The Hollywood Trainer: Cardio Sculpt

Hollywood Trainer Cardio Sculpt is part of the Hollywood Trainer set. It is a 45 minute high-rep, low weight workout that requires only light (3-8 lb.) dumbbells. I used 5 and 8 lbs. and a set of 2 lb. ankle weights. There are at least 20 reps for each exercise. The workout is low-impact, no jumping or jogging. I find this one to be more sculpt than cardio, but still a well-rounded workout.

The exercises are just exercises–there isn’t any of what I would call choreography, so this is a great workout for someone who doesn’t like dancy workouts, or wants a workout without having to think much about every move. There are a lot of compound exercises though, which I know everyone isn’t fond of.

There are three exercisers in this video. Jeanette Jenkins leads, and Chaz and Tanya are background exercisers. Tanya shows a few modifications during the workout, but generally Jeanette just tells you some options to make moves easier.

The workout is filmed outside, on what appears to be a patio covered with natural stones. There is lots of foliage in the background, mostly large trees, and you can see the top of a house in the back. I like outdoor settings, and didn’t see any problems with it, though others have complained that it looks like someone’s backyard.

The music is club-type music, and repeated throughout the Hollywood Trainer series. Nothing original, but I like it; it really gets me going when I work out at 5:30 in the morning!

The workout is quite well-chaptered. It is divided into 16 chapters, and since there isn’t a lot of overlap between sections, you could quite easily just pick out a section and do those exercises. Here is my breakdown of the exercises, basically divided by DVD chapter. From 13 on is all floorwork.

1. Intro to workout

2. Low impact warm-up with some lower body stretches

3. Push ups,

4. Squats, standing leg abduction (outer thigh), squat with abduction

5. Posterior delt fly

6. Static lunge with overhead shoulder press

7. Triceps press (standing, with arms straight, pushing back) and simulated dip (straight arms extending slightly behind you, bend elbows to lift weights)

8. Repeater knees with heel touches (similar to Tae Bo)

9. Posterior delt flies, plies with upright row and bicep curls, overhead shoulder press

10. Standing adductor (inner thigh) lifts (similar to Slim Series)

11. Tricep kickbacks, plies, reverse lunge with knee lift, rotator cuff, tricep kickback, medial delt lift

12. Roundhouse kick with repeater knee

13. Tricep pushup

14. Rear leg lift (donkey kick), abduction (outer thigh) with rear leg lift, plank. Repeat other side

15. Abs: crunch (upper body) double crunch (upper and lower) bicycle, bent-knee roll up.

16. Stretch

This workout is similar in approach to Slim Series. It’s less intense (more like Slim in 6), but gave me similar results (overall slimming and definition). I like the music and background exercisers more than the ones in Slim Series, which makes me more likely to do HT. I generally do Cardio Sculpt or Kickboxing Bootcamp and add on the Butt & Thigh Blast or another lower body or ab workout. On alternate days, I do pure cardio.

This workout is part of the Hollywood Trainer series and has a look and feel that will be familiar to anyone who has tried other titles in the set. It is filmed outdoors with Jeanette leading two background exercisers. They follow along but do not perform modifications, which was a trait that annoyed me in some of the other tapes in the series. Jeanette has some challenging balance work in some of the sets and I think it would have been nice to have one of the background people using a dowel for balance.

There is a short warm-up of fairly standard marches and taps and upper body moves, then some stretches. Following this, Jeanette alternates upper and lower body exercises. Usually there is one slow set of about 8-10 reps, then a faster set of about 20. Push-ups begin the workout but only get one set of 20, then we get squats and abductions, back flys, lunge and shoulder press, triceps and posture, repeater knees, plies with upper body, abductor leg lifts, triceps and shoulders, roundhouse and repeater knee, triceps push-up and plank, floor work, abs and stretch. The dvd is well-chaptered, with each of the mentioned exercise getting its own chapter break. An insert in the case lists all the chapters.

I enjoyed the routine, for the most part. It was high-rep enough to be high-rep, but not so high-rep as to be over-kill, and Jeanette was a motivating and energetic instructor. But I found her banter a bit annoying in spots. She tangents during on of the posture exercises on “cup size” and during lunges, tells you that you don’t have to do them if your knee feels weird, but she does not offer a modification for what you might do instead, other than a directive to go see your doctor and find out what’s wrong with your knee. She also has almost zero interaction with the background exercisers.

I can’t see myself doing this workout for weeks at a time, but it is a nice and quick total-body routine that I am happy to have in my collection.

The two tapes I previewed, supposedly the best of the litter - Cardio Sculpt and Ultimate Cross Training - don't stand the test of time, let alone a trial run in a single workout. I am so glad I did not spend nearly $100 for the entire set and instead purchased these two DVDs alone over at the YaYas.

This set is taped outside. But there is “outside” at a stunning site or on a beautiful beach like Rainbeau Mars or Gilad and then there is “outside” on a patch of burnt grass in the corner of a backyard like Body-B-Fit. The Hollywood Trainer clearly falls into the latter category. I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for rolling out a yoga mat on a slate and concrete patio floor when the Hollywood Trainer lives in Southern California where it could be argued the locale has a monopoly on natural beauty in the world.

Certainly not weather nor cost-to-produce could be a reason for not identifying and selecting a more suitable site for the set. But frankly from the glib, superficial banter, stream of consciousness without any consciousness (is there a word for this?), which was like chalk-on-the-board-chatter to my auditory senses, it is apparent that the Hollywood Trainer thought she could just show up in a new outfit without any preparation for the script or production of these tapes and that would be sufficient. Well it isn’t. For light weight/high reps there are much better choices available out there Anything-Beachbody.. The FIRM Classics. Cindy Crawford. Cathe’s Body Blast and probably her new beginner tapes about to be released are a few that come to mind.

The exercises in these two tapes are nothing new. If you have been doing the same traditional free-weight workout with either light or heavy weight and you’re getting the same old results, there is nothing new in these tapes that will prove to be a plateau-buster. Save your money and buy P90-X.. You’re not missing a fitness-altering experience by not having these tapes.

Excellent intermediate workout. It's about 45 minutes long, and contains a lot of compound moves.

Her website describes it as:

Intervals between weights and cardiovascular moves, firming and toning, while turning your body into a calorie burning furnace!

She uses a lot of balance type poses, and I find those the most challenging.

Her cardio is low impact - a lot of kickboxing moves are used.

The weights i used were 3-5 pounders as this is an endurance workout.

I wasn't wiped out at the end, and the ab work was kind of uninspiring, but I really like it, and will make it a part of my rotation. Jeanette is fun to workout with, and the instsrumental music, which has a latin flair, is nice to listen to.

I like the ab blast because it is twenty minutes and I can do it on my lunch break and still have time to grab a lite lunch. The cardio sculpt I enjoy because she uses weights and I have noticed an improvment in my legs and triceps.

I bought her whole set and I alternate the videos through out the week. I am not doing the same thing every day. The hollywood trainers full set offers great variety.