Metamorphosis by Tracy - Hipcentric

Workout Plan: Your supposed to do both the cardio workout and a muscular structure workout each day, either back-to-back or at different times each day. After you do a muscular structure workout 10 times you move on to the next one in the sequence.

Metamorphosis Cardio: I have attempted this one once, and I have not done any of TA's previous cardio workouts. It's basically constant jumping around with different leg and arm movements without cueing. While I can do high impact workouts, I prefer workouts that include some breaks from the jumping and have choreography that I can follow more easily.

Muscular Structure Workouts: [So far I've done #1 (5 times) and #2 (3 times) and have previewed the rest.] There are 9 workouts that are approximately 30 minute each with no real warm-up or cooldown included. Each has a 5 minute arm segment with unweighted and weighted sections and 5 minutes of standing and floor ab work. While similar in styling, they are not completely the same in all the different toning workouts included. Compared with TA's Mat workout both of these seem a bit on the light side, in part because of their length. This might be deliberate as some of the lower body moves do work the arms and abs. Also, because your supposed to do them on consecutive days, her intent may not be to completely exhaust the upper body and core. The lower body work in each seems to be between 5-6 different exercises. Each is done between 30-40 times before moving on to the next one, and you do all the moves on one side before moving on to the other side. The majority of the moves are done in variations of a tripod position (two hands/forearms or one hand one forearm with one foot or knee down and the other leg moving in various positions). I would not recommend these to anyone with wrist or knee issues and as a precaution I'm doing them on a 1" thick mat. Most of the moves seem to target the outer hip and glute, but some of them also work the quads and inner thigh as well.

Production Quality: The set is very bright and looks like a large living room. The camera angles used do allow you to see some different angles on the same move so you can figure out what she's doing. There are three options for sound: music only, Tracy voiceover only, or both. Tracy's voiceover instruction is pretty minimal and she doesn't cue the next move. I thought the music was okay. There are no chapters present in any of the workouts. The packaging is poor - too large and the dvds don't even come in a sturdy case.

Overall Impressions: I really like the muscular structure workouts for the variety of floor work they provide, particularly those that target the outer hip since this is weaker area for me. However, I do wish that they had a warmups, cooldowns, and chapters included in the dvds. As I purchased them before the price jump, I do think they're worth it for me.