Ballet Body Signature Series: Total Body

Awesome workout
I was so excited to try this new workout from Leah Sarago. I completed the whole workout, and it is awesome! I'd rather have a total body workout on one dvd than to have to piece together different segments myself. This workout is long-about 75 minutes-but the time flies.I felt every muscle was worked to exhaustion. It moves at a fast pace, but a controlled pace. I enjoyed every bit of it. I would rate this a high intermediate-advanced workout. I also love that there is no voice over in this one, as it seems more personable. The background music I would describe as remixed dance music. Different for a "barre" workout, but nice.I hope Leah comes out with more dvds like this one. I'd like to see her piece more of her segments in to dvd form, as I definitely feel challenged doing it myself. Love it!

Mixed Feelings
After just having completed this workout, I have mixed feelings about it. I do feel it is an effective barre workout with a lot of creative twists. I'm definitely feeling it in all my muscle groups. However, there are pros and cons for me.

Cons:
The workout clocks in at around 75 minutes. I have had very tough and effective barre workouts that are 45- to 60-minutes in length, and going over an hour makes it difficult to fit it into a busy schedule. Yes, you can break it up into parts; however, that rather defeats the idea of a total-body workout.

The white walls/floors are eerie and have a disorientating and disembodied effect. I would prefer a simple studio over this type of setting.

There was a terrible echo-like sound throughout the workout that was very distracting.

Pros:
Great music. Leah used upbeat, contemporary music with a lot of vocals. So many instructors/producers of fitness DVDs use such bland music, so kudos to...

I really wanted to love this DVD but...
I just don't! I have all three of her other DVDs and really love the upper and lower body ones. The core I didn't love, but thought I'd get there after awhile...when I heard the total body DVD was coming out, I preordered it from her website and counted the days till it arrived. I tried contacting her thru her website to figure out just where this DVD would fit into a rotation but never heard back...anyway. I have tried this DVD a few times and it's just blah. Not enough of anything to get a good workout in. I feel like she used all her best ideas for the other DVDs and this was just an after thought. It is too easy for anyone who workouts regularly, especially if you have been doing her other DVDs. I do plenty of other barre workouts that do work every part well, so it is not because there isn't time to work them in an hour - its that this DVD doesn't do it.

There are production issues as well (weird muffled music and she loses her voice/microphone issues) but I could...

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