Just Thighs

This is a pretty good lower body video. As I stated under comments of the instructor, there are a few hurtful remarks Joyce had read about herself she tells throughout the workout and bothered me having to hear it while I'm trying to have a pleasant workout. She must have had to get it out, but couldn't she have used her forum or her own website? It wasn't really all that much, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear doing squats & such.

A couple exercises felt like they worked the hip/butt area more so I'm iffy on keeping this tape. There is a standing one that is 1st where you lift your leg front & to the side, and another similiar lifting to the front which both hit the hip flexors quite a bit. I didn't feel it as much in my quads as I'd have hoped these exercises were to perhaps target? I would have liked more standard weight exercises for these instead like sissy squats.

Overall, it isn't a bad workout. I just got a bad feeling doing it.

This workout is included ont he Just Arms dvd. The same general comments about Joyce that I made in that review apply here, which to summarize are: she's nothing fancy, the workouts do the job, and now that they can be gotten from other places besides her sketchy website, I am happy to give these routines the thumbs-up.

This felt a little longer to me than Just Arms did, even though it was about the same length. You still do the exercises in rounds, but the rounds are not little two or three exercise ones: you do ALL the exercises before moving on to the next set. There are 5 sets as this is a full pyramid. I preferred the format of the shorter rounds because it made the workout less tedious.

These exercises were fine for me as I tend to prefer unweighted lower body work, but if you are used to heavy lifting or your body responds to that, you will find it hard to modify this brisk-moving routine to your needs. A few of the exercises did not even use weights at all. Some of them felt quite easy.

Overall, this is probably not going to be my favourite lower body workout ever, but it is not a bad mate for the arms tape and I'm sure I will get decent use out of it.

This is a great one from Joyce with a slower lifting speed (Marthe counts). You have time to change weights between exercises.

Length: 34 min.

You super duper giant set for thighs using the full pyramid system 12/10/8/10/12 reps. There are 5 rounds (1 for each step in the pyramid) concisting of 8 exercises before you get a 15 second rest. All the standing leg work are squat variations. The 8 exercises are performed with or without dumbbells. If no dumbbells are required, 15 reps are performed. If you're time crunched, stop after 3 rounds (so you pyramid up only).

1)Standing leg raises front and side (no bells)

2)Plie squat

3)Standing leg extension front (leg stays up, extend from knee, no bells)

4)Hack squat (bells behind back)

5)Seated simultaneous leg extensions w/bell between feet (no bells)

6)Squat

7)Supine single leg sweep (lift leg until perpendicular to ceiling, no bells)

8)Lying simultaneous leg curls w/bell between feet

This is just 1 giant set of 8 exercises. You repeat this 4 more times using the true pyramid system!

I think I'll perhaps sub exercise 3 with quick shallow unweighted lunges in stationary position, and exercise 7 with unweighted tall box leg presses. If Joyce goes too fast for leg presses, I'll stay on top of the tall box, dipping a leg slightly down behind the tall box 15 times, letting the stationary leg do a static contraction.

Rotation tip:

One could alternate full versions and time crunched versions of the Just Joyce titles, thus maintaining a two-day split and shorter workout time, but still reaping the benefits of doing the full pyramid this way:

Day 1: Just Arms (full) + Just Bra-Roll (time crunch)

Day 2: Just Thighs (full) + Just Butt (time chrunch)

the next two days are REVERSE:

Day 3: Just Arms (time crunch) + Just Bra-Roll (full)

Day 4: Just Thighs (time crunch) + Just Butt (full)

Day 5: See Day 1

Day 6: See Day 2

The next week you would start out working the lower body instead of upper body, keeping upper and lower body in balance.

So you alternate full and time crunch versions of the titles, thus maintaining a two-day split and shorter workout time, but still reaping the benefits of doing the full pyramid.

A full pyramid of giant sets.

Truly, I was beat at the end of this one, and that's what I was hoping for.

I will definitely do this again, and I am glad I purchased it. So far, it is my favorite Joyce leg workout, but bear in mind, I've never done a bottoms-up workout by her.