The first of many Billy Blanks' DVDs to be reviewed!
Length: Approx. 121 mins.
Workouts: Ultimate Tae Bo; Turbo Charged Fat Burner
Instructor: Billy Blanks!
Team: Some familiar faces – his daughter Shellie, and Julianne, and 8-12 others
Note: I usually wear my 1-lb. weighted gloves or 2-lb. squishy hand weights for Billy’s workouts, though I sometimes take them off because it gets too hard.
Side Note: Kickboxing is awesome after a rough day. Angry? Frustrated? Kickbox with Billy. Sure he’s a bit annoying, but the punching, kicking, and constant bouncing on your toes is a cranky-mood cure!
Ultimate Tae Bo (Approx. 90 mins.)
- This workout is broken into two segments – the first hour and then the last half an hour
- The usual: sets of 8 of jabs, crosses, standing ab work, squats and kicks, speed bags, twisting, machine gun kicks
- Minutes 46-53 get a little… weird… Billy starts to dance, like tootsie roll, freestyle – it’s a bit odd for Billy, but funny and I totally break out (I’m alone doing this anyways so who cares!?)
- The main thing this workout lacks is kicking. Billy’s other DVDs seem to have a lot of squatting and kicking in them, but this one doesn’t.
- The workout is high-energy and BB shows you how to do each move slower at first and then picks it up
- Ends with some BB motivational speech and tai-chi-ish stretching
Turbo Charged Fat Burner (Approx. 30 mins.)
- The DVD lies – it’s not 23 minutes
- Half of the “class” uses an amplifier – this stick-thing, but I just use the weights – the other half of the class did the workout without either.
- Billy goes pretty quickly in this workout because I think he assumes you’ve been a BB fan and follower for a while – it took me one or so go-throughs to feel comfy with it, but it’s great now
- Sets of 8 again – slower at first then faster, “amp it up” sets
- BB talks a lot, per usual, teetering on the line between motivational and annoying
- Billy talks a lot and counts and does his “Come on” with every rep occasionally, so it gets a bit annoying. And you can’t hear the music very much in the background, but in all honesty, you get used to both (Billy’s talking and the lack of music) quickly.
Overall:
Where I Got This DVD: Meijer for $9, I believe
Instructor: Billy is Billy – he wears out-there, tight outfits that are awesomely entertaining (he rocks some bright Jamacian , he talks a lot trying to sound motivational, but his energy and focus is cool.
Moves: Not bad for a 30-min. quick kickboxing workout. I personally enjoy all of the punching (goodbye stress!) and there are some new moves I hadn’t done with BB before, but I do wish there was more kicking.
Best Workout: They’re both amazing. The shorter Turbo Charged Workout is fast and fun, though.
Worst: The only part I giggle at is in the first workout – the long one – there’s a point where Billy has you free-style dance. Yes, really. Ultramix pro crack. You just shake it however you want. At first I just stared incredulously at the TV, but laughed it off and did it. It was fun, but I was thankful it didn’t go on for very long.
Intensity Level: Intermediate – can make it Advanced with hand-weights
Buy It?: Like kickboxing? Then yes. With two workouts – one longer, one shorter – it’s perfect to do by itself, mix and match with each other, or pair with another workout. Not to mention when you get better at it you can break the workouts down further. I’ve done a lot of kickboxing workouts, but Billy’s are always the best.
A beginners workout DEFINETELY NOT FOR ADVANCE LEVEL!
I was very disappointed with this DVD. I read a lot of reviews and I can not believe so many people called this challenging and even mentioned it was so hard you should do it once a week! This is definetely a beginners workout, I've been training with taebo for about 10 years, I also studied Karate-Do for years and our warming up (before actually starting the class) was much much harder than this. Sometimes it even looked like a joke, some moves are just ridiculous and at one point everybody starts dancing and is just.. very annoying if what you're looking for is an Ultimative Workout. I own a LOT of dvds from Billy Blanks, the best are Get Ripped Advanced 1 & Advance 2 Workouts; Billy's Bootcamp: Ultimative Bootcamp & Basic Training Bootcamp ( if you have back problems you can kiss that pain goodbye with those bands ;)Other workouts:The Amped Series is fun but sometimes there's a lot of fooling around and I have to do other moves and / or 2 workouts in 1 day. Also from the Amped series, Rockin'Buns is very good, it may not look so challenging at the beginning but you'll feel it towards the end.and the next day ;)Advance level people: Billy's Bootcamp Elite won't even tickle you and the music is awful. All in all I love Billy Blanks, I just wish he would made more real challenging workouts for the Advance Level, maybe combining the bands with the amplifier and a cardio workout all in 1 or a whole series!! :)
This Is Tae Bo is a more modern Tae Bo workout but it has all the traditional Tae Bo moves. There are fewer people on the floor (Shelly is still there, of course) and everyone counts out loud, which was a bit off-putting at first but eventually I got used to it. The workout itself is about 45 minutes long and there is also a separate instructional section that you can access from the menu screen. I think this is probably best suited to people with either some experience of Tae Bo or who are reasonably fit. Initially I thought 'this isn't as tough as the older workouts' but about 15 minutes in I thought I would collapse. This workout is tough but it is also fun and a great way to get cardio and strength training (using your own body weight) in one workout. Billy is as enthusiastic and encouraging as ever.
I usually follow it up with some stretching on my own afterwards because I think the cool down sections of all the Tae Bo workouts are too short and I don't want to tighten up too much. I'm really glad I bought this. If, like me, you don't feel like you've worked out unless you're dripping by the end then this is definitely one for you to try.
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Ultimate Tae Bo Torrent
A beginners workout DEFINETELY NOT FOR ADVANCE LEVEL!
Billy Blanks Tae Bo Abs
I was very disappointed with this DVD. I read a lot of reviews and I can not believe so many people called this challenging and even mentioned it was so hard you should do it once a week! This is definetely a beginners workout, I've been training with taebo for about 10 years, I also studied Karate-Do for years and our warming up (before actually starting the class) was much much harder than this. Sometimes it even looked like a joke, some moves are just ridiculous and at one point everybody starts dancing and is just.. very annoying if what you're looking for is an Ultimative Workout. I own a LOT of dvds from Billy Blanks, the best are Get Ripped Advanced 1 & Advance 2 Workouts; Billy's Bootcamp: Ultimative Bootcamp & Basic Training Bootcamp ( if you have back problems you can kiss that pain goodbye with those bands ;)Other workouts:The Amped Series is fun but sometimes there's a lot of fooling around and I have to do other moves and / or 2 workouts in 1 day. Also from the Amped series, Rockin'Buns is very good, it may not look so challenging at the beginning but you'll feel it towards the end.and the next day ;)Advance level people: Billy's Bootcamp Elite won't even tickle you and the music is awful. All in all I love Billy Blanks, I just wish he would made more real challenging workouts for the Advance Level, maybe combining the bands with the amplifier and a cardio workout all in 1 or a whole series!! :)