Personal Training With Jackie: Power Circuit Training

In an effort to "give back" since I love reading the review of workouts, I'm going to try to do a better job of reviewing workouts.

Thankfully Lindsey already did a great job of outlining the specifics of what's in the workout.

I just wanted to add that I thought this was a great workout. It was definitely tough, but I felt great afterwards. High energy and proud of my accomplishment. It was tough to push through some of the minutes, but Jackie is very encouraging.

This is Jackies 2nd workout dvd and while different from her first, it is reminiscent for sure. She moves pretty quickly, as in- you cant use really heavy weights and follow her pace. She suggests 2 sets of dumbbells, but I like a larger vareity of poundage so I kept my collection nearby and changed up when needed. I also slowed down alot of the moves to allow the heavier poundage.

The main workout is a 42 minute total body strength circuit. She says at the beginning of the dvd that form, function, and fatigue are what this dvd is about. Each four minute circuit is for one body part. You do three different exercises for 1 min each, then finish the circuit with a "power burst" which is all three moves for 33 seconds each for the 4th minute. A screen comes up betwen body parts with the names of the upcoming moves on it.

There are also four 15-Minute circuits on the dvd: 1) Total Body Circuit, 2) 15-Minute Abs Only Circuit, 3) 15-Minute Upper Body Circuit, and 4)15-Minute Lower Body Circuit.

She went really light on the upper body work and really heavy on the ab work as you can see in the breakdown below. She also doesnt always use weights when I think she should. For example: a lot of the lower body work she uses NO weights, she does this in her 1st dvd too. I just grab the appropriate dumbbells and use them. While there is no cardio in this w/o-my heartrate really got up there during the lower body work (the addition of dumbbells probably helped that). I worked up a nice sweat during the first few segments.

The segments and moves are:

Quads: sissy squats (while standing on your dumbbells), UFC's. and alternating lunges.

Hamstrings: deadlifts, bridge kicks, reverse planks.

Glutes: weighted front squats, ski lunges, alternating squat kicks.

Chest: chest press, reverse fly, alternating press.

Back: wide rows, renegades, dumbbell pullover.

Bi's/ Tri's/ and Shoulders: close grip hammer curls, straight arm kick backs, arnold press.

Upper Abs: straight leg crunch, legs up crunch, tall sit up.

Lower Abs: reverse crunch, tummy tuck, single leg jack

Obliques: sumo side to side, windshield wiper, side planks.

So, as you can see A LOT of ab work! And while I like ab work. I think she should have combined the upper & lower ab sections and added another bi/ tri/ shoulder section to even things out.

I would say this is an intermediate workout that can be easily modified up w/ heavier dumbbells and a slowing of the pace.