Debbie in the back witht he other lady again. You go through a succession of ab exercises twice through, for 30 seconds each exercise. this is a very good routine-I love it. and 7 minutes long, too, which I thought would be too short, but it wasn't.

Stretch-A good 10 minute stretch routine. I don't remember that much about it, except that I didn't dislike it, and that Tony holds the stretches a little longer than your typical cool down stretch in a workout, but not by much. Same background exercisers.

For some of the reasons that I like this set, it isn't very popular here at VF (no warm ups, very short workouts, etc.) But I think this workout set is like a pair of shoes. They either fit you or they don't.

The DVD includes all the the "guaranteed" workouts on it Thighs, Buns, Abs, Upper Body & Stretch. I like the abs, thighs and buns ones (abs are with Tony, thighs & buns are with Debbie). I like them as add on workouts, they are not really stand alone material, IMO. I did not like the upper body or stretch as much those are both with Tony. Abs and thighs are filmed outdoors on a beach. It was sort of a cloudy day so the water looks gray. Too bad it wasn't on a sunny day. The rest were filmed on a gym set. The ones that Tony leads have Debbie and another exerciser at background exercisers. Debbie's have Tony and the third person as backgrounders. One person is usually showing a less hard modification. I think beachbody was probably just coming up with the concept of the screen counter when they made these. It's not as nice as the ones in Slim Series or Slim in 6.

The pros:

The thighs one is all standing work similar to the standing work in Slim Series, standing squats, lunges & kicks. The Buns one is floor work. Tony's not really my cup of tea as an instructor, but I think the exercises in the ab segment are good enough to make up for that. It's a nice tough ab workout.

The cons:

The instruction in the upper body one encourages you to keep tension in your upper body the whole time and that really didn't work for me. I naturally store stress in my neck, shoulders and upper back and this workout just made it worse. I didn't like the stretches they chose in the stretch one. The form instruction wasn't very good and the stretches weren't held long enough to suit me.

Overall: If you really like Debbie (like I do) and want some short add-on workouts, the thighs and buns ones are worth getting. If you like Tony you might like the others, but I think the abs one is worth getting and the other two are not.