There are some newly release

d workout DVD’s that are being released just in time for the holiday season. So, you can look into these as potential gifts, whether to yourself or to a loved one, for the fitness enthusiasts on your list – or for you, the fitness enthusiast!

First on our list is the workout video maven herself, and movie star with a gorgeous bangin’ body even in her later years, Jane Fonda.  She’s got a new workout DVD out that’s called Jane Fonda : Prime Time Walkout.  The newest one is geared toward a lower impact set, so perhaps this would be good for beginners or people who may have injuries, be a little older, or just do not want high impact types of workouts.

The DVD offers two one-hour walking style workouts that include things like intermittent lunges and other “break” exercises combined with walking.

Of course, what would the holiday be without another release from the workout guru of the new age herself, Jillian Michaels!?  She has released one called Six Pack in Six Weeks. You can imagine, it’s all about the abs with this one.  Jillian is famous for showing off her gorgeous, totally and ridiculously toned abs (and arms, sheesh, she always makes me feel like a slouch).

In this DVD, she concentrates on the abdominal area, which gives a lot of us, men and women alike, a problem.  This workout DVD offers two 30 minutes ab-concentrated workouts that really focus on core strength.

They also each include warm ups and cool downs, but Jillian is notorious for keeping these as short as she can so she can kick your butt most of the time   I’m sures it’s a great workout, because all of her other workouts give me results really quickly.

While we’re on the subject of Biggest Loser stars, Bob Harper, the hot counterpart to Jillian on the show, also has a new workout DVD out. I also love his workout DVD’s. He’s got a softer, different style, but he’s very encouraging, and his workouts are also incredibly challenging.

The latest from Bob is Cardio Max for Weightloss, which is a cardio, butt busting routine. His workouts usually run about 45 minutes.

For Jersey Shore fans, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino also has a workout DVD that recently was released.  Of course you can imagine, this one focuses on the muscles mostly and also on those famous washboard abs that he so famously likes to show off.

This workout DVD is about 45 minutes long, and is organized into 15 minute sets which focus on the butt, arms, biceps, abs and more.  Some forget that Sorrentino is actually a personal trainer in “real life” too, so he does know a thing or two about fitness. Let’s hope there’s no kissing of the biceps in this one

I’ve tried quite a few of the Fit TV shows now, and some of them I love and couldn’t do without recording them every week and doing at least one of them a week along with the rest of my exercise repertoire. Some of them, not so much.  Like the Dance and Be Fit show, which I’ve now tried two different shows of.  I tried one that was based on Capoeira, which is the Brazilian dance/martial art that is taking certain areas by storm, and the second one I tried was one based on hip hop moves.  I didn’t like either of them. Just not my cup of tea.

The first reason I did not like them was that to me, they just were not challenging enough. The warm ups lasted way too long. They seemed to take up almost half of the workout, considering there are commercial interruptions, and that really bothered me. I felt like we wasted a lot of time on meaningless moves that really didn’t “work” any part of my body, and that I was wasting my time because it really wasn’t getting me a lot of cardio of muscle toning.

There were some challenging parts of the Capoeira one, but the hip hop one just didn’t challenge me at all.  What I think is that most of the Dance and Be Fit shows are probably geared toward people that are at a lower fitness level, or that just want to get up and move, no matter what that movement is. Or maybe it’s for if you just want to change things up a bit, but don’t really want a huge challenge. By the way, the best clothes for this exercise are probably light yoga pants, anything else and you might be tripping over it.

I felt like the moves were not intuitive either, and that bothers me when it feels like I can’t do the  moves very well. If they are going to do something fun, they should do something that feels intuitive, so you can follow along properly and at least get the enjoyment of moving your body in a way that makes sense and feels good, but for me it was neither.  Wish I had a better review for you on Dance and Be Fit, ’cause I had high hopes for it too. I was hoping I could really spice up my workouts with another challenging and fun workout!

It seems that more and more women are taking to the pole these days. No, I’m not talking about that women who lost their day jobs and resorted to stripping at night to make (probably much better) money in the mean time. I’m talking about the growing fitness craze that involves donning those high spiked heels (or none at all sometimes), and dancing on the pole. It’s the exotic dance workout, and you may have seen some of these hot DVD’s online or in stores.

Carmen Electra sort of started the craze with her Fit to Strip line of DVD workouts, which I’ve actually tried and like fine, but it just wasn’t for me. I felt like a total cheeseball, and just not convincingly sexy enough because I was trying too hard or something .I guess you gotta be a full on sex pot who lives and breathes this stuff to actually not look like a stiff robot trying to look sexy, but it just wasn’t for me.

I personally think you have to have a bit more of a theatrical personality to do it and do it well. It’s great exercise though – have you seen what some of the girls can do on those poles? They can put themselves in an inverted position, and slide down them, that’s pretty talented!

What these types of exotic dance workouts tend to emphasize is growing more confident in yourself while also working your core, your butt and your thighs and stretching the muscles simultaneously as well. It’s similar to other more erotic sorts of workouts like the salsa or shimmy dance workouts, or the latin mamba types of dance workouts that really emphasize sexuality and having fun a lot more than actually targeting specific areas.

I think you can tell that my opinion of these types of workouts is that they are fun, and they are usually a fad. But do they actually provide meaningful workouts? I do believe so, however, I think you should just sprinkle them in with your other workouts that actually give you a full body workout or target specific areas for muscle definition, since these types of exotic dancing ones usually are just a bunch of un=targeted cardio types of moves.

This P90X workout series really blew in like a blustery sandstorm, didn’t it? One minute I had never even heard of the workout DVD series, the next, everyone I knew was talking about it. I guess that’s how these mini exercise phenomenon occur though, right? This one is a series of DVD’s that are designed to really rip and tear your muscles and build them to new levels. Also, the trainer who has designed the DVD’s put together a special nutrition plan that some people follow as well, which is supposed to really make you more cut and reduce even more body fat.

As if the ripping exercises he puts you through aren’t enough! I know a few people who have done this program, and let me tell you, if they have been doing it for a few weeks, and consistently, then there are significant improvements in their physique that are amazing to watch occur.

People literally peel off the fat and add solid, lean muscle mass. If you are a woman who doesn’t want to get too ripped, you may actually want to scale it back a bit because some of the pics of women who are on the program are almost too ripped looking, but that’s just my own personal taste. I saw an infomercial on for these DVD’s again the other day when my sister was in town from California.

My sister happens to be quite a fitness buff herself, and she seemed interested in them too. The commercial slashed the price down to something like $140 I want to say, which is cheaper than the original P90X price of about $200 if I remember correctly. From what I’ve seen it’s well worth it. I believe the workouts are a little over an hour.

You do them almost every day, except you do take one day off, probably just to give your body a little R&R before you start tearing your muscle tissue and building it up again. There is even a lot of yoga and stretching. The guy who does the videos is older, and he still looks like he’s in his twenties, if that’s any testament to what these exercises might be able to do for you.

So, I recorded one of the Bollywood dance workouts on Fit TV (also called “Shimmy”) and finally got up the nerve to try it. I forced my sister, who is actually a fitness enthusiast as well, but perhaps even more than me, to do it with me since she was visiting from California. I thought we could both feel completely clueless and uncoordinated together – what a fun sister bonding experience! And of course, uncoordinated we did feel when we did it.

The Bollywood belly dance style workout has three women in indian belly dance gear to follow. The music is filled with sitars and other ethnic sounds from the east, and the theme of the workout is to really let go, and shake things loose, but also to work up just a little bit of a sweat and help work out those tummy muscles. I thought this would be a very ab intensive workout (since the commercials for this workout say that it will give you envious abs), but it wasn’t really, I felt it more in my legs and my thighs, which I’m not complaining about since that’s where I happen to need most of my improvement.

The workout starts with a warmup that’s very unchallenging. You actually work on relaxing your jaw and your mouth as well. It was different, yes, but I just could tell that this workout wasn’t going to be challenging enough for me. The instructor has you going through a series of sensual, belly dancing types of moves, where you are shaking your butt and your legs a lot, and loosening up your neck muscles quite a bit as well, with head shakes that make you look like you are having a seizure – unless of course you are one of the undoubtedly professionally trained instructors, who happen to look elegant, and dare I say a bit sexy and wild when they do it.

My sister and I could not get through the first ten minutes of the workout without almost falling on the floor laughing at how ridiculous we looked, but we ended up getting through the half hour belly dancing bollywood workout, and I felt a little bit better when we were done, like my body was unwound. I’d compare it to the way my body feels after doing a fairly unchallenging yoga workout, relaxed, but not really “worked”, like I didn’t really burn many calories or seriously tone any muscles.

I’d say this workout is good to mix it up and throw in here and there, but to make it challenging enough as a routine part of your fitness regimen, you’d have to add more weight work and/or more aerobic activity to it.

It’s so funny sometimes how you hear about the latest fads, trends and fabulous finds in the world of fitness and self improvement. That’s kind of how I found out about the P90X workout program. I heard about it first on one Sunday when my husband was having his football buddies over, one of our friends said that he knew a couple of people who were doing this “P90X thing” and were getting totally shredded and ripped and lean by doing it.

Of course, my ears perked up, because who DOESN’T want to look that way, and I know that I can have some semblance of ambition when I really get going on a new program, especially if it gets results, even if it’s excruciatingly painful, which incidentally I’ve heard about the first few times doing this workout – but what isn’t painful that’s eventually worth it, I ask?

I’ve also seen numerous people doing the workout suddenly in the gym because there is a tv in the floor work room, so of course it’s piqued my curiosity even more. I know that it’s a multi part system that works specific muscle groups every time, and alternates a little bit of slightly aerobic activity with grueling muscle workouts that leave you feeling like a rubber band. Can’t wait to try it. I’ll let you guys know a full review and assessment once I’ve given it a shot. A few people that I work with are doing it and I’m going to jump in on some of the sessions.