Body Revolution: Phase 2 Workout 5

Jillian works out in a gym set with a group of toned background exercisers. Each dvd is in one folder as pictured above. You will need dumbbells and tubing for some of the exercises. Each workout is in Jillians favored circuit format with each exercise being performed for about 1 minute and then repeating the circuits. Each workout contains a built in warmup and cooldown.

Cardio 1: (26 min) Exercises include marching, jogging, fast feet, punches, scissors, speed bag, soccer drill & arm circles, and suicides.

Phase 1 are low intermediate workouts, 1 & 2 being less intense than the 3 & 4 . Jillian wastes little time and gets right to work. You can easily modify these up or down by adding weights or using no weights. Jillian offers modifications up & down for some exercises. The strength workouts also include some cardio exercises to keep the heart rate up. These are athletic style workouts that easy to follow. I received these dvds to review.

Jillian works out in a gym set with a group of toned background exercisers. Each dvd is in one folder as pictured above. You will dumbbells and tubing for some of the exercises. Each workout is in Jillians famous circuit format with each exercise being performed for 30 seconds to 1 minute and then repeating the circuits. Each workout contains a built in warm-up and cool-down.

Workout 5 Front Body: (37 min) Exercises include a yoga warm-up, push-up to side plank, crescent hold & trip press, jumping squats, dumbbell cross chop, plie hold & military press, scissor abs, hi knees, crescent hold & cale chest press, 1 leg tri dips, crescent hold & punch, lying tri press, 1 leg squat & shoulder work, and speed rope.

Phase 2 are solid intermediate workouts, that you can easily amp up a bit by using heavier poundage than Jillian does . Workouts 5, 6 and cardio are less intense than 7 & 8 . Jillian wastes little time and gets right to work. Jillian offers modifications up & down for some exercises. Workouts 5-8 include some cardio intervals to keep the heart rate up. These are athletic style workouts that easy to follow. I received these dvds to review.

I am a BIG Jillian fan and have most of her workouts, so was naturally very excited to get her Body Revolution system! This is a progressive system and she does a great job of upping the intensity not just with each phase but with every two weeks (for instance, Phase 1 workouts 1 and 2 are easier than Phase 1 workouts 3 and 4). She leads with a big group of men and women in a clean, uncluttered studio setting and they seem to have a lot of comraderie between them. She uses 3, 5, and 8# dumbbells (I think you can go heavier at times) and the band that comes with the set. The band is made out of a bungee-cord (rather than rubber tubing) but is nothing special, you can use your own band.

Each workout is about 35 minutes long with a 3-4 minute warm up and maybe 2 minute stretch (I tend to spend more time on the stretch) and the circuits generally have 3-4 strength moves, a cardio move, repeat strength moves, then move on to next circuit. The strength moves have a good cardio impact, but I would say the workouts are more strength-oriented (hence the additional cardio workouts). The odd-numbered workouts focus on the "front side" - abs, quads, shoulders, chest, triceps, and the even-numbered workouts focus on the "back side" - back, hamstrings, glutes, biceps. So they all sort of feel like total body workouts, but would still be considered split routines, and you would need to pair both even/odd days to hit all the body parts. For that reason, they are somewhat difficult to use as standalone workouts, unless you did two at once. But they are well balanced within the system.

The P2W5 workout progresses in intensity from Phase 1, and there are a lot of supersets in this one, which burn out the muscles! After a yoga inspired warm up, the exercises are as follows: pushups into alternate side plank, low static lunge with rear delt pulses (with weights), plyo squats, low static lunge with rear delt pulses other wide, mountain climbers (repeat circuit), woodchop with twisting lunge (with weights), plié squat with overhead press (weights), chops other wide, hollow man with leg flutters, high knees, (repeat circuit), low static lunge with chest fly (uses band), triceps press with leg raised, lunge/chest fly other leg, triceps press with other leg, static lunge with punches (uses band)-this is the cardio, (repeat circuit), one leg squat with weight to foot then overhead press, one arm tricep pushup on side, one leg squat/oh press other side, one arm tricep pushup other side, fast jump rope, (repeat circuit).

I would rate the Phase 2 workouts W5 and W6 as high intermediate workouts.