Get Ripped & Jacked - The Boomer Workout

This DVD is one of the latest offerings from Canadian fitness instructor Jari Love. In Ripped and Jacked, a strength-only routine, Love changes things up a bit two ways: 1) she has her senior Ripped instructors lead the entire workout, and 2) the weights work consists of slow-paced lifting.

In addition to being designed at a slower tempo, Jacked offers separately chaptered muscular groups, each with its own warm-up. So, the workout is designed to be done as a complete routine (VERY long–over 80 minutes!) or as shorter add-ons. These options appear on the Main Menu as listed below, with times as they appear on-screen. The numbers at right (added by me) indicate which exercise tracks appear in each segment:

Complete Workout (80:43)

Legs (20:23) - 1, 2, 7, 19, 20

Back (17:13) - 3, 4, 5, 6

Chest (13:59) - 8, 9, 10

Triceps (13:55) - 11, 12, 13

Biceps (10:38) - 14, 15

Shoulders (13:52) - 16, 17, 18

Abs (15:32) - 21, 22, 23, 24

In her brief introduction (2 minutes), Love explains that each track is 2 minutes, 45 seconds. There are two rounds of 8 repetitions in each track, and all of the reps follow the same tempo pattern: 2x 8-8, 2x 6-2, 4x 4-4. Love is featured alone for the 3.5-minute warm-up. Exercises 1-18 are taught by Robb Harris accompanied by two female background exercisers, Sandy and Jill, and Jill takes over for 19-24, includes a bonus legs segment followed by abs. The workout is performed in Love's living room with a stone fireplace in the background and upbeat music. Equipment includes dumbbells, an optional barbell, a step bench, and a stability ball for abs. For each exercise, the weights that the participants are using appear on screen (although these can be difficult to read). I have listed each exercise below as numbered in the workout, with some of my own added comments in parentheses.

1) Squat

2) Wide Squat

3) Wide Grip Rows

4) One-Arm Row L (knee on bench)

5) One-Arm Row R (knee on bench)

6) Reverse Flys (seated on bench)

7) Stiff Legged Deadlift (barbell option)

8) Push-Ups

9) Chest Press (lying on bench)

10) Chest Flys (lying on bench)

11) Triceps Kickbacks L (kneeling on bench)

12) Triceps Kickbacks R (kneeling on bench)

13) Skull Crushers (on back)

14) Bicep Curls

15) Hammer Curls

16) Shoulder Press

17) Lateral Raises

18) Anterior Raises

19) Lunge R (Jill leads; stationary front lunge with bench)

20) Lunge L (Jill leads; stationary front lunge with bench)

21) Abs with the Ball (Jill leads; uses stability ball)

22) Deadbugs (Jill leads)

23) Butterfly Crunch (Jill leads)

24) Side Oblique (Jill leads; legs straight up)

The warm-up is not separately chaptered, which is a shame, as this makes it more difficult to string multiple segments together (i.e., users are forced to manually skip the warm-up for each subsequent chapter). As she does in all of her routines, Love uses light weights for the 3.5-minute warm-up, which moves through squats, lunges, deadlifts, rows, bicep curls, lateral raises, and overhead press, finishing with a quick stretch. In his segments, Harris is generally likable, although he overly frequently refers to his two background exercisers as "the ladies" (and once, "the girls") as well as expresses unnecessary surprise several times by saying "they are lifting the same as I am!"

There were a few oddities to this routine. First, the majority of the exercises for similar body parts were grouped together, so the "bonus legs" (lunge) segment toward the end of the workout felt out-of-place. Second, the were more exercises for some of the smaller muscle groups (e.g., triceps, shoulders) than for a major one like biceps. Finally, there was no cool-down or stretch segment to end the workout. Harris does demonstrate brief stretches for the muscles worked at the end of each segment, but these are super-quick, and the two background exercisers strangely stand at attention rather than join in.

Despite these issues, Get Ripped and Jacked offers a unique style of slow lifting not often seen in exercise videos. The chaptered muscle group segments are perfect for those like myself who like to customize their own workouts. Although it is possible to lift heavy for this routine, the slower, higher reps might necessitate pyramiding to lighter weights. This would likely be a challenging video for beginners, particularly due to the long length of the full routine, but is probably appropriate for experienced beginners to advanced intermediate exercisers.