I just finished doing all four of these workouts in one marathon exercise session! This isn't the way they're designed ... you're told to do one 30-minute workout per day, but my DVDs arrived loose in the case and I was afraid they might skip or freeze (they didn't) so I wanted to try them all as soon as possible.
I'm a long-time exerciser and was probably "advanced" in my heyday but I'm 61 now, so I've slowed down just a bit. That being said, Jessica is a master at showing you modifications so you can tailor her workouts to whatever your level of fitness ... and you can progress using the same workouts, a real plus if you want maximum use out of the same DVDs.
All the workouts are similar in that they have three exercisers ... Jessica's mom Debbie doing beginner modifications, Jessica's friend Beth doing more advanced moves, and Jessica staying in the middle. They are also shot on the same "set" ... a lovely house in Miami with an inviting pool, palm trees, and white floor/patio ... and feature a variety of musical selections from "classical" to "country hoedown" to generic workout music I've heard in other DVDs. The music isn't a standout, but everything worked well with the particular exercises you were doing.
Day 1: Cardio Core Walk is the most similar to the YouTube workouts I've done. Jessica works at a steady state and the cardio moves focus on using your core and big arm movements to bump up the heart rate. Beth does some higher-impact variations of the moves, but I stuck with Jessica's active but low-impact version since I knew I was in for a long workout session.
Day 2: Low Impact HIIT Walk was my favorite. I have a kind of love/hate relationship with HIIT because it's so hard but also so effective. But Jessica's has the least "dread factor" of all the ones I've done. She does five rounds in all ... three minutes of steady-state cardio and two minutes of HIIT. I've done HIIT workouts with much shorter intervals, and I'm not sure what ratio exactly constitutes "HIIT" but Jessica's works for me. Two minutes was just about right to get me completely winded and gasping for air and three minutes gave me enough time to recover and prepare myself for the next go-round. The beauty of Jessica's workout is that she shows such a great variety of moves you can make to get your heart rate up to high-intensity levels. Because I'm pretty advanced, I was following Beth. But good ol' Debbie is there with her modified moves so that if you're a beginner, you won't feel discouraged because everyone else is a clone of the Energizer Bunny. At the end of the five rounds, I felt fantastic!
Day 3: Tread and Shred focuses on resistance training but since your feet rarely stop moving, you can't go too heavy with the weights. I used five-pound dumbbells for everything, and felt like that was the perfect weight for me. This workout seems very similar to the old Firm aerobic weight training workouts that I still love. I'm not convinced that this type of workout is all the weight training that you need; personally, if I was following Jessica's 21-Day program, I would add in another day (maybe after Day 1) that incorporated heavy weight training. For example, I don't believe bicep curls with five-pound weights are going to produce the muscle strength that concentration curls with 15-pound weights will. However, if you are new to resistance training, anything is better than nothing. However, if you're new to weight training, I would be concerned about the possible risk of injury with this workout, since Jessica combines strength moves with continuous lower body movement. If you are familiar with how to do these moves, no problem, but there's definitely a co-ordination factor (as Jessica says, "like patting your head and rubbing your stomach") and if you don't know what you're supposed to be doing with your upper body, you might do something physically harmful. Definitely a beginner should use very light or no weights until she feels comfortable with the moves. All in all, though, I was really impressed with the variety of moves Jessica came up with that combined both upper and lower body strength with a cardio factor to boot. This workout was the one that flew by the most quickly for me.
Day 4: Stride, Stretch and Relax was a perfect not-quite-recovery day workout. The first 15 minutes basically consist of Jessica's typical but varied walking moves, with the last few minutes of this adding in some non-weighted arm exercises that reminded me of Tracey Anderson ... and produced the same kind of burn! Then, in the second 10-minute segment, Jessica has you do active stretching, first standing (with a chair for balance) and then sitting on the chair. I loved these last stretches because having the chair to support the "back end" really helped me to focus on the stretch in positions like the warrior pose. Finally, the five-minute "Relax" stage had you sitting on the chair and imagining being a statue of ice and then melting (internally and mentally ... you weren't actually supposed to keel over, although I had to disobey Jessica and open my eyes to verify this).
All in all, I thought these workouts were fantastic! I simply love Jessica. She is totally engaging, encouraging, instructive, and just genuinely "nice." The fact that she offers so many free workouts on YouTube really motivates me to purchase her DVDs as a way of "thanking" her for her generosity. I am so happy I got these workouts and am definitely giving them two thumbs up and a high five.
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Reviews with images
Not for beginners
Definitely love it but definitely not for beginners there's some moves that you really only know how to do because you've done an exercise video before I love the fact that you do not have to get on the floor I have a bad neck and knee and you are never going to be on the floor I wish she would have told me in the first video not to put my arms above my head because I have a bad shoulder so I really wish I would have heard that in video one instead of video 3 there are two discs with this program they do suggest for video 3 which would be day 3 some light weights I got 2 lb weights and that seemed to work great for me on day 4 U do need one of your kitchen or dining room chairs to sit on to do the stretching
Top reviews from other countries
Liz
Another fabulous Workout DVD, keeps you motivated and is lots of fun to do.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2016Azur
Excellent programme à faible impact pour tous les âges
Reviewed in France on October 7, 2015