Ultra Techno Workout

I got the Ultra Techno Workout on DVD for $3.99 at Ross. It comes with a CD of the music used in the workout. It's a one hour cardio workout, including warmup, two aerobic segments (one more choreographed and one more drill-like), ab work, and stretch.

Nanette is alone in this workout, on a wooden deck in front of a lot of pine trees. The set is very pleasant. She's wearing a headset microphone, which causes a few minor audio problems during the workout.

The DVD has some basic chaptering. The chapters are: Full Workout, Cooldown only (this is the abs segment) and More Techno! which tells you more about the company that created the music.

The breakdown:

7 minute warmup consisting of two short combos

4 minute stretch

18 minute section of hi/lo aerobics, including v-steps, skipping in place, jumping jacks, etc.

15 minute "sports specific" section consisting of drills such as jumping in and out of imaginary tires, sprints (running fast in place), plyo squats, lunges, and so on

3 minute cooldown

10 minutes of breathing to prepare for abs, abwork, and back work. This includes Pilates hundred, single leg stretch, five-second crunches (crunch up, put arms straight up, to sides, behind you, then behind your head to crunch up a little bit more, then lower down), regular crunches, lower ab crunches. Back work includes extensions lying face-down, swimming, and planks.

3 minute stretch

I'd call this an intermediate-ish hi/lo athletic workout which could easily be made more or less intense. I did a lot of the workout on my Yogflex rebounder. The music was pretty good, all instrumental techno, somewhat similar to what's used in many CIA workouts.

There were a few oddities about this workout. First, I didn't really pay attention to the choreography. I didn't feel like I really needed to LEARN it. The moves were relatively simple, so I was able to just follow Nanette's cues. The choreography reminded me a bit of Tamilee Webb's Cardio Blast and Caribbean Workout Aerobics. The drills were a little like a not-killer Mindy interval workout.

Some technical issues–when the first cardio section begins, text that says something like "35 minutes skipping" appears onscreen. During this time, Nanette fidgets with her pants and keeps rubbing her nose. At another point during the cardio portion, you hear Nanette say something like "You have plenty of time, keep it rolling," and then she wanders off camera. More text appears, and then she comes right back and picks up where she left off. Also, at another point the lighting changes so the scene is bluish and then has sort of a strobe effect.

There are small insets (picture-in-picture) showing Nanette doing moves from the side, which are mostly helpful when she does squats.

I got a good workout with this one–it doesn't require much thought, the choreography is easy to follow and easy to make low or high-impact. Also, I really enjoyed the outdoor setting and being able to do this on a rebounder. It would be easy to just do the first aerobic segment and then skip to the abs segment if you didn't want a full hour workout. For that reason, it might be a good transitional workout from someone going from shorter to longer or higher impact workouts.

This will probably end up on my trade list because I have so many great cardio workouts. If you can get this cheap and like athletic choreography, it might appeal to you, but I wouldn't send anybody searching for it.