Netflix Instant Workouts - Dance Off the Inches: Tummy Tone Party Zone

I never really had a problem with exercise before college.  I was in tumbling and dance classes from when I was very little up until I left home for college.  In college, I tried exercising through walking and tennis, but tennis never really stuck (I have terrible hand-eye coordination) and while walking was better than nothing, it wasn't really keeping me in shape.  After I got married, David and I got gym memberships and I started working out on the ellipticals.  It worked well enough - I have very weak knees and ankles, so I felt like I got some good exercise without any strain on my body parts.  Unfortunately, we cancelled our gym memberships a little while ago when our schedules got crazy and funds got tight.

I thought that a fun and cost-effective way to meet my twice a week exercise resolution would be to try every single workout video on Netflix Instant Watch (we already have a Netflix account, so we're not paying any extra).  Every week, I'll try out a different video and report on the experience here.

There are currently 31 offerings in Netflix Instant's "Workouts" category, with a couple of them offering more than one "episode".  Some of them are broken down into five 10 or 15 minute segments.  I figure if a workout is not broken into parts, I'll go ahead and do the entire thing, even if it's an hour long, like the yoga videos.  However, if it's a week where my schedule is a bit crazy, I might try a workout video that is broken into segments and do either three 10-minute segments or two 15-minute segments for a 30-minute workout.  If Netflix doesn't add or take away any of their offerings, this gives us a minimum of 33 weeks and a maximum of 40 weeks of workouts.  I'm not sure what I'll do for the remaining weeks of the year, but I have some time to figure it out. 

I decided to kick off this series with "Dance Off the Inches: Tummy Tone Party Zone", because with a name like "Tummy Tone Party Zone", how could it not be fun?  Plus, I'm a sucker for anything dance-related.



After a brief warm-up section set to techno Mario Kart music, the program launched into a cheesy disco-like dance workout.  Every time I did a body roll, I wished that I had thought to close the blinds to our apartment window.  Despite - or maybe because of - the cheesiness, I found it impossible to keep myself from smiling the whole time, mostly because of my awareness of how ridiculous I looked.  Plus, the instructor kept insisting, "Remember - this is a party!" So, of course, I had to comply.

The instructor also incorporated the word "funky" into every sentence:  "Get funky!", "This is our funky two-step!" "Make it funky!"  Then, she'd ask her back-up dancers (for lack of a better word), "How are you doing?" And they'd say, "I'm doing funky!"  So not only was this program fun, it was also educational - I hadn't realized that there had been a 70s renaissance in 2005.

The next section was a Latin-based dance workout that was slightly faster-paced, but just as cheesy.  The instructor told us to "Make it spicy!", which is hard to do with the most white bread, vanilla "Latin" dance moves in existence.  It involved a lot of pointing at nothing in particular and miming bursts of sunshine.


Kind of like this.

After a short cool-down section, there was a section of core-strengthening exercises - aka, crunches and lots of them.  This was probably my favorite part, as I could definitely feel the burn in my stomach.  However, I think I hurt my neck a little bit from craning it to look at the screen to see how to do "crunch pulses" without looking like a broken marionette having a seizure.

Although the program is supposed to be 55 minutes long, the workout section was only 35 minutes long.  The last 20 minutes was a step guide, so you could learn the dance moves before doing the workout - it probably would have been more helpful if it had come before the actual workout section of the program.  Even without the step guide, it was really easy to catch on to the dance moves, as they were very simple and basic.

Would I do this again?  I actually had fun doing it, and the crunches section seemed fairly helpful.  The dance workout was a bit too slow-paced and easy, but I started to work up a little bit of a sweat once I started exaggerating all the movements.  I think I would get bored if I did it regularly, but I might occasionally revisit it if I'm in the mood for cheesy, easy exercise.