blacKandi Fitness

Name of Workout: Personal Training with Jackie Warner

Instructor: Jackie Warner

Workout Type: Circuit (for burning fat / sculpting and toning the body) total body

Fitness Level: Advanced with some modifications mentioned

Time Length: About an hour

Equipment: moderate heavy weights (dumbbells) for lower body and 3-8lb weights for upper body or no weight at all; 10-12lb weights for upper body and 10-20lb weights for lower body if you are advanced and a mat

Purchased From: Sears for $10.00 (store) and $1 of it goes to Breast Cancer Research

bK’s First Time Around Review…

I did this workout for the first time yesterday evening (1/20/10) and yes, you guessed it…I love it! I do love a good circuit workout and this one is. I am not used to how the workout is setup and what I mean by that is that this workout is broken down by muscle group. Jackie works each muscle group in a certain order. For example, she starts with quads (calves worked in here), then moves on to hamstrings, back, shoulders, biceps, chest and well, you get the picture. The DVD is sectioned off like that and I understand why. In the menu of the DVD you have five choices. You can do shorter versions of upper and lower body workouts or you can do the whole thing and I really like that feature.

The exercises that Jackie uses are a mix of traditional ones and ones where she puts a twist as well as combo moves like the half static squat with the narrow hammer curls which I had never done before. I used 12lb dumbells for this move and I was on FIRE!!! I felt the burn in my entire back, my biceps, forearms, traps (yes traps), in my shoulders…all over boys and girls. I think this move is more effective than iron crosses. I like that she used more than the deadlift to get at the hamstrings because I feel ‘em today. After each circuit there is a “power burn” where you do all three of the exercises in a particular circuit all over again in shorter time span, but at that point you are burning baby. Burnin’! Non-stop action! All of the circuits in this workout burn and that’s not something I have experienced with my favorites like the 30 Day Shred and Circuit Blast by Cathe – these have breathing hard. This workout has you burning from circuit to circuit.

While you’re burning, you’re moving fast. Jackie moves fast. There is a short period where you change over from one muscle group to another (maybe 10 seconds), but that’s all the time you get to transition. She says in her workout that in circuit workouts you don’t stop moving and she had me moving. I found that I needed to stop to stretch after a few circuits and an especially after the chest and shoulder circuits because I was tight and burning. The only stretching that was done was after the workout was done.

I see how Jackie has that 6-pack that she’s rocking. She thoroughly has your working every ab muscle and she breaks it down by upper, lower and obliques so that’s three separate circuits and I really appreciated that. It makes me want to pop that DVD in every time I need to go at it with my abs because the exercises she elected are tough, effective and time efficient meaning it doesn’t take long at all.

There is no dread factor in this workout and it is far from boring. The warm up in the beginning could have been a little longer, but I usually do my own warming up especially for my knees anyway. There is a lot of squatting and static squatting in this workout even when the circuit has nothing to do with legs and Jackie will tell you “too bad!” There are some modifiers in the workout, but not many. Jackie does tell you how you can modify certain exercises if you need them, but she doesn’t entertain it. I think beginners can benefit from a workout like this since it is broken down in a special way and Jackie tells you by each exercise what muscles you are working and how they help to move the body.

Back to talking about the burning. Well, today I am sore all over and that’s no joke. All over. I can’t believe my traps are sore. My traps have never been sore before and I’m not sure which combo did that to me. I will have to pay attention next time. I feel the most soreness in my entire back and that’s never happened to me before with any circuit workout. I also feel soreness in my hamstrings like pow. I never felt so much pow in my hamstrings before and I kid you not. I can deadlift with an 80lb barbell and get soreness in my hamstrings the next day…I didn’t do that yesterday evening, but I have that same level of soreness is there. Pure love! I used 10-12lb weights for upper body and 12-20lb dumbbells for lower body. I felt like I had done a million reps after I was done.

Overall, I find Jackie Warner to be a very pleasant, motivating person and very knowledgeable at what she does. Her form is on point and just looking at her body says she knows what she’s doing. She did just the right amount of talking and checking form (walking around). I was amazed that there were no pushups in this circuit and I’ve always had to do pushups in a circuit, but the change was nice. Cardio is minimal in this workout, but your heart rate does go up high and it stays up there so no worries. I ended up doing kickboxing afterward because I needed the stretch and burning a some extra calories didn’t hurt either.

VIEW A CLIP OF THIS WORKOUT NOW!!