Extremely Ripped & Chiseled with Jari Love: Fitness DVD Review

Although I had never heard of Jari Love before, when I was approached to review her new DVD, I was excited: I love fitness DVDs!

As it turns out, she's a fellow Canadian, but resides across the country in Calgary with her husband and 2 kids...I've never been to Alberta, by the way.

She actually has a whole series of workout DVDs that you can purchase. Love is a personal trainer and fitness expert who has been featured in media across North America.

This particular DVD offers a full hour of strength-based exercise segments. The cover says it is split into 30 minutes for lower body and 30 minutes for upper body. Perhaps my copy is messed up, but it actually has only 20 minutes of lower body exercises and the rest is upper and core. Not sure what's up with that.

You need several sets of hand weights, and a step, although, you can do the DVD without the step and modifications are shown.

The whole idea is similar to those Group Power classes from Les Mills where you use relatively light weight and do high reps in time to music. Unfortunately, the music in the DVD is unidentifiable, generic music, not the latest hits and familiar music you get in those classes. I guess they didn't want to pay the royalties.

The video also feels dated. I don't know if its the music, some of the hairdos, the discoteque lighting, or what, but I feel like I'm doing a toning class from the 1990s. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing! I used to enjoy teaching such classes back in the day. I also like that she offers lots of variation in timing to the moves, like 3 counts down/1 up, and the reverse, 2 up/2 down, etc. In the gym, we tend to spend most of our time doing up, down, up, down, etc. Doing resistance exercises slowly is a great way to activate those muscle fibres!

If you use enough weight, this can absolutely be a very challenging workout. I actually think its perfect for someone who wants to start strength training at home but wants some guidance. I would not recommend it for someone who has never done a group ex class or any weight lifting before, but I suppose if you start with light enough weight the chance of injury would be lower.

Overall, if you are an intermediate level exerciser who is looking for a strength training routine to do at home, this may be for you.

Comments

Book Review: The A to Z of Children's Health

Hey there, welcome to Monday! We had a delightful, relatively quiet weekend. How was yours? Hopefully no one in your home was sick...there is a lot of nasty stuff going around these days. If you're a parent, than you have probably spent far more time that you would like to desperately searching Google and/or parenting books trying to figure out if your child's rash, cough or fever warrants a trip to the doctor or if there is something that can be done to treat it. It's hard not to worry that it could be something more ominous that just an every day infection and while you'd make yourself (and everyone around you) nuts if you panicked every time your kid has the sniffles, as a parent, you naturally want to do everything in your power to prevent your child from harm. Recently I was sent The A to Z of Children's Health , written by doctors Jeremy Friedman, Natasha Saunders, and Norman Saunders, of Toronto's very own Hospital for Sick Children . One of th...

How to Look Like a Celebrity

Okay, I know you're going to be interested in this post! I am sure virtually every woman in North America has wondered how Hollywood celebrities achieve such 'perfect' bodies. Well, at CAN FIT PRO last week, one of Hollywood's top fitness trainers, Eric the Trainer , was there to tell us fitness professionals the secrets! Eric the Trainer, gave several presentations, and I caught the one on Celebrity Secrets, and it was most interesting!!! I also found some of what he said rather disturbing. First off, he was very upfront about the fact that celebrities come to him for improve their appearance. Not to improve their health or athletic performance. To look their best. He admitted that his approach then, is entirely dedicated to that end. Male and female celebrities are trained in completely different ways because Hollywood wants women to be lithe and thin and in his words, "look like they dropped out of heaven looking this way without every having ...

Blackfly Coolers: Product Review

Summer is over! Well, at least if you're a student. Officially it doesn't end for a few weeks, and it certainly still feels like summer. Yeah, I hate it. This f*cking hot, humid weather needs to end NOW! We made the most of our last weekend of the summer with our annual trip to the CNE on Friday, with a crowd of friends. It wasn't unbearably lot, thank goodness, and the girls and their friends had a blast on the rides. Saturday I had to work, and Sunday was errand day. Monday we took the girls berry/apple/pear picking but didn't last long due to the heat. I organized the house to prepare for the construction workers starting back up yesterday, while Adam took the girls for a swim in our neighbourhood pool. Yesterday was the first day of school. Grade 2 and Grade 5. Yep, the girls are growing up. We are fortunate that the girls don't have much anxiety about school, they are so much more confident than I ever was as a kid! But now, in the midst of our reno ch...

Healthy Life Lessons

Search This Blog