The Hollywood Trainer: Kickboxing-Bootcamp

Jeanette leads this kickboxing + strength w/o in a really nice outdoor courtyard! She works out with 2 b/g exercisers. The dvd is chaptered very well so you can select the combo you want to do or play all for a nice 50 min workout. You will need dumbbells for this workout.

I like that she combines straight forward kickboxing moves into simple routines but doesnt rep you to death. Jeanette does a great job keeping things moving along w/out rushing us- very good balance. This w/o includes kickboxing, sculpting, balance & core work. She finishes the w/o with a few quick ab moves & a stretch.

Kickboxing exercises include: knee ups, balancing rear kick, double jab to the corners, knee pull- heel tap (really hits the abs & obliques), various punhces & punch combos (jab, cross, upper, hook), various kicks & kick combos (slap kick, roundhouse, front kick, etc.), punch kick combos. Strength exercises include: pliet w/ clean & press, pushups, statick lunge w/ bi curl, dip-knee up-bi curl, pliet upright row/ shoulder raise, glute lift-delt raise, rotator cuff -glute lift, crunches & double crunches.

I am a huge fan of Jeanette and this w/o didnt disappoint! I would rate this a solid intermediate w/o that would be easy to to modify up or down. I wore my weighted gloves & added some plyos for a nice calorie burn. Oh they do wear and refer to HR monitors & calorie burn often in this w/o. She has a great energy & you can tell she is enjoying herself.

On cardio work, I am an intermediate exerciser who enjoys with intermediate to advanced choreography. My most favorite workouts are step, but I also enjoy hi/lo and throw in kickboxing for a change of pace periodically. With strength work, I am an intermediate exerciser, who doesn’t really want to move up to advanced work. In general, I like doing EITHER cardio or strength, but not both, so I generally do not do (or keep) circuit workouts. In reading about this workout, it intrigued me enough to get it through a trade. And, I enjoyed it enough that I am keeping it for now. It is a lot of fun. Here are my general impressions:

The warm up is 6.5 minutes, but seemed to me to go on foooorrrrreeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrrr, mainly because she talks non-stop and incessantly about her heart rate monitor and the heart rate monitor numbers and what you should see in your numbers on your heart rate monitor. So, the second time I did this workout, I substituted my own warm up and enjoyed the workout much better.

The main part of the workout alternates kickboxing combinations with strength work. During this section, she lays off the constant talk about the heart rate monitor and only refers to it a few times. There is a lot of banter between her and her two background exercisers; for me, it made the workout more fun. One of the background exercisers is supposed to be the modifying exerciser, but he is spotty on doing modifications - sometimes he does them, sometimes he doesn’t. Jeanette gives a lot of form pointers, but doesn’t explain the moves themselves. I really appreciated the form pointers, but thought this wouldn’t be a good workout for a beginning kickboxer. I’d want more detailed explanation as to how to do the kicks and punches before trying this workout. There is quite a bit of balance work (something I can use) and lots of upper body/lower body combinations during the strength segments.

The music is loud, techno music. I didn’t love it, but it kept me moving throughout the workout. The set seems to be on some sort of patio or paved outdoor setting. You don’t see much around them. The workout does move side to side and front to back some, but you don’t need a large area for it, just some room to move in.

Overall, I found the workout fun. The only turn off for me was the HR monitor talk.

Kickbox-Bootcamp is my first Hollywood Trainer video; it's an intense workout which combines kickboxing moves with weighted toning intervals. It is filmed in an outdoor, patio-type setting to a high energy soundtrack, and Jeanette leads a female fitness competitor and a male personal trainer.

The workout begins with a 7-minute warm-up in which you do plies, basic stretches, and then end with a set of 25 push-ups. The first kickboxing interval is 8 minutes long, and it focuses on the front kick, the jab, and cross. Jeanette puts the moves together in simple, easy to learn combinations, although some of them felt a little awkward to me in this initial segment. There are also plenty of 1-legged moves to work on balance, and the segement ends with a squat and kick combination. The first toning segment was quite challenging, even with light weights (I used 5-lbs plus had on my 1-lb boxing gloves). In this section, Jeanette performs a variety of lunges, adding upper body work to each movement (eg, lunge with bicep curl). Although this section was only 7 minutes long, by the end, I was more out of breath than during the kickboxing!

At the start of the next segment, Jeanette introduces the side kick, and she moves on to hook and uppercut punches. This segment also includes lots of repeater knee lifts, both to the front and to the back, plus a heel touch to work the inner thighs. Again, simple kick-punch combinations are included for a total of 11 minutes. The next toning segment is a wuick but intense 3 minutes. Jeanette again combines lower body work with upper body weights, this time using plies. There is also a rear leg kick to target the glutes as well as work on balance.

The final kickboxing segment is 8 mintues long. This time, Jeanette introduces the roundhouse kick, and the combinations include all four punches. There are also more knee repeaters in this section. To begin to cool down, Jeanette does about a minute of slow plies before moving to the floor. She then leads you through a few basic crunches, but at 1-2 minutes, this is a very short segment. Finally, the workout ends with about 3 minutes of stretching, bringing it in at just under 50 minutes.

I work rate this workout as a pretty solid intermediate level; I would not recommend it to beginners, as Jeanette provides little instruction on kickboxing form. Although I don't have a HRM, it seemed like the toning segments really kept my HR up, as I was breathing hard during the entire workout. Also, Jeanette and crew are wearing HRMs, and they frequently call out their percentages, which stay in the recommended zone the entire time. In some ways, this workout had a bit of a Tae Bo feel to me, as the combinations are pretty basic, so the video might particularly appeal to those who like the style of Tae Bo but don't like Billy Blanks.

This is my first experience with the Hollywood Trainer series, and I really enjoyed it. The workout is 45 minutes long, and alternates kickboxing combo routines with light weight work. Personally I am not a fan of mixing weight work in this way---she goes fast to maintain the cardio level, so you can’t go heavy, and she doesn’t do enough reps to balance out the fact that you’re using light weights. However, in this case it is mostly compound moves, so I treated it like a cardio workout that happened to include squats and lunges, and did the arm work without weights, not counting on any sculpting effect.

The kickboxing combos were the perfect kind for me. I am a bit of a klutz and kickboxing of the right type is one of the few cardio options I can do. But I have trouble when the moves go too fast or when the combos are too long and complicated. This tape was just right: most combos were moderate speed and had just two or three moves, and she keeps with each combo for long enough that you can catch on and get a good workout.

The dvd, like all others in this series also comes with a helpful insert that lists the chapters and the various exercises each contains. For the record, these are:

- Intro

- Warm-up and stretch

- Combo 1 (Kickboxing)

- Combo 2 (Weights)

- Combo 3 (Kickboxing)

- Combo 4 (Weights)

- Combo 5 (Kickboxing)

- Abs and stretch

Jeanette is an energetic and pleasant-seeming instructor and works out with two background exercisers. They are all wearing heart-rate monitors and talk about them frequently, which I know some people were bothered by but which did not bother me. I was, however, a bit annoyed by the music. It was very loud and pulsing and…manic. Just very odd music, vocal in some places, instrumental in others and very techno-y. It did not bother me enough to blackball the workout or anything, but if it were me, I definitely would have picked different music.

Overall: I enjoyed this workout. I could handle all the moves, got in some bonus lower body toning and worked up a good sweat. It was a well-constructed routine and I was not watching the clock. I will definitely do this workout again.

This is kickboxing interspersed with weight sections. it's about 45 minutes long, and she packs it in.

MOST of her moves are low impact, but you get your heart pumping.

her combos are fun - and her weights are combination moves which are always good for an extra cardio burn.

Her punches are jab, cross, roundhouse, uppercut.

Her kicks are front, snap, roundhouse, side. She does do some slow back kicks too.

All in all, it's a fun workout, and I will definitely do it again. The music is fast paced and sometimes has vocals, other times, is purely instrumental.

Overall, I love this series so far. The workouts are short enough that I can do them without feeling guilty about the kids, and long enough that I don't feel that niggling doubt that i'm getting enough of a workout in.

My current goal is fat/weight loss, so it does matter to me to get in some longer workouts.