The Biggest Loser Power Ab Blast Review of Standing Abs and Cardio Abs

What I picked and why

I picked this up at the library last night. It's The Biggest Loser Power Ab Blast. It has four segments. I did the Standing Abs and Cardio Abs this morning. I had intended on doing the whole DVD, but during the third segment (All-Out Abs) I realized that I had forgotten to set the BodyMedia workout tab for that segment and I lost all desire to continue the DVD. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I can be inspired to workout if I have a pretty little chart to look at when I'm done, but if I don't have a chart, I'm less likely to move! Terrible I know, but it's the truth. Knowing your weaknesses is half the battle. The DVD does not have a warm up or a cool down. You can set the DVD to do 4 segments. They have a Workouts section as well as a Custom section. You can do them with the instructions or with just the music. Bob Harper and Dolvett Quince are the instructors.

Standing Abs

I might not have given this  my all because I was still trying to figure out if this was a warm up that I hadn't selected or if it was the actual workout. When I selected the segments, a 0 showed on the screen. As I added the segments, it showed 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 on the screen. I wasn't sure if the 0 was indicating a warm up that was not advertised. Once we got to the end of the workout and he said something about a cool down I figured out that I had been doing the actual workout. This workout used a medicine ball, but you don't need it. I used one of my 2 pound weighted balls. 

The workout wasn't all that complicated, but I don't really think Dolvett did a good job of instructing for this one. It starts off with him saying, "Okay. Let's get warmed up." He doesn't say what you're going to do. He just starts doing knee lifts and touching his knees with his hands as they come up. After that move is done, he said, "Hold." He then starts the next move which involved squatting down while twisting the upper body. There was a stretching move after that which turned into holding the medicine ball above the head and bringing it down to meet your knee. This time we focused on one side. Then it went to an oblique move where we stretched one leg out to the side and then lift it as we brought our arms over our heads and bent sideways to the same leg that was lifting. Then we did a squat chop. Oh my favorite was right after that. We were supposed to hold one leg up like in a knee raise position. While balancing on one leg, we took the medicine ball out in front of us and then took it in one hand out to one side. We then moved it back to center and passed it off to the other hand and kept doing that. Oh then we did planks on the medicine ball. Since I only had my two pound weighted ball, I just did them on the floor. We were supposed to hold the plank for one minute. Once we got up, he didn't say what we were doing again. We just had to follow him. Then we switched and did all the same stuff on the other side. During the planks, he says that your hips should be the same height as your shoulders, but hardly anyone in the group is doing that.

After the second side is done, he asks if we're ready for a cool down. There was some deep breathing and a little stretching. It lasted about 30 seconds.

Cardio Abs

This was insane. It was led by Bob. He used one dumbbell for the workout. It started out with a little warm up that involved arching the back and rounding it. There was some more stretching before the actual workout began. Once that was done, we grabbed our dumbbell. We started off with some twisting of the upper body. We kept with the twisting theme and did knee lifts while twisting into the the raised knee. Then the fun began. We held the weight at collarbone height and did jumping jacks with our feet. After we did that for a few seconds, we held the weight up over our head while doing the jacks with the feet. Then we put it back to collarbone height and more jacks. Back to the twisting knee lifts on the other side. Back to jacks! I couldn't do all of these jacks. Instead of going up with the weight, this time we held it out in front of us. Then it went up and then back to our chest. Then it went up and down while we continued with the jacks. He wasn't kidding when he called this Cardio Abs! My favorite move came next. We did woodchoppers! I wasn't serious about it being my favorite. I've done woodchoppers before, but this time they were lunges with the lower body and wood choppers with the upper body. I've never done them with the lunges. I hate lunges! After what felt like an eternity, we switched sides. More jacks with the arms going up and down with the weight. This was followed by holding the weight above our heads while doing pulsing squats. Then we had to hold the squat and then go lower and lower and lower! This was followed by a standing crunch with the weight back behind our heads. It was awkward for me. Next was skaters, but they were different than the ones that I've done. it was more of a hop to one side and a "dip" which was more like a half squat. This was followed by a zig zag thing. I can't even explain this. My head couldn't really grasp it and I did it wrong a lot. So then we jogged in place. He called them butt kickers. Our feet were supposed to hit our butts, but we know that didn't happen. Then we did high knees. Then butt kicks. Then we switched to the zig zag thing on the other foot. You guessed it...we then went back to butt kickers and high knees! After that it was done! We did a little bit of stretching.

Random Thoughts

None of the contestants moved at the same pace. It was a bit of a train wreck to watch.

I'm fairly certain that this was filmed in the same location as a Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds Express 3 Mile Advanced Walk that I've done. It's the same brick wall with the big arched windows.

BodyMedia Screen Shots

The first one is for Cardio Abs and the second one is for Stand Up Abs. I did Stand Up Abs first. You can really see when I started doing those jumping jacks and then the high knees and butt kickers. I'm pretty sure thatI'm going to be sore tomorrow. I feel like I got a whole body workout instead of an ab workout. I don't think my abs will even be sore tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure my glutes will be! They are all tingly right now. I wasn't a big fan of either of these workouts and don't really think I'll finish this DVD up anytime soon. I have Les Mills Combat coming up and I need to get some recovery time in before that. It's a 60 day program. We'll see how long I keep doing it.