As I get bored of (and adapt to) the exercise tapes I own, I find myself exploring the offerings at the local library. I've written about my samplings before and I often find something I like.
One thing that I've noticed is how many have themes I don't necessarily want to expose my daughters to. Because I homeschool my kids, they are home when I am doing my exercise tape. Sometimes they are elsewhere around the house, engaged in scholastic, academic, challenging work, or downstairs in the basement lab exploring cures for the most dangerous pathogens known to man, but other times they want some downtime and hang out in the family room while I do my exercises. I've always been pretty aware that body image can be a problem for young girls and I want to do everything I can to show my girls that I exercise because it makes me feel good and healthy and it also helps me from injuring myself if I keep in shape (and I do my best to shuttle them out of the room when their father starts comparing his waistband to that of his brothers. Seriously, he is such a problem).
I have to say, I love my Reebox Versa Training Hi-Lo Aerobics video from 1995. Not only does it include a man in the workout trio, but the outfits and people look normal and all the messages are new-agey and not body oriented at all. I like the workout, too, but I get tired of it after awhile.
More recently, I have bought the 10 Minute Solution Fat Blasting Dance Mix. I like the tape and the workout girls look normal. I'm not too jazzed about the title segments - Simple Slimmer, Calorie Meltdown, Fat Burning Party. Nor am I too thrilled about the comments about looking sexy and working your way towards a slimmer you. It's not too bad, but I did have to field a question asking me if most women want to lose weight. I think my answer was that some probably do, but I like to feel strong and healthy. Think it will work?
Today's workout sample was Self - Dance Your Way Slim. I only did half the tape (another aspect of exercising around the kids is I need/want to keep it to 30 or 40 minutes and this is a 52 minute workout. I like the 10 minute solution series because it's easy to stop a complete workout). I like this tape, 3 very normal looking women in normal clothes. It really reminded me of the exercise classes I used to take (gulp) 9 years ago. It was fun enough, easy enough, and gave me a nice little workout (might be too simple for some). What I also liked was there was no commentary in the first half about body appearance or being sexy. Well, not until around the 30 minute mark when she started saying something about sexy.
I guess I'll keep up my exercise tape sampling, I just wish I could find more aerobic workout tapes that omit references to body appearance and sexiness. Why must everything in our culture always be 'sexy'? It's so annoying. And how am I going to field those questions from my girls?
Yeah, yeah, I know the most important role models are the parents but why must our culture make things more difficult? I think an ABBA song addressed that topic (money, money, money).
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Friday, March 06, 2009
10 Minute Solution - Fat Blasting Dance Mix
I've checked out a bunch of aerobics DVDs from the library because I'm bored with my Reebok Hi/Lo tape from 1996. My selections involved a lot of bellydancing offerings but I wasn't in the mood today, so I tried this one - I shall call it TMS for Ten Minute Solution.
I liked it -- the leader, Jennifer Galardi, has a nice energy. She's pleasant but not overly perky and she doesn't seem to mess up her counting (a complaint I have with Denise Austin, who is also annoyingly perky). Then again, Jennifer doesn't do more than about 4 reps at a time, which is nice; she mixes the moves together, so nothing is going on "for the count of 8." The music worked for me, it wasn't popular dance music, but had a nice beat. The DVD is broken into 5 10 minute segments, each with it's own short cool-down, so you can mix and match or do the whole thing. This is key for me because my exercise time varies. The first 3 workouts are all aerobics, so it makes a nice 30 minute workout but even if I stopped after the second, I'd feel like I got some good exercise.
Her routines weren't too complicated for someone used to doing aerobics and she builds them together well, I think.
The last 2 workouts are butt/thigh and abs. I like these because they are all done standing up. I don't like doing floor work on all fours because it hurts my wrists and I feel like my balance is off (maybe that's why my wrists hurt). I had done some butt buster tape which was mostly on all fours and it didn't work for me. Anyway, I like the TMS butt/thigh work. I only did half the ab workout, I just couldn't get the moves down and I am the queen of crunches, anyway, so I didn't feel I needed this tape for abs.
I liked the women on the video, they were young and cute and I liked the outfits -- they changed at least for the first four segments, I really don't remember what they were wearing for abs. The first three aerobics outfits were super cute -- hey, if that keeps me going, so what? That other butt workout video I mentioned had the sluttiest looking workout girls I'd seen, plus, I couldn't look at their chests without feeling for them, they did not have the support they needed and they all looked like they had been surgically augmented. Anyway, that tape was some man's workout program, so go figure that his workout girls looked like reformed porn stars. Actually, being a "workout tape" was probably a cover -- slutty looking girls with big hair, huge chests, and unsupportive clothing on all fours, I was suspicious.
The main thing I did not like about this video was the "fat blasting" banners before each section. The aerobics sections are "simple slimmer," "calorie meltdown," and "fat burning party" and I think each time it had the little "fat blasting" logo. One of my daughters asked me, "Mommy, do you want to burn fat?" I just said "no, but some people might want to." My big thing is to always tell my kids that I like to exercise because it makes me feel healthy and strong and good about myself. ***
I liked this video, I may just buy myself a copy and skip the bellydancing videos. But maybe I should try them to see.
*** WaPo had an article in its Health section about watching what we say about what we eat around our daughters -- it didn't strike me as any news flash, but I enjoyed reading it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/02/AR2009030201756.html
I liked it -- the leader, Jennifer Galardi, has a nice energy. She's pleasant but not overly perky and she doesn't seem to mess up her counting (a complaint I have with Denise Austin, who is also annoyingly perky). Then again, Jennifer doesn't do more than about 4 reps at a time, which is nice; she mixes the moves together, so nothing is going on "for the count of 8." The music worked for me, it wasn't popular dance music, but had a nice beat. The DVD is broken into 5 10 minute segments, each with it's own short cool-down, so you can mix and match or do the whole thing. This is key for me because my exercise time varies. The first 3 workouts are all aerobics, so it makes a nice 30 minute workout but even if I stopped after the second, I'd feel like I got some good exercise.
Her routines weren't too complicated for someone used to doing aerobics and she builds them together well, I think.
The last 2 workouts are butt/thigh and abs. I like these because they are all done standing up. I don't like doing floor work on all fours because it hurts my wrists and I feel like my balance is off (maybe that's why my wrists hurt). I had done some butt buster tape which was mostly on all fours and it didn't work for me. Anyway, I like the TMS butt/thigh work. I only did half the ab workout, I just couldn't get the moves down and I am the queen of crunches, anyway, so I didn't feel I needed this tape for abs.
I liked the women on the video, they were young and cute and I liked the outfits -- they changed at least for the first four segments, I really don't remember what they were wearing for abs. The first three aerobics outfits were super cute -- hey, if that keeps me going, so what? That other butt workout video I mentioned had the sluttiest looking workout girls I'd seen, plus, I couldn't look at their chests without feeling for them, they did not have the support they needed and they all looked like they had been surgically augmented. Anyway, that tape was some man's workout program, so go figure that his workout girls looked like reformed porn stars. Actually, being a "workout tape" was probably a cover -- slutty looking girls with big hair, huge chests, and unsupportive clothing on all fours, I was suspicious.
The main thing I did not like about this video was the "fat blasting" banners before each section. The aerobics sections are "simple slimmer," "calorie meltdown," and "fat burning party" and I think each time it had the little "fat blasting" logo. One of my daughters asked me, "Mommy, do you want to burn fat?" I just said "no, but some people might want to." My big thing is to always tell my kids that I like to exercise because it makes me feel healthy and strong and good about myself. ***
I liked this video, I may just buy myself a copy and skip the bellydancing videos. But maybe I should try them to see.
*** WaPo had an article in its Health section about watching what we say about what we eat around our daughters -- it didn't strike me as any news flash, but I enjoyed reading it.
http://www.washingtonpost.
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