Split Routine: Aerobics/Toning

The previous reviewers did a good job of breaking this set down. i just want to add that collage shows the cardio as follows:

warm up 7, floor aerobics 30, cool down 7 = 44 min

the toning is:

warm up 7, standing toning 11, floor toning 23, stretch 6 = 47.

chapters:

main menu: choose between cardio or toning.

sub chapters:

Cardio

Warm Up [7:01]

Cardio [29:22]

Cool Down [4:47]

Toning

Warm Up [6:23]

Toning: Lower Body [5:48]

Toning: Upper Body [5:16]

Floor Work: Outer Thighs [5:44]

Floor Work: Inner Thighs [4:45]

Floor Work: Buttocks [4:31]

Floor Work: Abdominals [7:36]

Cool Down [7:52]

some VFers experienced glitching on this title, and i experienced a freeze at about 15 minutes into the Toning section. eventually it moved on. i am not sure how much time was skipped during the glitch.

The cardio is really nice in that it almost reminded me of an advanced Leslie Sansone with a few more high-impact moves thrown in toward the end. i used 1# weighted gloves throughout. i'd probably do it again because there aren't too many 45 minute cardio workouts that are basic.

I did the toning workout the next day. The toning is done unweighted, although you could easily add weights to it. again, i used 1# gloves to do this, but i could see switching to 5# weights, and maybe as much as 8#, during the squats, lunges, and even the floor work.

the floor work is old school, but you don't see much of this in newer videos. there's just enough for you to feel the burn since he does high reps.

the music is typical Gilad (bass, drums, guitar). this was filmed on a deserted beach on a sunny morning.

This dvd features two 45-minute workouts, an “aerobic” routine and an “anaerobic” routine. Gilad suggests you can use them as either a two-day split, an am/pm split or a super-long challenge workout. Both are filmed in a pleasant beach setting and they do not appear to be “parts” compilations like Get Fit in Jerusalem or Bodies in Motion.

The “aerobic” routine is all cardio. It is less combo-oriented than some of his other stuff. You basically do short little sections featuring a certain move with variations on it, e.g. hop stuff, tap stuff etc. You come back to marching for a little recovery break, then go into the next one. It is very similar to Gilad’s other cardio so if you have done some of his other workouts none of this will surprise you. I liked having the variation of a bit of intensity, then a bit of cooling off. It makes impact manageable for me. These are all basic non-complicated moves and even a choreography-hater like me can manage them. I am quite pleased with Gilad’s hi/lo cardio. He is the only instructor I have found besides Leslie Sansone that I would say has enough non-step/non-dancy/non-kickbox stuff that I can build a proper rotation with it.

The “anaerobic” routine features toning for the lower body, isometric work for the upper body and floor work. Legs get many sets on plie squats, one-leg static lunges and one-leg moving lunges done at varying tempos. The whole legs section is just these three moves, repeated in really long sets of normal, then pulsing, then normal, then pulsing etc. The time goes by quickly because you are only doing sets of 8, even though there are many of them. Then we do the isometric arm stuff, there are circles, chest flexes, a bit of biceps and triceps. He goes too fast and at too odd an angle to use weights. I would just count this as a short little extra functional section. Finally, the floor work, 3 sections of it---outer thigh, inner thigh, buttocks. Each has about 3 or 4 moves done for 3 sets of 8. The workout finishes with a short ab section and a cool-down. I would for sure do this routine again, even the floor work, which is generally something I skip. I wish the arm work had been with weights, or that it could be easily modified to use them. My arms did get a nice fatigue here but that was more from holding them at for so long!

My overall verdict: I really, really liked this dvd and will get a lot of use from it. One caveat though, you will need to supplement the arm work. It is too bad he couldn’t include something with weights that would make this a complete cross-training pair. But, I did buy this primarily for the cardio work, so I got what I wanted :)

This workout consists of 45 minutes of athletic, mixed-impact aerobics, and 45 minutes of “toning.” The “warm-up” consisted mostly of stretches, so I watched for a while, then skipped to the aerobic segment and used the first few moves as a warm-up. It starts out very low-impact, and the DVD version makes it really easy to move to different sections of the workout.

The aerobics are very simple and include jogging in place, knee-ups, jumping jacks, jumping (a pretend) rope, and “pivots” (often called aerobic lunges, done side to side). It’s possible to modify this workout and make it all low-impact. I enjoyed it though, done as shown. I got a good aerobic workout, without straining my brain. Gilad will do a few moves for a while, and then move on. There is absolutely NO TIFT-ing.

The “toning” segment was composed of all unweighted moves. There are upper and lower body segments. The lower body segment included plie squats, lunges, and dips. I used 10 lb. weights for this segment. The upper body segment included moves such as holding your arms straight out and making small circles, or doing bent-arm delt flies. I skipped this segment as it didn’t seem like it’d be very effective. You could use light weights for most of the moves, if you were careful about your rep speed and range of motion.

The floorwork section is divided into outer and inner thighs, glutes, abs, and stretch. The outer and inner thigh segment included standard leg lifts with variations. The glute segment consisted of table work, where you get on all fours, keep your leg bent 90 degrees, and lift straight up. The ab section contained all traditional ab work–crunches, oblique crunches, etc.

I skipped the stretches and did my own. I did notice that the stretches were held longer than in most workouts. I also noticed that good form was exhibited throughout the workout.

Yes, the outfits and music look a bit dated. BUT the exercisers all look like they’re in good shape–muscular without being scrawny–and they all exhibit good form. This is the workout where Gilad slips off his workout space and has everyone do their own thing for a minute, but that didn’t bother me.

In the end, this is a decent aerobic and lower body workout. It can be modified to low or high impact and done with or without weights for lower body work. It’s perfect for those 5:30 AM workouts when my brain can’t keep up with me doing turns and dancy steps. It’s also good for someone looking for high-rep, low weight workouts that include simple moves that don’t require much space.

Gilad's video starts you off slowly but very quickly goes into a higher pace. He allows a moment of respite in between the harder sections and then revs up the pace just when you think your heart is slowing down too much. His steps are easy to follow which is definitely an asset for the less-choreographically inclined and because of this I think one wants to do the workout again. Funnily enough, once the higland dance portion (the last rev up before the cool down)finishes you wish that it weren't over even if you were cursing him before. I strongly recommend this for beginners, intermediates and even for pros who may want to do both 45 minutes one following the other.

I just received these videos in the mail, I ordered them off Gilad's Body in Motion show. They are a set of two tapes, one is aerobics the other is toning. The first one I viewed is 45 minutes of typical Gilad aerobics, which I like. The second tape is toning which is also 45 minutes, but to my surprise is the old Hips Abs and Arms toning, which I already have in my collection, but needs to be replaced anyways. I assume the aerobics tape is also a new package since the date on it is 1990.

I just thought other people might be interested in this, since it is definitely not made clear in the commercial