Review

Movie Title: The Ultimate Body Shaper
Director: Stephanie Vitorino
Review Score: 4.0

Review:

Stephanie Vitorino’s exercise DVD, The Ultimate Body Shaper, is recommended for young, already fit women who want to work hard. This is definitely not the video for beginners, seniors, seriously overweight people or anyone who doesn’t enjoy a high intensity workout. Easier, alternate moves aren’t provided, so you either have to keep up, stop, or figure it out on your own. I’m a very fit aging babyboomer, and I found both the step and mat workouts to be very challenging. Because of this, half the time my eye was on the timer and my mind was wondering how much more I had to do/endure. Afterwards, however, I absolutely loved how I felt. All that delicious muscle soreness let me know I actually spent my time productively. And I was proud of myself for doing the required work and getting through it.

The best and most exciting feature of The Ultimate Body Shaper is Vitorino’s use of methods and moves you won’t find elsewhere. One of her core techniques, for example, is frequent high intensity one-minute cardio bursts interspersed between strength training sessions. The cardio burst gets your heart rate up and keeps it up. Smart, different choreography is used for each minute burst of activity. One burst might be jumping jack variations, the next burst might be a modernized version of a squat thrust, and so on. This not only keeps you interested, it also forces your muscles to work even harder because you’re not relying on memorized sequences or momentum.

Vitorino also relies heavily on multi-pattern moves. Instead of just doing a basic bicep curl, you do a bicep curl that might additionally involve a lunge, a step, a reach or all three variations one after another. This kicks the difficulty level up a notch and forces you to concentrate on what you’re doing. Also, most of Vitorino’s exer-movements are performed from a standing position. Again, this is a subtle way of making you work harder, so don’t count on resting on your mat too much.

The video has a warm-up, a cool-down, a mat/floor workout and a high step workout. For equipment, you’ll need two sets of dumbbells (light and heavier) a step and a mat. Vitorino is pleasant enough to look at and easy enough to follow, but her personality is little on the bland side. Likewise, the background music is utterly forgettable and does not inspire your heart to get into the action. That said, The Ultimate Body Shaper delivers on the promise of a safe, effective intermediate to advanced level workout and is worth the $20 investment.

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