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.