Sculpt Dynamics With Sylwia Wiesenberg

Tonique is unique and basic. Tonique was created by women for women. The Tonique lifestyle is not to deprive yourself. Sylwia believes you can have what you want just in moderation. Just eat less, but enjoy everything. Sylwia Wiesenberg is a mom of two and understands what it's like to have a body that could look a little better. She wants you to feel confident. Sylwia feels a woman should be a bit selfish and take the time to take care of herself. Take some "Me Time." Even if it's just spending an hour a day working out with her. A woman should take the time to escape and reflect on herself. During this time you should involve movement.

 "Make yourself number 1!"-Sylwia

I've been doing Tonique workouts off and on for two years. I really love her positive personality. You can feel her passion for fitness and movement come through the screen. Sculpt Dynamics is a mixture of cardio and sculpting like many of her other workouts, but there are some differences. First the music is mostly jazz. Something you don't usually hear in a workout DVD. Second, there is a lot more dancing in the DVD than usual. Third, there's one DVD for the cardio sculpting of the entire body and another DVD just for the arms.

"Your goal should always exceed your expectations!"-Sylwia

Sylwia's workouts are always challenging. You don't need to use dumbbells or weights.  If you do she recommends you use 2-3 pound weights. She works every muscle in your body in many different angles. Sculpt Dynamics is definitely an advanced workout. She doesn't have a modifier. Listen to your body. If you find a move too difficult modify it yourself, dance or walk in place. Some movement is better than nothing. Most of her workouts focus on the lower body. I think that's why she has a separate DVD just for the arms this time. You still get a cardio workout during the arms DVD. Just not as much as disc 1.

Check out ToniqueFitness on YouTube!

I liked these workouts. Disc 1 is the cardio sculpting for the whole body. You are sculpting your body and getting your heart rate up at the same time. Disc 1 is two hours. I haven't done the entire DVD on one day. I usually split them into 2. Disc 2 is 40 minutes and is just arms sculpting. Like I said before you do get a cardio workout with this one as well, but most of the DVD is focused on the arms. Sometimes she doesn't cue you to let you know when to change from a single to a double in the exercise for example. So,you have to keep your eye on the screen.

Sylwia cooking and working out on Windy City Live!

I contacted Sylwia because I wanted to review and giveaway her latest DVD. She didn't offer just one DVD, but 4 DVDs for me to giveaway to 4 of my readers. She's such a sweetheart! Thanks Sylwia;-)  You can enter using the Rafflecopter widget below.  Giveaway ends June 25, 2012 at 12:01am EST.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

X-TrainFit Circuit Burnout

I was really excited when I saw the name of this DVD. Circuit Burnout sounds like something that would be really challenging and possibly kill me. It's described as " a body sculpting routine that provides a full-body workout using a combination of cardio and toning to get maximum results." And it's 80 minutes! Yes! That's for me! I start the workout and it starts with a warm up. What I do like about this workout system compared to Supreme 90 is that they don't use the same warm up for each DVD. Also, the people working out with Stephanie look like ordinary people not models. Basically, this workout is very basic. It has squats, planks, thrusts, lunges etc. The same things you can find in any other workout and she has you doing the same things over and over again. I would find myself self saying 'What, we're doing this again?' With no variation in the movements. If you are a beginner and haven't really done as many workout DVDs as I have then you would find this one challenging. I do like some things about X-Train Fit. Compared to Supreme 90 the packaging is excellent. My Supreme 90 packaging started falling apart very soon after getting it. Stephanie Oram provides you with a training guide that shows what muscles each exercise targets. The best foods to eat. How to measure yourself and calculate your BMI. Also, charts to list what you did, how many reps and what weight you used. Everything was thought out very thoroughly. I just wish this workout was more challenging.

X-TrainFit Cardio Review

This week I started a workout program called X-TrainFit. My hubby got it for me for Christmas. I was really excited to start it. It's a 12 week program with 8 DVDs. Similar to P90X and Supreme 90. The first video is Cardio. This video is 53 minutes. It consists of 4 workout sets and you do 2 to 3 exercises for 60 seconds, then 45 seconds and then 30 seconds. In between the sets you do one exercise for 60 seconds. It starts out with a brief warm up. The workout is led by the creator Stephanie Oram. She is accompanied by 3 other people. For the most part I liked this DVD, but it didn't really challenge me like my other workout videos. I guess Jillian Michaels, Tony Horton and Bob Harper among others have created such challenging videos that it's really hard to top them. I would say if you are a beginner or maybe an intermediate you will find it challenging. I found myself looking for another workout DVD to do, because I wasn't challenged enough.

Review of the Day: Bob Harper's Body Rev Cardio Conditioning

This workout is from his Inside Out Method Series. The first one I tried was the Pure Burn Super Strength. That workout blew me away. It was so intense and it bought me to my knees. This one was a good cardio workout with squat jumps, jump rope, jumping jacks, walk-outs etc. There was a move called the Scorpion Push-up that I could barely get through. You could see the people behind him struggle as well through out the workout. He uses the isometric holds like in Pure Burn. My heart rate was elevated much of the workout.

The only thing I didn't like about the workout were the arm swings with the weights. I don't mind using weights in a cardio workout, but there were too many swings. I found myself getting bored and frustrated. The music I did like. Lots of guitar to get you pumped and motivated.

There is an sdditional 25 minute Butt and Balance workout. It's a good lower body workout. Good if you need something that's quick and effective. I find Bob is fun to work out with. He challenges you to work harder, go lower, do better. That's why I will continue to try his workouts.

Paul Chek on Cardio from Gabby Reece's website

Basically he says that cardio can be too stressful for some people. It puts too much stress on the adrenal glands and releases cortisol and maybe they should just stick with strength training. You should change up the strength training routine every 4-6 weeks. I have strength training DVDs that increase the heart rate just like a cardio routine would. So, I think I will give this a try. Check out the link below and see what you think. I have also put my workout for the next week below. I will try to do strength training 4-5 times a week. I will include yoga as put of my strength training routine. I walk a lot already so I will just use that as my cardio.

chidiva68.review4u@blogger.com has shared the following link with you via AddToAny:

http://www.gabbydaily.com/2010/10/paul-chek-on-cardio/

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Sunday-Amy Bento All Pump Extreme
Monday-Yoga Meltdown w/Jillian Michaels
Tuesday-Shred It With Weights w/Jillian Michaels
Wednesday-Yoga Meltdown w/Jillian Michaels
Friday-Lean Machine w/Jari Love
Saturday-Shred It With Weights w/Jillian Michaels

Review of the Day: Billy Blanks Jr. Burn it Up

As you know by now I've been a Tae Bo girl since 1999. So, I was excited to see that his son has started making exercise DVDs. I saw that his Cardioke was On Demand so I decided to give it a try. It's 60 minutes long, but it goes by fast.

It starts off with a warm-up and then stretch. Then there is a Hip-Hop section. I had some difficulty following it. He put me at ease by saying "Don't judge yourself" and I could see even some of the people behind him were having some problems keeping up. And they are students in his class.

Billy has a lot of energy and is very motivating much like his dad. He reminds you to keep breathing during the entire workout. Even though I was having trouble keeping up this is a fun workout to do with your kids. We were making mistakes together and even with the mistakes you are still burning calories. My heart rate was up and I was sweating a lot. The next section was Bollywood. It was fun I always enjoy doing some Bhangra and since I was familiar with it I was able to keep up.

My favorite section was the Cardio Fit. I wish the whole DVD was just this. It was simply aerobics. Easy to follow, but challenging. The Cardio Fit Jive & Latin were fun to do. They were a lot simpler than the Hip-Hop.

The Dance Sculpt section used ballet moves which is something I don't normally see in the DVDs I usually do. The arms sculpting portion used no weights, but I really felt like I was getting a good workout. By the end of that section my arms were on fire.

The Cool Down was basically a section where we could get our heart rate down, relax and stretch. The song playing in the background was written and performed by his wife Sharon.

I have to say that I enjoyed all of Burn It Up except for the Hip-Hop section. I would do it again. It's a fun workout. And anything that can keep my kids engaged and having fun for an hour is a bonus. It's called Burn It Up on the On Demand menu, but I think it's taken from his Cardio Fit DVD.

Review of the Day:Billy Blanks Cardio Inferno

I have been a Tae Bo girl since 1999. I have about 80% of the videos he has released and maybe tried about 90% of them. When I found out he had finally released another workout I was excited and a bit apprehensive. I do love the Tae Bo, but since I've been doing it so long and I'm a bit of a fitness junkie I have done a lot of workouts and always need to be challenged. I decided to give Cardio Inferno a try.

Well, it starts off with a stretching warm-up which is something I've never liked and always tend to skip. I like to move in warm-up. So, I just jogged in place for the 5 minutes. We then get down to business. It's time for the workout. I was hoping that there would be some new moves in this DVD. He did add a couple of new moves. A lot of it were the same moves, but he put them in a combination that he never did before. He was motivating and energetic as usual. I like that he doesn't take a lot of time between moves. Tae Bo DVDs always go by fast for me. I'm never really watching the clock. The workout including the warm-up is about 45 minutes. There is a tutorial, but since I've been doing Tae Bo for 11 years I didn't do it.

I have to say that if you are a beginner this workout will knock you off your feet. It is challenging, but I wish it was a bit more complicated in the moves. My heart rate was between 60-70%. I like it to be above that. It says you can burn up to 800 calories. I got to 250. So, not bad for 40 minutes. I will get this DVD out when I need to have a good workout, but if you want a really challenging Tae Bo workout I suggest getting the Get Ripped DVDs.