Stott Pilates Cardio & Core on the Mini-Tramp

This DVD presents a 20-minute circuit-style rebounder (or "mini-tramp") workout led by John Garey. It is followed by a 17-minute pilates mat workout with Moira Stott Merrithew.

Stott Pilates rates all of its videos on a 1 to 5 scale for difficulty. This workout is rated a 3 of 5.

The workout requires a rebounder (of course!) and a mat. Light hand weights are optional for one portion of the rebounder routine. The participants do both workouts barefoot.

The setting is a pleasant white-washed brick studio with pilates equipment in the background. The music is pretty much unnoticeable.

John Garey teaches the rebounder portion solo, instructing live. When I purchased this DVD I thought it was straight cardio moves on the rebounder, but instead it is a circuit-style routine. John begins by warming up on the floor, followed by taps onto the rebounder surface, then finally begins jumping. He jumps barefoot, and like Urban Rebounding he emphasizes pushing down into the mat rather than jumping for height. I found his pace fast (but most rebounding workouts feel fast to me). The moves were simple, such as feet together then apart, step-touches, side jumps. There is no choreography or combos (think Leslie Sansone), which is good as John tends to cue on the move rather than in advance.

After about five minutes John pauses to lie down on the rebounder mat, where we do versions of rollback, the hundred, single leg stretch and double leg stretch. Another jumping segment follows, then we stop to grab optional light hand weights. Standing on the rebounder mat John does some simple compound moves (for example, squats with biceps curls, static lunges with triceps). We then release the weights and continue with more jumping, including jacks, hamstring curls and twists. Stretches begin at about the 19-minute mark.

Moira leads the mat workout. John joins Natalia and Andreja as a class participant while Moira stands and instructs. It is a brisk little mat routine, with mostly classic pilates moves although Moira tweaks the order and occasionally the body positioning. She notes the routine can be done separately, or either before or after the rebounder workout. However, for some reason it is not separately chaptered on the main menu, which means you have to hit the "skip" button on the remote quite a few times in order to get near the start of the mat workout. (It appears this workout is chaptered in 2-minute increments, whereas before I always remember Stott workouts being chaptered by individual exercise.)

Bottom line: There are some really good concepts in this video, but on the whole it is a missed opportunity. The rebounder routine is brisk but just way too short all around - not enough cardio, not enough strength or pilates work. Also, the music was barely audible - I'm not even sure whether John was jumping to the beat or not. It's too bad, because John is a very likeable instructor and he taught the rebounding portion well. If the rebounder routine were closer to a half hour, or if the circuits were eliminated, we'd have a viable cardio workout here. The mat routine by itself would make a nice little add-on for all kinds of workouts, but because it is not properly chaptered I'm afraid it will be one of those hidden gems in my DVD collection that I'll simply forget about.

The DVD is bilingual, English and French (I love the title in French: "Entrainement du Centre et Cardio sur le Mini-Tramp"!). It is available at Amazon.