Billy Boot Camp Box Set DVD
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Our Price: $74.94 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Sports See more product details |
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Sports reviews of Billy Boot Camp Box Set DVD
Customer Review: mixed review
Sport shop rating: 3 Stars
First the good stuff ... It's fun, hard and Billy is a GREAT host (is that the right word?). He looks right into the camera at just the right time, like he KNOWS when you need the extra motivation/push etc. The people on the videos are in shape, which is nice because I HATE looking at fat old ladies working out (I may be a woman in my 40's but I don't have to look like it LOL ... the hard-bodies give me the motivation... hey, I could have those abs!). The Basic video is HEAVY on the upper body and for someone who HATES upper body I can tell this is gonna help me a LOT! Because the Basic video is not so heavy on the abs or lower body I was able to follow immediately with the Abs video and complete both in a single session. I sweated like crazy during both ... good cardio workout as well. Of course, having to do both together isnt very helpful if you are crunched for time (basic is 55 mins, abs is 35 mins). I like that the Billy Bands are included. I found that I was able to use them most of the time, although sometimes with modification. Finally, I really like the abs workout because it has a variety of exercises, instead of just thousands of boring crunches.
Now the down side ... Like almost everyone has mentioned, the "plan" requires the Cardio DVD which is NOT included. However, I found the basic and ultimate bootcamps to both be full of cardio. Also, it is fairly light on instruction and sometimes he'll wait until the middle of a set to explain how to do a move which is not great timing! Right now I can only complete the Basic (ultimate is too hard) and the BIGGEST complaint I have is that the lower body is virtually ignored (other than a few minutes of kicks). I had hoped to be able to use these without needing to go to the gym, but at least for right now if I want lower body, it is to the gym I must go. IMPORTANT caveat ... I have a VERY strong lower body compared to my upper body. Someone with average to below average lower body strength might have a better experience with this program than I did.
Overall, I am glad I purchased it. I will use it a lot, but I am a little disappointed for the reasons I state above. OH and I almost forgot ... important advice...have about a GALLON of WATER ready to drink during the workout...you'll need it!
Customer Review: Challenging but not typical old Billy Blanks
Sport shop rating: 3 Stars
Although I felt the DVD's in this set were extremely challenging (esp with the bands!), I was disappointed in the content. I expected more of a typical taebo workout, not push ups and plain squats. I much more liked Billy's cardio curcuit 1, which is a great, heart pounding, fat burning and toning work out.Customer Review: Billy Blanks needs instructions on how to give instructions
Sport shop rating: 3 Stars
The workout is challenging but Billy Blanks is awful at instructing. He is not consistent in his counts. He jumps from whole counts to quarters counts within the same exercise. It is quite distracting. I would have rather it been taught by the annoying Uma Thurman looking participant.Customer Review: NOT for beginners...
Sport shop rating: 2 Stars
Being a huge fan and dedicated user of Billy's taebo workouts, I was really excited to see that he had come up with something new. The concept is great: taebo with resistance training, but the practicalities aren't great. Overall there is nowhere near enough instruction on how to use the bands, or the movements using those bands - e.g., how far up/down are you meant to lift your arms before you start using the wrong muscle??? Where should the band be - in front or behind your elbow? You get my drift!
The workouts are much the same as any of the other BB taebo workouts, but that's fine - I mean how many different moves can you come up with for this type of workout?!
I consider myself to be quite fit - I've always worked out regularly and could almost do taebo advanced and taebo gold without breaking a sweat. So imagine my surprise when I tried one of these new DVD's and found that it switched so fast from stationery to high level cardio that I felt both dizzy and sick. This rapid switch happens more than once on the ultimate workout dvd - there's not enough time to increase/decrease your heartrate at a steady pace.
The stretch sessions at the beginning of the basic and ultimate workouts are better than on any previous taebo workouts, but two things: these stretches are done without any form of warm-up, so they increase the risk of injury, and there is no stretching at the end of any of these new workouts -so you have to make sure you do your own stretches.
Whilst on the subject of warm-up/stretching, the abs dvd includes no warm up or stretching whatsoever.
The live workout is OK, but again, a bit impractical, swtiches rapidly between moves and just generally left me feeling frustrated rather than like i'd had a good workout
I suspect the people shown in the work-outs have practiced long and hard to be able to pull the workouts off.
So why only two stars? Because I thought it'd be something new and great - it is something new, but it's not great. In fact, I imagine that if a complete exercise novice tried these dvd's with the bands, they would be likely to hurt themselves. So if you have never done taebo before, start with one of Billy's many other excellent workouts before attempting this!
Customer Review: Not crazy about it...
Sport shop rating: 2 Stars
I've been a fitness addict for about 7 years now, and I love kickboxing and tae-bo style workouts. The problem with Billy Blanks is that he is simply NOT a fitness instructor. The DVDs in this series are okay, but they're really not the greatest, and even though I love working out, I can't make myself do these. Reasons:
1. He doesn't cue the moves very well.
2. He has you do some exercises at breakneck speed, which sacrifices both your form and any actual benefit you might get from the exercise, since you're just flailing around trying to keep up.
3. He seems to think he's a motivational speaker during the whole workout, and frequently stops working out to look earnestly into the camera to go off on tangents about taking care of yourself and training yourself for the military (?!?!)
4. He pays no attention to being "even". He'll direct you to do 40 reps of a move on one side, and then not do any at all on the other side. Or he'll have you do 30 reps of an exercise on your right side, and then only 16 on your left. Very aggravating.
I think there are better kickboxing/tae-bo style workouts out there, like Cathe Friedrich's Kick Max and Kickboxing with Janis Saffell.