Ballet Beautiful Ballet Workout DVD - Cardio Fat Burn. Mary Helen Bowers Barre Dance Inspired Fitness DVD

I just got done doing this workout for the first time -- and loved it! I've had wonderful results using Mary Helen Bowers' Ballet Beautiful Total Body Workout and Ballet Beautiful Body Blast workouts together (which I liken to the results that many get from Tracy Anderson's workouts, in terms of the lengthening and tightening that you get), and had been eagerly awaiting this new one, which I pre-ordered from Amazon a few months ago. (In my reviews for those two other DVDs, I've mentioned the positive results I've gotten from doing Mary Helen's workouts in the past; when I was doing just those two workouts and no cardio, I lost several inches.) I'm really pleased with this new one, and know that I'll be using it a lot! When you go to the main menu, you have the option of playing either the entire workout or individual chapters. Whether you choose the individual segments or the whole thing, you also have the option of playing the workout with Mary Helen's voice + music or just with the music. This is a nice feature since the counting on her other two DVDs can be a bit repetitious after doing the workouts a few times. The individual segments (if you choose to do them one at a time) are: * Warm-Up (about 8 minutes) * Core Workout (about 11 minutes) * Upper Body (about 16:30 minutes) * Lower Body (about 13 minutes) * Total Body (about 11 minutes; this is really the last cool-down stretch) The entire workout comes in at 62 minutes, and all you need to do the workout is a mat. The music is classical piano music, and it's more upbeat than the music on her other workouts, which is nice since this has a cardio focus. The workouts are filmed in the bright, white loft that is similar to the backdrop used in her other two workouts. Mary Helen uses ballet shoes to do the workout, but you could probably be barefoot and be fine. (I use the Capezio Women's Daisy Ballet Shoe when I do Mary Helen's workouts to feel a bit more ballerina-like! :-) ) The cardio segments/bursts (what Mary Helen calls "Allegro intervals") on this are mixed in with mat work, so it's not a pure cardio workout, where you'd be doing cardio for an entire hour. On the back of the DVD case, it mentions that these are designed to be "high-intensity cardio intervals," but they aren't as intense as other HIIT or cardio workouts. That being said, the cardio bursts still got my heart rate up during all of them. The cardio moves that she does all have a ballet focus, and include things like leaping in place and doing hopping plie lifts. Mary Helen will have you doing a few minutes of these cardio bursts, and then you'll get on the floor and do a toning segment that focuses on a body part (abs, arms, or legs), before moving into the next cardio and toning segment. If you like ballet-inpsired workouts, I'd also recommend Leah Sarago's Ballet Body DVDs or Tracy Mallet's barre workouts. While Leah's and Tracy's workouts have a more athletic feel to them, they focus in similar ways as Mary Helen's workouts on lengthening and developing lean muscles. Overall, this is a nice cardio workout that will fit in nicely with her other two Ballet Beautiful workouts! I always feel graceful when doing her workouts, and love how lean and lifted I feel afterwards! UPDATE ON 3-18-15: If you need more of a low-impact cardio workout, then I'd recommend the new Ballet Beautiful: Swan Arms Cardio , which just came out last month. Since you leave one foot on the ground at all times with Swan Arms Cardio, it's easier on the joints.

It took me a month to decide how I felt about this DVD. After trying all the other Ballet Beautiful dvds, I finally got around to doing this one enough times to get a good feel for it. The allegra intervals are great. I kind of hate running, so the intervals of standing work mixed in with mat work make this doable for me. I know I can make it through the cardio segments because the mat work is not far away. If you are like me and have 0 dance training, just mirror her movements and ignore the directional commands. You'll get the hang of it if you are patient with yourself. You have the option of doing the 4 different chapters alone, which I have done, complemented with other Ballet Beautiful dvds in the past. However, to really get the most out of this specific workout, it would be best to do a few chapters in a row. That way you get to do a few cardio intervals, considering that each chapter contains only only cardio interval paired with one mat routine, if I remember correctly. The mat workouts include core, arms, and inner thigh exercises. I feel like this workout really does lengthen and extend the muscles, reaching areas that are otherwise neglected in a lot of other routines. The music in this video is more upbeat than others, which is nice. Mary Helen Bowers is pleasant to listen to and fun to try to imitate throughout the workout. This DVD, unlike the others, has an extensive warm up and cool down, unlike the others. Sometimes I pause in the middle for an extra stretch. All the stretching keeps me feeling long and lean for the rest of the day.

This is a high intensity cardio DVD. This is especially helpful for women who are more serious about losing the actual weight rather than the toning/sculpting of her classic DVD. I always sweat like a pig whenever I do this, which is great, considering I've been using this for almost three months. There are bits and pieces of some strength training in here, but it's not as intensive as her Total Body Workout one. You will be jumping with Mary, and she will be so nice to you while you are sweating and crying. If you want my suggestion on losing weight, I suggest you do this DVD and the Sculpt & Burn Cardio Blast, a low-impact cardio DVD together. Remember that strength and weight training helps with overall body fat and size, while cardio helps with lowering your number on the scale. You need both for successful weight loss; you cannot do one without the other! Cardio without strength/weight training can make you lose weight, yes, but then you'll still be flabby and become "skinny fat". You can do strength/weight training without cardio, and while you'll become firm and toned... you might not like that your number on the scale isn't budging. You need both, as well as eating a clean diet. This is a wonderful DVD, I am so happy to have found Mary Helen Bowers, and she makes me feel good about being a woman, you know? I never appreciated the hypermasculine aura that I've seen in the gym scene, and maybe I don't want muscles or to 'bulk up'. Mary's workouts will NEVER make you bulk up or make you look odd. I love her so much for that. Zooey Deschanel is one of her clients, and she always looks so feminine yet in shape, you know? :-)

First of all , there is no annoying music just light upbeat piano that does not drown instructor voice. I find this Cardio Fat Burn fun while keeping the mind calm, positive ! The cardio keeps your heart pumping at a healthy level. The toning is done on a mat. Ex: cardio 8 mins. mat 10 mins. then cardio again. minutes chose are not precise. Cardio , then stomach toning on mat. Cardio and the arm toning on mat. Cardio and then leg toning on mat. et cetera . This helps burn fat , and lengthen and tone muscles. Being dedicated to the ballet beautiful dvds will have your body feel more graceful in movements. I have used over 6 months.My muscles are lengthened and toned which keeps you feminine not bulky. Huge change in posture and confidence within . I am feminine , toned , happier , and alive ! If you have issues with your thighs , also try Body Blast dvd and Total Body Workout. TBW: butterfly bridges. BB: both leg workouts. on leg workouts, modify if the burn is to intense. Eventually you will get there. It took me some time without having to stop and rest. Also , instead of 4 reps. each. Do 2 reps and rest. continue when she starts other leg.

Some background: I've lost inches since I started Mary Helen's Ballet Beautiful workouts- Body Blast and Total Body Workout- about 6 weeks ago. I was a Jillian Michaels fan for about two years until I realised that no matter how much I worked out with her dvds, my body had reached a plateau. Jillian had made me fit, but she had also bulked my thighs and butt, and there was no way she could fix that. Soon after starting the BB dvds, my body shape changed so dramatically, without doing the crazy weights, cardio and high intensity intervals of Jillian's dvds, that I knew I had found the type of exercise my body was supposed to be doing. Mary Helen is so incredible- she makes your whole body look long and lean, like a ballerina's. Cardio Fat Burn is a great addition to the dvd range, but it definitely does not push you to the extreme in relation to cardio. The title is somewhat deceiving, as I'm sure people will buy it thinking it will give them a killer cardio workout. It doesn't, but it's still an amazing workout. Sections in the workout are similar to the mat work in her other dvds- abs, arms and inner thigh. These sections are, like those in her other dvds, unbelievably challenging. You will be groaning by end of most of the reps as your muscles are completely exhausted. In between this mat work she gets you to do the 'cardio' allegra intervals, which are basically ballet jumps and skips. These are fun, and they do make you sweat, but you don't feel your muscles burning like you do in plyometrics, etc. It's for this reason that I think she really should have added more mat work to target the butt and outer thigh, as these muscles are only moderately worked in the allegra intervals. After this workout, I make sure I also do the bridge series from BB Total Body to work these muscles properly. The difficultly level of this workout is very high, only because of the mat work. Like I've said in other reviews of her dvds, I have no idea how a beginner could last even five minutes into Mary Helen's workouts. That said, the allegra intervals are perfect for beginners, even though the leg work may take a little while to master (I speak from experience!). The whole workout is about 1 hour long, and includes a comprehensive warm-up and cool-down, something her previous dvds have sorely lacked (pun intended). I really cannot wait to see what Mary Helen does next.

I bought this one along with the Body Blast and Total Body Workout. WOW am I ever amazed at how SORE I INSTANTLY became. The workout itself is probably the most soothing-awful workout ever. The beautiful classical music and the moves remind me of ballet class in high school, but the workout WORKS so WELL that you WILL hurt immediately if you're out of shape, and probably even if you aren't. I have a particularly hard time working out the muscles between my shoulder blades and this workout along with the others takes care of that without issue. I even went out a bought some ballet shoes, the first I've had since I was 16 years old. :) Long story short, I really really love Ballet Beautiful! It's the most feminine workout I've ever done along with being the most satisfying and successful workout I've ever done. Who needs boot camp when you can pas de chat your way back into a slim waist line? :)

I am really conflicted about this DVD. It is not a bad DVD, and it does have some good qualities, but it is titled in a somewhat misleading way. I'll get to all of these in due course. Full disclosure: I am not a ballet dancer and I bought this because I thought it would add something new and different to my workout routine. I am a longtime user of home exercise DVDs, however, and know a lot about what works there and what doesn't. First of all, some comments on the instructor. She speaks clearly and is easy to understand. I can tell she is a knowledgeable dancer. She seems friendly. But she is a dancer, not a fitness instructor. So there are some "off" things about the instruction: *the cueing really isn't there; she transitions to another move and you end up a few steps behind because you don't always know what she is going to do next *she frequently says things like "go get some water" but doesn't give you any time at all to do that (you have to put the DVD on pause or miss some content) -- not even if your water is only a few feet away from where you are working out *she uses ballet terms without explaining them (I had no idea what 4th position was, for example, and I'm still lost on a French term she uses over and over) and there is no description of *how* to do these things, so even though I now have a vague idea of 4th position from doing the workout, I have no idea if my form is anywhere near correct *she says "right" and moves her right side (it is much easier to follow along in exercise DVDs if you can mirror the instructor's movements, which would mean she moved her left side when she said "right") *she jumps right into stretching before warming up (bad idea and could lead to injury) and the stretches and what muscles they are supposed to be working are not adequately described, nor do you have enough time to do the stretches to actually feel any benefit (seriously, for all but the cool-down segment, blink and you will miss the stretches) Music is Beethoven piano music. Volume is appropriate, as is the music choice. It's simple and not distracting. You have the option to work out to the music, alone, and that basically is just the same as the workout with instructions only with the instructor's voice on "mute." Studio is an upper-floor exercise studio with tasteful, non-distracting decor. You may want a yoga mat if you are working out on a hard floor, but if you are on carpet, you may not need it. Instructor was wearing little slippers but I did this in bare feet since I do not have similar slippers. There is some jumping so you will want padding (a padded yoga mat was sufficient for me). I had some issues with the camera work. For a large part of it, the camera work was fine. But there were times when the camera would move and you wouldn't see, say, the instructor's lower body during a footwork segment. For non-dancers like myself, it is important to be able to see the feet/legs at all times, and to see them in relation to the instructor's upper body is even better. On to why I think the title was misleading. This is subtitled "cardio fat burn." I bought this expecting to get a one hour, mostly cardio workout. This is not a cardio workout. I did not even get 2000 steps on my Fitbit in an entire hour using this workout. (In fact, I could get more steps from "Walk Away the Pounds" for a half hour, or from marching around during the breaks between sets in a P90X strength DVD. I use steps per unit time as a rough approximation of how good of a cardio workout I am getting. 2000 in an hour is very low. I ended up having to run on my treadmill for 20 minutes afterwards.) You do *maybe* a total of 15 minutes -- total -- of cardio during this entire DVD. And that is split into four segments of from maybe 3-5 minutes each. You almost begin to break a sweat but you never actually drip sweat like I would expect during a good cardio workout. It doesn't really even count as an interval workout, because the intervals are more than 10 minutes apart. As for what cardio there is, the four segments share some moves but are slight variations on each other. They involve jumping so I'd classify them as high-impact. The arm movements are quite repetitive, the leg movements less so. So what is this DVD? I suppose it is more of a ballet conditioning DVD. If you think of the cardio intervals as a way to warm up and give your muscles a break, well, they are better in that context. You do a lot of repetitive movements that will work certain parts of the body a great deal, and some of those are good: *the arm movements in the cardio segments are brutal on the tops of the arms, so you should get good toning there *similarly, the cardio segments use the calves a lot *the triceps get worked pretty hard during the upper body portion *and the inner thighs get worked pretty hard during the lower body portion But the toning is uneven. Although the triceps were worked a lot, the biceps, chest, and back weren't. Although the calves and inner thighs were worked a lot, the glutes, hamstrings, and outer thighs weren't. Etc. For what it's worth, the stretch at the end is quite good, although it really needs a bit more focus on the upper body. If you are looking for a varied sort of ballet workout containing both dance moves and toning segments, this is a very good DVD -- especially if you already know some ballet techniques and terminology. If you are a beginner, you would want some instruction elsewhere before attempting this. If you are familiar with the instructor's style and have done other Ballet Beautiful workouts, and liked them, you will probably like this as well. If you are looking for a good cardio workout, though, look elsewhere. Right now I am just not seeing myself doing this one very often and I can't figure out how to fit it into my usual rotation.

a guarantee of results

Great to be in shape

I found this workout to be very challenging. I've been using the main DVD already for a couple of months, but the cardio is a different story altogether that works different muscles. Also a bit of repetition here of exercises found on previous DVDs.

有酸素と自重筋トレを交互に繰り返す、サーキットっぽい内容です。 有酸素部分は、日本版のカーディオより簡単でやり易いです。(軽く跳ねる動きがあるので、住宅事情によっては×かも) 筋トレ部分は、ベーシックやターゲットをやり込んでる方には、少し物足りないかもしれません。 ベーシックとターゲットとは少し違う筋トレになります。

Amazing, thanks. I never realized that Ballet dancers had to workout so hard! They make it look so simple! Congrats!

I love the Ballet Beautiful workouts/DVDs but I'm not much of a cardio person, so it was with some apprehension that I purchased this one. The DVD is laid out as an hour-long, cardio-focused workout but don't worry: there is a nice balance of cardio with classic Ballet Beautiful toning/strength exercises. I love the way Mary Helen does just enough cardio in each "interval" to get the body warmed up and the heart pumping, then gives you a break in the form of mat exercises. She advocates that too much cardio is actually a bad thing in terms of keeping your metabolism fast and your weight ideal, so you won't find endless stretches of sweaty, breathless attempts at burning fat here. The music and setting are lovely, and Mary Helen is just wonderful; there's an option to turn off her commentary if you'd prefer to work out without it, but I always keep it on as I find her very motivating without being obnoxious or pushy. Now for the downsides: I found this workout VERY challenging for a beginner to get a handle on! Just the basic moves and positions that Mary Helen works from are clearly very natural to a dancer but a bit overwhelming to total newbies! My first attempt to workout along with this DVD had me rolling around laughing after five minutes because my attempts to emulate Mary Helen's lovely little plies and kicks were hilariously bad (lol) and I simply couldn't keep up. It took me a couple weeks just to get a handle on the basic movements, which I could see discouraging many people or putting them off the DVD entirely. However, I do think that if you are patient with yourself and just go at your own pace/do what you can, you'll notice improvement very quickly - it's all just muscle memory and your body needs time to get the feel for any new movement. And then, once you do have the basics down, it's actually quite fun to feel like a ballerina! One thing I really wish Mary Helen had made clearer in the DVD (though she does mention it a couple times) - DO NOT try to look like Mary Helen while doing these things: dancers have crazy loose joints and it's totally natural for them to turn out their hips, feet and knees in ways that would injure those without any dance experience. Hopping around from fourth or fifth position (i.e. the ones with the feet aligned in a way that has your feet sideways, right heel in line with your left toes, and vice versa) the way Mary Helen does is definitely not suitable for non-ballerinas. Try for a relaxed third position (see google images for what these look like) and don't stress about getting the feet and legs turned out - just focus on the hopping and kicking movements, getting a good cardio workout, a very gentle landing in your hops, and nice straight kicking leg going on. A final note: LOVE the extended stretch at the end of this DVD. It feels sooooo nice and she really takes time in each stretch to reward and relax the muscles you've worked so hard over the last hour! Thanks for another fantastic, DVD, Mary Helen!