Aerobarre

Aerobarre with Michael Olajide and Leila Fazel

I am in my 40's, an advanced level exerciser, and my most reached for dvds are Powerstrike, Booty Barre, Squeeze, and Tracy Anderson.

I am reviewing this workout after doing it the second time. I did it for the first time 4 weeks ago. And that's about how often I would expect to do this one, say once a month. It is a fun workout, and interesting to listen to Michael Olajide, who narrates, and watch Leila Fazel, who does the workout with you. Michael also composed the music, and you don't tune it out, you are listening to the rhythm and the pauses. The music is more like a conversation, I like it very much. Leila Fazel is a ballet dancer and a boxing champion, and she is beautiful to watch. She has a shy but proud demeanour, a constant grin and attractive eyes. The reason I can't do this workout more often is because it is for an intermediate level of fitness, with short rounds of exercise sequences, with lots of little rest breaks (ten!), but the boxing and dancing techniques are advanced and performed at expert speed. I've been doing kickboxing for a number of years, so the boxing speed is fine, it is advanced, but I have had a lot of practice at slower speeds, and I can do it at fast speeds with good form. But I have only a basic dance background, and do not have any workout dvds that ask me to maintain a turnout and perform fast jumping foot work. I don't have the mind-muscle connection to move through the plie perfectly at that speed. So my little jumps are a poor representation of the controlled ballet dancing that Leila performs. All the same, I love to watch her and try to copy her. After the workout is over, there is some footage of Leila with her boxing gloves on, practicing her punches on Michael, who is wearing large pads on his hands like catcher's mitts, and reaching out quite often to swat her back. They are both moving their hands so fast it's a blur, and Leila is grinning the whole time. Really fun to watch the pros practice. So this dvd is a keeper, but not a serious contender in my rotation.

There are a total of 11 rounds including abs and stretching:

o Round 1 - Aerobarre Warm up: neck warm up, gentle stretching and some light impact (bouncing from foot to foot, jumping jacks)

o Round 2- Aerobarre Intro: First position plies, including Grand Plie (at your level), bicep curls, plie into relevé while doing bicep curls. She uses a body bar but you could substitute a chair for balance and a light set of weights.

o Round 3 - Aerobox Intro: Boxing with handweights. He suggests 1 lb or lighter. My lightest weight is 2 lbs and I was fine.

o Round 4 - Aerosculpt: Variations of Grand Plie in second position and some shoulder work with arms extended forward. Light weights are optional.

o Round 5 - Aerobox Southpaw: Boxing, leading with left side.

o Round 6 - Aerobarre / Box Southpaw: First / second position plies and changement, all with small jumps. Then alternating boxing (leading with left) with changement. Ends with Grand Plie in second position.

o Round 7 - Aerobarre: Arabesque and Attitude to work the glutes. She uses a body bar for balance, but you can use a chair. Ends with forward bends.

o Round 8 - Aerobax Orthodox: Boxing, leading on right.

o Round 9 - Aerobarre / Box Orthodox: Starts with Tombe coupe sissonne (?) - this step lost me a little, alternated with boxing. Ends with what he calls Dying Swan, which is curtsies with slow circular arm movements.

o Aerobarre Abs

o Aerobarre Stretch

For this DVD, barre is ballet inspired as opposed to Lotte Berk style barre DVDs. Positives are that the workout was fun and different than any other DVDs I own. It also provided a nice cardio workout and good leg exercise. On the negative side, both the glute and abs sections are very short (4.5 minutes each). The stretches are not held long enough. I might skip the ab and stretch segments in the future and do my own thing. But overall, it was a nice workout and fun to add variety.