The Firm: Super Sculpt

This is a total body strength training workout, no cardio at all. The exercises themselves have been broken down, so I will just post my overall impression. Overall, I liked this workout and will be using it again. It was very thorough, hitting every body part at least twice (with the exception of chest, but I'll get into that later). The workout moved a little fast during the upper body segments while transitioning from one move to the next. I had to pause in spots, or go lighter than I normally would on my weights. However, this was a small issue. I will just remember to go lighter next time. I left the workout feeling worked out but not wiped out, although I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow. This workout had a slight lower body emphasis to me.

What I Liked

I liked the different instructors, the music was great, and there were form pointers throughout. The sets and outfits were colorful and a real blast from the past. I really liked that it was under an hour for total body! Oh, and I liked that the moves were traditional and straight forward. Very good for a morning workout.

What I Didn't Like

I felt that the chest was neglected, and there weren't enough variety of moves. For chest, there were just pushups. It would have been nice to have some different moves. This was particularly evident with lower body. So many squats, lunges, and dips! Also, I didn't like that, once again, ab work was just varieties of crunches.

What You Should Be Aware Of

Lots of lunges, dips, and squats. Also a few curtsey lunges and I believe a move called the front curtsey lunge. At least, that's what it looked like it was trying to be. If you have tweaky knees, be aware that there are plenty of lunges, dips, squats, and a few curtsey lunges in this one. Be prepared to modify.

This fully chaptered 49 minute all sculpting workout is led by 4 FIRM master instructors in the mansion set. You will need dumbbells, a high step, and an optional barbell for this routine.

After a warmup, Jen's upper body segment contains: bi curls, rows, clean & press, upright row, pushups, upper back fly, & tri dips. Nancy's lower body segment contains: squat & glute pinch, pliets, dips, & leg press. Dales upper body segment contains: upright row, front & side raise, clean & press, lat row, pushups, and bi curls. Carissa's lower body & core routine contains: dips, lunges, squats, standing outer & inner thigh work and crunch variations. The workout concludes with a cooldown.

I rate this a solid intermediate routine that is easily modified up or down depending on the poundage used. This is a great strength workout that hits all the muscle groups. All the instructors provide great cuing & form pointers. Love the tempo & exercise variations to really hit the muscles in a different way. I received this dvd to review.

This workout is a 100% strength routine (absolutely no cardio) led by four Firm master instructors Jen Carmen, Nancy Tucker, Dale Brabham, and Carissa Foster. Like all Anna Benson Firm workouts, this has a very high quality, filmed in the mansion set with a large class, and has wonderful music. In fact I think the music in Super Sculpt is particularly good, even for Anna! If you like the classic Firm style, you will like this workout. Clocks in at 45 minutes and you definitely get an excellent workout and will be sore from this. I will admit what others have said that they do go heavy on the lunges and squats here. I found that during the last segment with Carissa, I subbed another exercise for her long lunge/dip combo because that exercise was already exhausted to me. With that said, there was still a great variety of moves throughout the video, aside from the lunges I think this was one of the most creative of the Firm workouts. You could tell that Anna was trying to make new/interesting moves in this workout.

Breakdown of the workout is as follows:

1. Warm up: This warm up was led by Jen Carmen and was a clip brought in from another video; I believe the companion cardio video that was sold with this workout. Straight forward with great music and included general moves such as step touch, hamstring curls, squats, hamstring and hip flexor stretches.

2. First arm strength segment with Jen Carmen: bicep curls and bent row sitting on the tall box, hammer curls and supinated bent row sitting on the tall box, pushups with hands on tall box, bicep curls (two sets) and upright row (two sets) using barbell, sitting French press, tricep dips off tall box.

3. First leg strength segment with Nancy Tucker: squats, use ankle weights for glute squeeze with leg over tall box to keep from "cheating" (then remove ankle weights), plie squats, LONG lunge/curtsey dip/cross front lunge set, leg press set with creative pulse/slow leg press intervals. This was a great set and VERY intense. My knees were unable to handle the cross front lunges so I kept with curtsey dips. The set was very long and towards the end my back aches just a little, might be best to use lighter poundage or to sub another exercise for part of the set.

4. Second arm strength segment with Dale Brabham: upright row and clean and press (two sets of each) with barbell, anterior and side deltoid lifts with light poundage (two sets), posterior delts bent over tall box with very light poundage (includes pulses which really intensity the move), good mornings (dead lifts) with barbell then sitting back rows with the barbell (two sets), pushups with hands on tall box, triceps dips, one arm bent row with opposite hand on tall box, then biceps. My shoulders always burn the most during this set.

5. Second leg strength segment (also abs) with Carissa Foster: two very long lunge and dip sets (this is where the exercise is exhausted here, I subbed another move), squats (several sets), use ankle weights for standing adductor and abductor work (two sets, one slow and one fast, fun!), then to the floor for a brief abs set. The abs were "just okay", very repetitive, as it was basically just several reps of two moves: lower crunch with hip swivel, and upper crunch with swivel. I felt the burn, but there could have been more creativity here.

6. Stretch with Carissa Foster: clip brought in from another video (based on outfits, appears to be Maximum Cardio, but I'm not certain). Nice final stretch with an instrumental tune.

Overall I really enjoy this workout. Since there are no aerobic intervals, it was really intense strength work that never stopped. It was helpful to rotate between arm and leg work to give the non working group a break before the next set, yet the sets were long enough to feel pre exhaust. I thought there was a lot more bicep and back work than triceps (shoulders got an appropriate amount of attention, and triceps did get some attention with French press and two triceps dip sets), in fact the back work became exhaustive, but not so much so that I needed to sub, I just used lower poundage. The biceps work was refreshing because the Firm tends to not do as much biceps in some of their other videos. As I stated there were too many lunges, but I subbed other exercises and it didn't bother me. High intermediate-low advanced in my opinion, based of course on the amount of poundage used. I thought the use of the barbell was very well adapted for this workout, and I also enjoyed the ankle weighted work. Overall grade A for a really enjoyable Anna Benson production, creative moves, with great music. This is comparable to the Tough Tapes in both strength focus and time (45 minutes).

I got this DVD as part of the 4-pack you can get via QVC for about $24 (including shipping). This 4-pack includes Total Body Shaping Mix, Maximum Body Shaping, Lie down and workout, Super Sculpting.

I have 3 of these (all but LDW - I sold that years ago) on VHS, but I don't have a VCR hooked to the TV of choice down in the basement/entertainment room, and I like DVD better, so I bought this.

DEFINITELY WORTH $6 ($24/4).

I like this workout alot, but it was a lot harder the last time I tried it (right after getting back into exercise, once my youngest was old enough to let me workout again).

I'm not sure where it falls in my rotation - given that I have P90X, Cathe, Mindy - etc... but I like it, and I'll probably do it maybe 1-2x a month.

The fun factor in Super Sculpting is so high for me. It is a really tough sculpting workout that never fails to leave me sore the next day…but I do enjoy it immensely.

The music and the movement are both really fun and energizing (it's probably the best music ever for a firm workout). The workout is led by several instructors, including Dale Brabham, Carissa Foster, Nancy Tucker and Jennifer Carman.

The breakdown is:

Warm-up/Stretch: 4 min

Weight training: 39 min

Abdominals: 3 min

Cool-down/stretch: 3 min

Total: 49 min

Alot of the equipment that they use ios optional, but I find that much of it does add to the fun factor. They use Dumbbells, Fanny lifter, Weighted ball, barbell (I prefer a body bar), dowel (my body bar doubles for this too)...

This one is widely available so I recommend that if you are looking for a fun sculpting workout...track this one down.

I traded this workout after only doing it once. The equipment changes are unbelievable. The workout uses every possible piece of equipement and you are constantly being asked to switch from one to another. The worst was when you had to put on your ankle weights and use the dowel for support while doing leg lifts over the fanny lifter. Enough already!

Since others have outlined the details of this video, I would just like to add that I think this is one of the Firm's BEST videos - at least of the 15 or so I have tried so far. It is one of the toughest - on par with Tough Tape, in my opinion and a great total body strength training workout. It has a good pace, good motivating music and a nice variety of instructors. All in all, I highly recommend this tape!

My only criticisms of the tape are that there are a little TOO many lunges, dips and squats. There were SO many of these throughout the video, I would have liked to have had a little more upper body work in place of some of the lunges and dips. Also, the ab section at the end is short and weak, with no exercises for the LOWER abs.

But despite these criticisms, this video is TOP NOTCH and along with Maximum Body Shaping, is one of my very favorite FIRM videos!

After doing Cathe Friedrich’s straightforward style strength training, I just don’t have the patience for this type of workout. It’s up-and-down, get-this, get-that, on and on. You spend way too much time changing positions and/or equipment, and you’ll probably have to pause the video often to do so. The good points are it’s a total body strength workout in about 50 minutes, and there’s none of the Firm-style cardio, which I find totally boring. The instructors are Dale Brabham, Nancy Tucker, Carissa Foster (my favorite), and Jennifer Carmen. I’m almost certain this is a “Parts” video compiled from other Firm tapes, although it doesn’t say that on the cover. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some of these segments in other workouts. I have no problem with “Parts” tapes, but I know some people don’t like that. Overall, it’s a nice workout, but I wish they had sequenced it so that there wasn’t so much changing around.

I've been searching for an all around weight workout without any aerobics and I finally found one with this tape! I agree with one reviewer that the ab workout wasn't long enough; however, overall this one was great! When I finished this workout, for the first time I felt energized! Excellent tape!!

This video is fantastic! I can't wait to do it again. I think it's a little harder than Tough Tape, because there are more reps and more sets in general. There's also a better balance of upper and lower body work. I really feel it in my delts, triceps and pecs the next day. The only thing I dislike is the stretch at the end. It's too short and too fast; they could have left it out for all the good it does. The pushups on the tall box and the seated lat rows ARE goofy but easy enough to modify. While "Twenty Questions about Fitness" "does caution you against using plastic bottles as dumbell substitutes, the "Form Pointers" I received last year contained a retraction. Basically, it said the Firm had changed their stance on the subject due to "advances in plastic manufacturing technology" although they don't specify what exactly they mean by that. Anyway, their inclusion in the video leads to humorous continuity errors. In some shots you see Carissa or Nancy holding plastic jugs but the reflection in the mirror shows them using a barbell. This tape is definitely worth buying especially if you get it with its companion, Super Cardio (another excellent tape).

I like this workout very much. I like the format of switching back and forth from upper body to lower body. If I don't have much time I use the different segments accordingly. I also like that I can go very heavy with my weights.

While I am not a fitness professional I believe that after working out injury free for 10 years or so it is safe to follow the Firm. Of course one always needs to take into account ones own abilities. I have always enjoyed the Firms method of assuming I am intelligent enough to find out about good form on my own. They are right I have! I appreciate that they don't waste my time with a lot of advice that I don't need to hear over and over again. In Super Sculpting the Firm does not let me down. They give me an intense, workout with many time tested exercises and a few new variations. I've been doing this tape once a week since I got it in December (and as always with the Firm- I've experienced no injuries) and I know I will continue to use it for many years. In my opinion it's a classic!

I LOVE this video! This is everything Bust and Butt should have been, but isn't. I always feel really pumped after doing this especially my shoulders. I have a love/hate relationship with the leg press pulses, hate doing them; but feel them working. I do go about 10 lbs lighter for that then regular leg press though or use a shorter tall box (if that makes sense LOL). I found the ab section too short, but I liked the routine. The only complaint I have are these minimal stretch routines at the end, I really love to stretch and that's one of the main reasons I love the Classics and Crosstrainers--but I can always do it on my own or throw in a stretch tape.

This Video is EXTREMELY GOOD! Yes, me, not liking the Firm, until 2 weeks ago, think this is going to the Hall of Fame! (Yes, Suzanne M-it's true!) This is very good at working the muscles, all over the body. It's heavy weight/slow movement workout, that hits every muscle you have. There's 19 minutes of upper body and 19 minutes of lower body(according to the video cover). The exercises are done in a set and then, that set is repeated. Bicep curls, bent over rows, squats, glute squeezes. leg presses, shoulder presses, good mornings(which is a dangerous exercise for beginners), dips, lunges, upright rows...etc You use dumbbells, barbells, ankle weights and dowel rod. It's a very though workout and FUN! The Firm is also getting better with picking out music. It's instrumental versions of some current songs. Yes, if you want to work your muscles hard, this will do it!

This is what Bust & Butt should have been. An intense muscle strengthening and shpaing working. The workout has already been broken down so I'll just add my comments because I hope if becomes a VF Favorite at least. Super Sculpting has the same cast with all lead instructors in the background so it really feels like one workout instead a compilation of several tapes, which the Blast Set obviously is. There's time for equipment changes so pausing that VCR isn't really necessary. In various takes, Nancy and Carissa are using water bottles and laundry detergent jugs as weight substitutes. Look carefully and you can also see a broom, and paperback books (substituting for 2X4s.) I know "20 questions about Fitness says don't be fooled by this. The Benson Sister's may have considered that it takes several props to do a Firm video. Complain if you want, but if you want workout results at home, use the FIRM. If anyone is trying to decide between buying the Blast Set (CC1, CC2, Bust & Butt) and Super Shapers, get Super Shapers for a better workout and save some money.

At first, I thought the household jugs looked pretty silly. It also concerned me that in "Twenty-questions about fitness" they said to not be fooled by programs that used milk jugs instead of real dumbells. After thinking about it though, this is a good way to get people who can't afford all the weights started. As far as the workout goes, I almost fainted the first two times I used it by the last sets of squats. This tape is nice and tough the way I like it. There are biceps a-plenty and two sets of tricep dips! I was not disappointed. Just do the tape and try not to pass out!

I like this video, but I am not as impressed as I thought I would be. What I like about it is that each instructor is given enough time to teach several exercises, and the tape can be perceived as four sections, each with a different instructor teaching. The transitions between sections are smooth. The warm-up with Jennifer Carman is fun, fast-paced and upbeat. She does a nice variety of upper body exercises, but too few sets and reps in my opinion. Nancy Tucker's lower body section is very good for the most part; one of the new exercises is the partial leg press onto the box where you lift your weight up onto the box but come right back down---WOW! A killer! A sure butt shaper! Dale Brabham does some nice upper body work, especially the shoulder sequence, but some of the exercises are the same as Jennifer's section, and I would have preferred that each instructor's section had contained different exercises. Carissa Foster does some lower body work, including lunges and dips, and I felt that they weren't really necessary, since Nancy's lower body section was so thorough and tough. Also, Carissa's forward lunges bother me because that exercise is not safe for the knees. Speaking of unsafe, Nancy's curtsey dips were a new twist (pun intended) on the conventional dip, but I don't think that the risk to the knees is worth the questionable benefit to the outer thigh. The most unsafe exercise that I have seen in a while in a video was the FORWARD CROSS LUNGE with barbell, which places way too much torque and stress on the delicate knee joints. The Firm's attempt to be creative with the curtsey dips and forward cross lunges is going to result in a lot of knee injuries. Carissa's abdominal section was pretty good, but short. The twisting reverse curls and the rotating upper body crunches were effective variations. The stretching section at the end was virtually non-existent. After this workout, a stretch is definitely necessary, so you will have to do it on your own. I would have liked to see some additional exercises for chest; push-ups were the only chest exercises. Also, some of Dale's back exercises were ridiculous; the back row with a barbell done in a seated position with the legs out in front---this does not work the back at all; there is no resistance to gravity for the back muscles in that position; I just stood up and bent over for that one. The reverse shoulder flyes were OK, although I think that it is more effective in a bent over position seated or standing, rather than leaning your chest on the step. When she switched to the rhomboid pinches, it was not effective, because the weight was much too light. In summary, I think the workout on this tape is pretty good with some exercises that need variation to be safe and/or effective. The pace is quick and there is a nice variation of exercises. In my opinion, this tape is not such a vast improvement over other recent Firm tapes. It's just another good Firm tape.

Excellent production work. Jen Carmen Is Fabulous. Dale is Soothing ( while she kills you) and Carissa is magnificent. Cheers for the Firm in putting Nancy Tucker in another tape. I love her in Fatblaster.. But Most of all- NO TAMELA HASTIE!!!! THANK GOD.. No more "THIS IS FUN" Crap....

This is SO MUCH BETTER than Bust & Butt/Core Cardio videos! In Super Cardio, there are still the dreaded plyo jumps, but not as many, and some (but not all) of the moves are similiar but the sequencing makes it much more enjoyable. The music kicks and they give the instructors 2-4 songs in a row instead of switching them out all of the time. Most importantly the editing of this set of vids is far superior. One of the reasons I no longer have the B&B/CC in rotation is because they gave us all these props to use but give us no time to strike the old ones and get the new ones. I hated having to "pause,rewind,play" in between every freaking song. Super Sculpt feels like the Firm Strength (or Strong Body) video without the cardio moves. The only thing I didn't care for is the "yoga style stretch"; it went way fast for yoga and the move from lying down with your legs spread to quickly sitting up made my lower back creak and I don't have back problems.

The only other thing that bothered me was that in Super Cardio the instructors took the time to breakdown a simple step like the "tri-star" move before adding arms, etc. yet they didn't take the time to break down the more difficult moves like the step "shuffle X3, press, leg extension, mambo back step change, repeat! I'm not necessarily blaming the instructors because they don't design the workout. I'm just questioning the designer's logic. Definitely worth purchasing! My new faves!They will remain in my rotation.

This is my new favorite strength video. I love it! Can't wait to do it again and again and again.

Gretchen's review gave a fine breakdown of the video, but I just want to add that I think the exercises flow together extremely well.

The warm up seemed a little short to me. But I had already done the step section of "2 the Max", so I didn't have to worry about it.

From there, it is all strength work and it is fun! There are new variations on some of the old faithfuls. The curtsy-dips and cross lunges were very interesting and I'm still feeling where they work the muscles just a little bit differently. There is a new variation for leg presses, too.

The ab work is short and, to be honest, I'm not sure how "safe" it is. There are a lot of lower ab twists, followed by upper ab crunches and rotations. I guess the rule of thumb should be, if it doesn't feel right to you, don't do it.

Then there is a short stretch which is the only part I really didn't like. But, I hardly ever like a video's stretch and usually prefer to do my own.

All things, considered, this is a GREAT workout!

Gretchen did a great job of reviewing this tape, so I just wanted to add that I agree with her and recommend it highly. I didn't care for Bust and Butt, but I will definitely use this tape often. The Super Shapers set is a big hit with me.

FIRM Super Sculpting is a pretty darn good tape--what Bust & Butt was supposed to be but never was. And for ten dollars cheaper, nonetheless. It's all weight work with two to four sets per exercise at around 10 reps per set, without any FIRM-style compound exercises (which I actually kind of like), and no Oof, Jr. ball in sight. The FIRM shows their usual creativity in coming up with new ways to do familiar exercises, which yields great results at times (curtsy-dips) and could cause injury at others (seated barbell rows).

The routine breaks down as follows:

Led by Jennifer Carmen:

• Warm-up*
• Double seated lat rows, bicep curls, double seated lat rows with a twist, hammer curls
• Push-ups on the tall box
• Upright rows, clean & press, bicep curls (2 tri-sets)*
• Double seated lat rows, french press, tricep dips*
• Posterior delt flyes while leaning over tall box*
• Push-ups on the tall box*

Led by Nancy Tucker:

• Squats with heels elevated on board, plie squats
• Hip raises with leg extended over box, using dowel and ankle weights
• Lunges, curtsy-dips, cross-lunges, & curtsy-dips*
• Leg press on tall box (includes pulsing reps), overhead press, leg press*

Led by Dale Brabham:

• Upright rows, clean & press, front delt raises, side raises (2 giant sets)
• Good mornings, seated underhand bent row (2 super-sets)*
• Posterior delt flyes and rhomboid pinches while leaning over tall box*
• Push-ups on tall box*
• Tricep dips
• One-arm lat rows
• Bicep curls with suppination at bottom and diagonal curls
• One-arm lat rows

Led by Carissa Foster:

• Dips
• Squats, lunges (2 super-sets)
• Squats, standing outer and inner thigh lifts with ankle weights & dowel (2 super-sets)*
• Ab work
• Stretch

*Segments are included in Cardio Split I

Despite the lack of floor work, the workout hits the inner thighs and glutes pretty well. The key is to keep low on the new leg press pulses. Some of the video participants exaggerate the lift off the floor which take the work out of the glutes and into the quads. The pulsing during the leg presses, lunges, and dips blasts the leg muscles by keeping them contracted.

Safety Considerations (you knew they were coming): 1) With the lower reps, it is tempting to go super heavy on the weight. Although the speed is generally good for this, sometimes the exercise design + heavy weight + speed = too much torque on the joints, as in the case of twisting the dumbbells during bicep curls and double lat rows. 2) A couple of the exercises are pretty close to impossible. The push-ups on the tall box are really awkward on a Rubbermaid box, but it's easy enough to just do them on the floor. I'm not sure what the heck the FIRM was thinking with the bent-over barbell rows in a seated position, especially since the good mornings that they are paired with are done while standing. I just keep standing and go with the underhand grip, keeping Cathe Friedrich's form pointers in mind as I'm doing so. 3) The curtsy-dips work the leg muscles in a new and interesting way. One has to be careful, though, not to cross too far behind with the dipping leg and to keep the front knee and toe pointed in the same direction. Nancy Tucker does a wonderful job of showing good form here, but many of the background exercisers do not.

All in all, I very much enjoy this tape. I like the FIRM's high production values: original music, pretty sets, and nice outfits. Fortunately, I think this all any of us really expect from the FIRM (that and results!), rather than a completely safe workout with educational form pointers (such as we get from the wonderful Ms. Cathe Friedrich). The warm-up is very good, the ab work is just all right but creative, and the stretch at the end is a joke.Super Sculpting is very challenging, comparable in intensity to Tough Tape. It could easily be divided into two full-body workouts that are not identical, but that complement each other.

Should you buy this and Cardio Split I ? The weight work in Cardio Split I is entirely from Super Sculpting , and only about half as much. Cardio Split I is about as close as the FIRM has come the past few years to producing a tape that has an even mix of aerobics and weight training, much like the Classics. If you honestly prefer an all-weights tape or prefer a 50/50 split, there would be no need to own both. I don't think there's any advantage to be gained with the separation of upper and lower body exercises in Cardio Split I . There simply aren't enough repetitions to warrant spliting the upper and lower body workouts into two separate days.

I haven't been this excited about a workout since StrongHeart & StrongBody (Firm Cardio & Strength)! This is one awesome, well-balanced, challenging workout. I can't wait to do it again! There are new moves and variations w/lunges and dips as well as a neat pulse for the leg presses. YUM! I LOVE this one! Thank you, FIRM!