Body by Simone: The Signature Classes

I really like this DVD. You get two great workouts, and they are both varied and interesting enough to work well on any body, for quite awhile. A few thoughts and a few criticisms: Simone's workouts are definitely in the same general genre as Tracy Anderson and Anna Kaiser (and to some extent, Ballet Beautiful). If you love those ladies, you will like this. Of those three people (and especially in comparison to TA), Simone is by far the most motivational, pleasant, and fun, and the pace and cuing of her workouts are the best. I find the AKT video to be by far the most athletic/physically challenging of these three options/people, and Tracy to be in some ways the most effective but by far the most exhausting, boring, and hard on your body (she gave me a stress fracture and doing her workouts "right" takes hours!). Simone is a great inbetween - her workouts are dance based, utilize low-weight/body-weight, and focus on fluid long muscles, like Tracy, but without as many reps/weird positions, and with way more fun. As for this video, both workouts are very good. The Dance Cardio will leave even an advanced exerciser a sweaty, exhausted, mess. The moves are pretty complicated, but super fun, and the cuing is excellent - far better than TA. For people looking for a challenging but really fun dance-based, aerobic workout, this is it - five stars. The full body class is good, but it could be better. The dance segment are all fun, effective, very well-cued, and more "doable" than the Dance Cardio segments. The strength segments are where I have a few complaints. The first arms section is okay, but the moves are super basic and the fact that you stand still and don't incorporate any cardio seems like a wasted opportunity to blast more calories. The legs section is much better, but I don't think it's challenging enough to do this class every day with consistent results. The core work is hard - definitely some challenge there to build on. Overall, I really love Simone as a teacher, and will use this DVD a lot - in rotation with my Tracy Anderson Meta DVDs, my AKT DVD, and running. Both workouts are hard and leave your body feeling worked - but I wish the Full Body had more bang for the buck - when I finished it, my body felt pleasantly tired, but like it could have gone harder and longer. ***Edit: I have used this DVD consistently for five months and am now editing this review to give it five stars instead of four. Everything I said in the initial review still pretty much holds true, and I've tweaked the workouts a bit to make them more challenging here and there, but I've generally just done these workouts consistently, 4-6 times a week for the past five months, and my body has changed. My arms are more defined and tight, my core is flatter (and my pants looser), and I have shed inches off my hips and thighs (I'm down a jeans size). I'm pretty surprised as I didn't even intend this much change - it just seemed to happen! Very happy to see these results and still enjoying these workouts, mixed in with a few others (and with my own music!). Highly recommend and hope Simone comes out with more!

I'm sure this is a very good workout, but she went so fast and didn't show what she was going to do first. By the time I figured out one thing she had already went to several more. I need to have moves explained to me first.

someone mentioned similarity with Anna Kiser and Tracy Anderson - they are right , but out of all 3 , i can work with Simone's DVD's . i only tried Anna and Tracy once [ dvds bought and only to become a source of dust ] - but i actually did Simone's DVD's and recently rediscovered her after about 4 yrs hiatus : i am now closer to 50 but extremely fit and i can still keep up - even though i am a mess afterwards . the workouts are HARD , i also love the arm workout she has incorporated and the leg workout shines in this video . Not so impressed with the core, but i'll check out her core dvd , i'm sure she focuses on it more there. i definitely recommend it , just make sure you have the right shoes [ not running shoes, you need something more stable for high impact and sudden moves ] - but all in all - definitely a 5-star . she's not annoying like tracy a and not as challenging as anna ... the dance is very easy to figure out after a few attempts and she builds the moves over the course of 10 min so she'll take you to the next one once you've mastered the one before and so on. as a former { amateur] dancer i find it easy to follow her. and she's as cute as a button ! i also have her app , i can't wait to try it but for now i'm waiting to get bored of her dvd , i am still very much enjoying it

If you want very fast past with little instruction on how to do the moves, then this is the DVD for you. If you continue to workout with it, you will eventually be able to keep up. I do like the fact that there are two different workouts you can choose from. Both are fun, and yes, it will work. I will continue to workout with this DVD. Just keep in mind, if you haven't worked out in awhile, you may want to consider something that has a slower pace. I would have given this a 5 star if there would have been more instruction on how to do the moves before you actually start the workout.