Power Half Hour: Thigh Trimmer

I have never disliked a video this much. Tony yaps the entire time, makes corny jokes, and annoys the background exercisers throughout the whole workout. This should be classified as a beginner workout, at the most. Their idea of cardio is jogging in place between segments of standard leg exercises such as squats, lunges, etc. The exercises are not challenging at all, and it is a boring routine.

This workout is part of the Power Half Hour series, a bargain set of 5 workouts on one dvd or 5 tapes. I paid less than $30 for the dvd with all five workouts. All of the workouts (arms, abs, thighs, buns and stretch) are half an hour long and feature the same beachbody.com hallmarks: a spare set, a timer that counts down time left in the section you are doing and the workout as a whole, a message bar along the bottom of the screen that flashes periodic messages, and Tony working out with two background exercisers.

The Thigh Trimmer tape features unweighted lower body work that mostly consists of lunge variations with kicks interspersed with cardio breaks that mostly consist of variations of jogging on the spot. The lunge variations include forward, backward, to the side and curtsy lunges. The kicks go to the front and to the side at various heights. You do a lot of reps but the workout does not feel exhausting because you keep switching sides, then you get the jogging breaks.

Tony is like the male version of Joyce Vedral---a little on the goofy side and not the world's greatest cue-er, presenting short and sweet workouts of old faithful exercises unimaginatively but competently presented. You'll either like him, or you won't. My workout tastes tend to err on the 'boring' side---I don't like big fancy routines where the instructor is always trying to "surprise" you, and I have trouble keeping up with routines that are excessively choreographed and require great agility or coordination. Beachbody.com has filled a definite need for me and with five workouts on one disk, this was a definite value.