XTRA Lite Tone Up

Aimed at the total beginner, this 30 minute video is a great basic toning and strengthening workout. After a short and simple warm-up Denise moves into standing lower body toning including inner and outer thigh leg lifts, hamstring curls and plies. Upper body moves use light weights to tone arms, shoulders, chest and back. (For weights Denise says you can even use cans from your cupboard.) The video ends with a short ab section and gentle stretching.

Sometimes Denise can be quite perky, but in this video she's encouraging and supportive, making strength work accessible to the total beginner.

I give this video a solid "A" rating.

This was my first Denise Austin video. I bought it at the same time I bought her XTRA Lite Aerobics. I was initially intimidated by doing any kind of "toning" with weights. I bought one pound hand weights for $1.00 each at Target. Denise says you can also use soup cans. I soon bought a "tree" with other weights (2, 3, 5 and 8 pounds--hey there's a man in the house!) and started using the 2 or 3 pounders on most of the exercises.

I like the video a lot. It has much variety, not too many reps that you can't keep up and do them all, and it's easy to modify it or increase the intensity with using heavier weights.

Denise handles the weights in a non-swingy manner, and points out that going down is as much of a workout as going up. I actually learned (for the first time) to really create my own resistance on the way down.

This tape is great for beginners, but you won't outgrow it too fast--since you can always add more weight. When I am in perfect shape, I could always add more weight and use it for a "light" workout.

It's not all weight training--there are some toning exercises that donm't use the weights--nice variety as I said before. I give it an A-. The sound quality could be better. It's filmed on a pretty beach and Denise looks great (as usual.)