The Next Step

About me: I consider myself a "barely-advanced" exerciser. For instance, I can make it through workouts like Cathe's HIITs or Cardio Core Circuit, but I pretty much feel like I'm going to keel over when I do them. I have been exercising with home videos for about 7 or 8 years, but only started doing advanced workouts about 2 years ago. I prefer complex step choreography because it keeps my mind occupied (Seasun Zieger and Amy Bento are favorites), but will do a step workout where the choreography is only moderately complex as long as it is athletic enough to be a reasonable cardio challenge. Cathe Friedrich is my favorite instructor, but I am catholic in my tastes as long as the instructor has good form, decent cuing, and uses tolerable music. Oh - and because I am a bad, bad person, I almost always skip the cool-down/stretch at the end of a workout.

How this workout is organized:

• Warm-up - 6 minutes

• Horizontal Step, with the step in the normal orientation - 21.5 minutes

• Vertical Step, with the oriented with the short edge closest to the TV - 22 minutes

• Step Challenge, combining the horizontal and vertical segments - 6.25 minutes

• Cool-down - 3.5 minutes

• Abs & Core - 11.75 minutes

• Stretch - 4.5 minutes

• Bonus step segment using 2 steps - 17 minutes

• Total workout time: 92.5 minutes

A non-exhaustive list of moves

• Arabesques

• Lunges off the step

• V-steps

• Hop turns

• Ponies / cha-cha-cha's

• Shuffles along the step

• Lots of "spin your basic" ala Christi Taylor

• The same move that is called "pendulum" by Cathe Friedrich and "tick tock" by others

• A move that is similar to what Cathe Friedrich calls a "ricochet" or "reverse hop" in Four Day Split: Higher Intensity Step

• A move that is like Cathe Friedrich's "sweep around" from the first combo in Four Day Split: Lower Intensity Step

• A move similar to Amy Bento's "crosswalk" in Advanced Step Challenge 2 (different, but close)

• 3 count reverse mambos off the step - similar to what Cathe Friedrich does in Imax 3

• A move that Seasun calls a "push mambo," which is very close to what Cathe Friedrich calls a "power jig" in one of the step routines from Four Day Split: Higher Intensity Step (I think)

Who would probably like this workout?

1) Amy Bento fans. Seasun's choreography is on a par with Amy's in terms of complexity, though her moves are a little less athletic. Her choice in music is similar. Where Seasun excels over Amy, in my view, is that she tends to match her sequences of moves with the 8-count bars of music. Amy, on the other hand, will often begin a sequence of moves on, say, the 2nd or 6th count of a bar, which drives me nuts.

2) People who are comfortable with the level of complexity in, say, a Cathe Friedrich step workout, but are looking for something with more challenging/interesting choreography.

Who would probably not like this workout?

1) Anyone who gets frustrated by complex choreography. If you don't like Amy Bento's workouts, you aren't likely to be a fan of Seasun's, either.

2) Anyone who gets dizzy easily - there are a LOT of spins in this workout, often back-to-back-to-back.

3) Intensity junkies who are looking for a major cardio challenge.

Music: Similar to the type of music Amy Bento uses. I also recognized one song from a Firm workout (BSS4: Ultimate Calorie Blaster, I think).

Where this workout fits in my exercise world:

Because the choreography is complex, I have to use a 6" step rather than an 8". This means that it is not a great workout for getting my heart rate up on its own. However, I've found that if I do a short, intense cardio workout first (such as one of Cathe Friedrich's HIIT workouts), and then follow it with segments from The Next Step, my heart rate stays up at a reasonable level. So…I generally use this workout in segments (rather than all at once), to fill-out the last half-hour of an hour-long workout.

Lots of fun to do, and this is easier to learn than 'Rock Steady Step' because Seasun uses a back row of modifiers who consistently modify throughout for both impact and direction changes (turns). The third segment is vertical step, and the last segment cleverly ties both the horizontal and veritcal step sections together without moving the step. Thanks to the modifiers who show the basic steps, there's no need to break down the moves too much, so you can get a lot of mileage out of this workout. After the cool-down, there's a tough abs section, and finally a double step section (using two steps) at the very end, just for fun. Two thumbs up!