Jayne Torvill – Lose It!

Jayne Torvill is, of course, one half of one of the world’s greatest double acts. Right up there with Morecombe and Wise, Laurel and Hardy, Bert and Ernie and the Kray twins. 

If you type "World's greatest double act" into Google images, this is the second picture which comes up. I'm not sure if this is fantastic or an indication of the End of Days.

Like any of them, it feels odd for one to be doing something without the other. I keep expect my spellchecker to autocorrect her surname to “Torvillanddean”.

Apparently she is allowed to branch out and do things on her own occasionally. Although judging by this DVD she is only permitted to do so if she fulfils her quota of references to Ravel’s Bolero and her famous dance with Christopher Dean.

This one.

So we get a section called the workout called the “Bolero Blitz” where Jayne and her trainer, Dan Little, start the routine on their knees do a bunch of workout moves and them fling themselves to the ground at the end in a tired homage to the famous routine.

Well this looks familiar.

Because of course, Jayne Torvill is an Olympic gold winner in the most arty of Olympic events since Olympic medals for Literature were discontinued in 1948.

In 1984, the people worshipped them as gods.

Interesting fact about Torvill and Dean’s Olympic Gold winning routine in 1984: Did you know that the reason that Torvill and Dean started their routine on their knees doing the swaying body stuff on the ice was because the music was slightly over the maximum allowable time allotted? Keeping the bottom of their skates off the ice for the first 18 seconds was a way to circumvent the time limit rules.

Cheeky blighters.

This then went on to inspire so many copycat routines that the Sports Authorities banned kneeling on the ice. Presumably in order to prevent someone deciding to stage a routine based on Jeff Wayne’s War of theWorlds performing the whole thing on their knees until the final four minutes.

Christopher Dean as Julian Clary. Jayne Torvill as the Judderman.

Torvill and Dean are now coaches and creative directors of Dancing On Ice which I have never seen because apparently I never watch anything that might prove useful for these reviews. It’s usually described as “Strictly Come Dancing” with skates. I never watch Strictly Come Dancing either but it’s handy to get essential differences like that straight in my head.

Also, everybody is a bit less famous.

The workout sections include a Warm Up, Ice Body Burner, Bolero Blitz and Crunch and Tone.

I hope Jayne doesn’t do any presenting on Dancing On Ice because if this DVD is anything to go by, she’s really very bad at it. It’s lucky her trainer, Dan Little, seems happy in front of the camera because poor Jayne really doesn’t seem that comfortable to be there. 

It's OK, Jayne. Don't panic.

There’s not much rapport between the two, sadly. They have one quick conversation where Dan tells Jayne that he’s “no Christopher Dean” and that’s about it. Dan carries the whole show. He could have done the whole thing just as effectively on his own. Although if he had, the Ravel’s Bolero references would have seemed a bit odd.

Torvill and Dan

Best Bit

Dan the Trainer does actually explain how to do things properly He demonstrates the correct way to do a squat at the beginning of the warm-up and talks us through different moves as we come to them in a clear and straightforward manner. 

Unfortunately half the time he’s doing this the camera is zooming in to a close up of his face or pointing directly at Jayne’s knees so we don’t get the benefit that we might if we could, you know, actually see what Dan was talking about. But that’s hardly Dan’s fault so I won’t hold that against him.

Useful Dan is useful.

Worst Bit

Like Lorraine Kelly’s ‘walkercise’ the other week, this workout massively over-estimates the amount of space participants at home might have available to them. Jayne even mention the fact that the DVD  is for people to do in their living rooms so it’s not like they think everyone’s planning to do this in the local village hall or something.

Dan and Jayne skip from one side of their exercise studio to the other, they sashay forwards, they pony backwards. “Why don’t we take this a bit further?” says Dan leaping backwards with gay abandon. How about we don’t Dan? I’m having a hard enough time following your instructions as it is without having to adapt them for my limited living space as I go along.

Pictured: Leaping with gay abandon

Difficulty Level

Well, it was certainly fast. There were bits where we were supposed to go: Funky Knee! Arm Thing! Funky Knee! Skate Shuffle! I was only able to manage a couple of funky knees before having to quickly rejoin Dan and Jayne for step touches.  Still that seems to have been their intention. As Jayne says in her introduction “It’s hard work but hopefully you won’t notice because there’s loads  of moves for you to concentrate on.” I feel that Jayne may have confused the concept of “fun” with that of “confusing”.

Probably not as difficult as this, though.

Would I do this Workout again?

I think I might do. The workout itself is pretty good though I suspect that’s more down to Dan than Jayne. The soundtrack’s pretty dire though. You know Torvill and Dean actually released an album of them singing love songs back in 1989? It’s on Spotify and everything. I think if I do Jayne’s “Lose It!” workout again I might turn the volume right down and listen to this instead.

Josie Gibson – 30-second slim

Let’s get one thing straight. This workout does not last 30 seconds. Good news if you are looking to get value for money from your Celebrity Workout DVD purchases. Bad news if you were looking for a workout you could do during an ad break in Come Dine With Me.

The justification for the name presumably comes from the fact that this workout uses interval training and consists of 30-second blocks of high impact training interspersed with periods of “Active Rest”.

(“Active Rest” by the way is a grossly misleading term. It’s up there with “Public School” or “Friendly Fire”.)

Pictured: Friendly Fire

It’s a fucking liberty. A workout where bits of it last for 30 seconds isn’t a “30-second Workout” any more than Lord of the Rings is a “3 page book” just because sections of it are three pages long.

Not that I’m laying any of the blame for this at Josie Gibson’s feet. She seems like a perfectly nice girl who’s just trying to keep her media career alive after her departure from the Big Brother house in 2010.

Now here's a workout DVD double act we'd like to see

“Big Brother’s Josie Gibson is more a little sister now!” says the DVD box. Because she’s gone from being big to being little, do you see? Much like she’s gone from being a boy to being a girl. No wait, she hasn’t done that. I’m not really sure that comparison was really thought through.

Josie took part in Series 11 of Big Brother which was the last series of Big Brother to be broadcast on Channel 4. I had completely lost interest in Big Brother by this time and it seems I wasn’t the only one as Channel 4 were so desperately trying to ‘freshen up’ the format that it became a bit of an embarrassment.  For example, they had one of the housemates dress up in a mole suit live in a Mole Hole. They also instigated a Tree of Temptation which prompted contestants to do such hideously antisocial things like throw housemates' vegetables, fruit and bread into the pool and destroy someone's cigarettes. It’s like they actually wanted the housemates to kill one another.

It was - apparently - an actual tree

The format seems a confusing mess by this point – 81 hopefuls turn up on day 1 with one of the contestants being chosen by random draw and a bunch of new contestants being flown in by spaceship of day 31? What gibbering madness is this?

Still gibbering madness or not (and it was. Clearly.), Jodie must have been doing something right as she not only won the competition but did so with the highest percentage of the public vote ever. 

This DVD was released in January of this year which makes it a startlingly up-to-date review for CLCW. We’d better watch ourselves. We’re in danger of becoming cutting edge, here.

There are three workouts covering three different difficulty levels as well as a “Josie’s Story” extra which purports to give us a behind the scenes look at Josie’s incredible weight loss. Mostly it includes footage of Josie exercising at the beginning of her fitness regime when she was still plus-size. She has been squeezed into a pair of exercise shorts three sizes to small which causes her belly to overhang the waistband uncomfortably. Presumably to provide a contrast with the way she looks now.  And to provide an incentive to the rest of us.

It doesn’t have to be like this Josie. They make shorts in all different sizes.

The voiceover tell us it was “cruel” pictures taken of Josie on holiday that made her want to lose weight. Well, if they were so very cruel, voiceover lady, why are you showing them, huh?

And why am I showing them now? It’s like we’re ALL monsters.

She certainly looks like a new woman by the end of it. And she deserves to if she’s doing these exercises on a regular basis. They are unbelievably hard work. This may actually be the toughest (as opposed to just incomprehensibly convoluted) workout we've had here. You don’t expect it when you've got a celeb who was formerly actually overweight rather than merely photographed by the paparazzi at an unflattering angle. 30 second workouts can be pretty exhausting when you stick a load of them one after the other.

Suffer as I do!

Difficulty Level

As I mentioned, this is really hard work. Trainer James Stark isn't content just to make us do press ups. It’s more like: do a press up then touch your toes and a do a star jump and a squat thrust all within 2 seconds. And Repeat! Lots!

We've barely even started, people!

Would I do this Workout Again?

You know I am going to have to. Basically, you’re expected to master Level 1 before you move on to Level 2 then get the hang of that one before moving up to Level 3. I feel like a bit of a fraud even playing the later sections. Like I wasn’t really authorised to do so.  I will be back and  I will earn those Level 1 stripes godammit.  

Best Bit

Josie’s accent is just delightful. I honestly didn’t know that Bristolians spoke like that. I am clearly not spending enough time there. Who doesn’t want to spend time with someone who looks like Barbie and sounds like the Wurzels?

I got a brand new combine harvester and I’ll give you the key

Worst Bit

The workout appears to have been recorded in a school gym. There are wall bars and a old-fashioned vaulting horse. It took me right back to PE lessons at school. I’ve just about stopped screaming now.

The horror.

Nell McAndrew – Maximum Impact

Nell McAndrew’s Maximum Impact Workout is, according to the box, “filmed in the exotic Miami”. Don’t get too excited though, any fans of The Miami out there. All you get to see are some steps and the edge of a swimming pool. Granted they are very nice steps. They know how to put steps together in The Miami.

The Miami. Come for the sunshine. Stay for the steps.

Glamour model and Yorkshire Water spokesperson, Nell is joined by her fitness instructor, Liam Duffy and three other workout buddies. No-one other than Nell gets an introduction – or even a close up – on this DVD. Luckily,  I had plenty of time to stare at them while I was doing this workout and I think I have figured out each of their back stories.

Liam Duffy masquerades as a fitness instructor and is using Nell McAndrew’s workout DVD as a cover for his gang of top international villains – Bailey, Carla and Tammy Mae. The rest of the gang refer to Nell as ‘The Duchess’. They are planning a heist of Ann Hamilton’s The Capacity of Absorption at the Miami Art Museum

Bailey, here, is the world’s foremost  security expert and lock picker. He could get into the most heavily guarded room in under 4 seconds using a cell phone battery and a paper clip. He used to work for the CIA but switched sides when he realised that he only wanted to look out for the most important person in his life. Himself.

This is Tammy Mae. Don’t be fooled by her wide smile and sugar-sweet appearance. Tammy might spend her days planning bake sales and helping out at little league, but after dusk she’s a ruthless knife expert and assassin. She’d slit a man’s throat in a heartbeat and she wouldn’t stop smiling while she did it.

Carla is the brains of the outfit. She is also the world’s best explosives airport. You want a bang big enough to bring down the Miami Tower concealed in a lipstick case? Carla will sort you out. She doesn’t say much but when she does, you can be sure you need to listen.

Disappointingly the DVD credits reveal that their names are actually Michael, Heather and Michele. I’m sure I got the rest of the information right, though.

The gang at workBest Bit
Liam’s pretty stern throughout however he does break character at one point and say “Ooh good tune” when the repetitive beats which make up the soundtrack changed to slightly different repetitive beats. It’s nice to know that he’s enjoying himself.

Worst Bit
There is only one DVD extra on here – a “Behind the Scenes” look at the making of this workout. Why do celebrities think that we want to see how they put their workout DVDs things together?

We know how it works - people turn up put up some lights, put the camera thingies together and film a celebrity in shorts. They then flog the result in Asda for £9.99.

It’s not the Matrix. No-one’s watching Maximum Impact wondering how on earth they managed to do that effect where Nell lifted her leg slightly in the air. And if you were then you are going to be disappointed here. This extra is about 30 seconds long and basically looks like camera phone footage of Nell wandering around set. She does eat a banana at one point. That’s a highlight.

This isn't part of the DVD extras.

 

Difficulty Level.
Oh my god, this was difficult. There are four sections – warm up, interval training, resistance routine and floor work and Liam and Nell work you pretty hard in all of them. I was a big mound of sweaty, heavy-breathing exhaustion by the end of this. Which is, I suppose, the point of these things. It’s easy to forget that sometimes.

Marathon running is not required as part of the workout

There are no beginner’s options available here. No “Follow Tammy Mae here if you can’t do the difficult moves.” As far as Liam is considered, it’s Shape Up or Ship Out. Or you could take the third option – attempt to do all the moves but do them really, really badly – which is what I went for.

Would I do this workout again?
You know I think I actually might do with this one. The punishing routines and the glamour of The Miami is calling me back.

Nell McAndrew used to be the model for Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft. I am not too sure what this entails but I presume it involves jumping from high ledges, running around archaeological sites and having to take on monsters in one-to-one combat. No wonder she's so fit.

Nell does baffling Euro-telly, looks baffled.

 



My arms are actually hurting as I type this. See, Anne Diamond? You just didn’t offer me enough pain.

Davina McCall – The Power of 3

And so Miss McCall, we meet at last.

I’ve been aware for some time that Davina McCall is widely regarded in the world of Celebrity Fitness Workout DVDs. The Daily Mail refers to her as the DVD Workout Queen and her workouts are considered to be both well put together and difficult to do.

This is, of course, why I have been putting it off. I like my workouts easy and stupid.

But we both knew, me and Davina, that this day had to come. She may not know she knew it but deep down she did. CLCW has been playing hard to get long enough and the time had come to say “Enough, Davina! I’m all yours! Show me what you’ve got!”

Bring it on

 

Not that I’m tackling the whole of McCall’s fitness library. I’m not a lunatic. The woman appears to have released a workout DVD every year since 2004.

This is the very first of those. The ‘Power of 3’ of the title refers to the 3 routines on the DVD, which you need to do 3 times a week. Presumably it also refers to Davina and her two personal trainers – Jackie and Mark Wren. After they’ve finished working out together they probably go off and fight crime, shouting “By the Power of 3!” before they do their special hand signal, put on their masks and capture the bad guys.

The Dynamic Trio

 

The three sections are Legs & Bums, Upper Body and Abdominals as well as a Warm Up and Cool Down. The husband and wife instructor team split the sessions between them so there’s no awkward bickering while they’re giving instructions. Jackie and Mark Wren seem like a nice couple. Although at one point when Davina makes a comment about her arse being too big, Mark says “It looks good from here”. Dude, your wife is just there!

Davina acknowledges that not everyone is lucky enough to be able to afford not one but two personal trainers. “So,” she tells us. “I thought I’d share Jackie and Mark with you!”

Well that’s just great. Not content with boasting about your enormous wealth, you’re now gloating about the fact that you’ve just made more money out of us by allowing us access to your privileged lifestyle. Why not just include a shot of you rolling around in piles of money, lathering your hair up with Garnier Nutrisse and laughing maniacally while you’re at it?

Go on, mock us with your chestnut locks

That said, Davina is quite entertaining. She’s clearly enjoying herself and not just because she’s showing off.  There are plenty of extras showing her mugging to the camera, getting the giggles and hanging out with the rest of the crew trying to learn how to wolf-whistle. If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to choose a celebrity to have as a gym buddy, I’d be pretty freaked out. I mean, who does that? That’s some messed up shit.

You could do worse than McCall though. She seems like fun.

Difficulty Level
The workouts are hard work. There’s a lot of squatting and thrusting and stretching and stuff. Every so often Jackie will suggest an easier version of a move, “If this is getting to much, just do the kicks” she’ll say and join you in it for 45 seconds before hectoring you to do the full kick-jump-squat-waving your arms about thing again. I felt I had to do the whole thing properly or be judged.
Davina even admits that she wants us to suffer. When Jackie suggests that we just do the knee lifts as an easier alternative, she says “That’s OK isn’t it?” to Davina. “Sort of, “grumbles Davina. “I’d rather everyone was doing it with me.”

Suffer as I do!



Best Bit
The Boxercising. Davina shares my enthusiasm for pretending to punch people.  “It makes me feel butch” she says before growling a bit and saying “Dangerous, yeah! That’s me yeah! I’m a lean, mean killing machine!” A little bit of murderous rage always helps when you’re working out, I think.

Maybe too much murderous rage.

 

Worst Bit.
There are two DVD extras – ‘Davina on Clothes’ and ‘Davina on Food’. In the first one, Davina introduces us to her personal dresser, Neil and then invites us to admire how great she looks while she tries on some dresses. Seriously, that’s all there is to it. There are no handy Trinny-and-Susannah-type tips for the rest of us. We are just here to gawk at the dress she wore to Elton John’s party and admire how shapely her calves are now.

Are you sure this isn't too revealing, Neil?

 

‘Davina on Food’ consists of Davina walking around a supermarket waffling on about food. There’s no diet plan. There’s no plan of any kind. It’s just an unedited stream of consciousness as she wanders around the food aisles. Thanks for that.

I have no idea what extras are included in any of her other workouts. Maybe there will be the opportunity to see her strolling around BHS talking about cushions or a film of her in her local launderette telling us about her favourite spin cycles.

Would I do this Workout Again?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. There are at least eight other Davina workout DVDs to get through, including ‘Body Buff’, ‘Intense’ and ‘Ultimate Target’ so one thing’s for sure, this isn’t over yet, McCall. You’ve not seen the last of me.

Susan Powter - Burn Fat and Get Fit

Susan Powter is, I understand, famous in the US for her “Stop the Insanity!” fitness infomercials. She published a book of the same name in 1994 and released this – her second workout DVD in the same year.

How to stop Insanity. Step 1: Place hands above ears.

She’s a strange shouty lady but she seems encouraging and enthusiastic in that evangelical way that ex-fat people sometimes have.

However, looking at her website, she appears to have gone full-on batshit crazy recently.

There is a section on the site called “Ask Susan” where people can ask for diet and exercise advice and Powter responds with nonsensical haikus inspired by a Magic 8-ball before being distracted by a shiny piece of paper or something.

Um... right? Thanks, Suse.

 

The below video is Susan’s attempt to improve your Self Esteem. Or tell you that Self-Esteem doesn’t matter. Or get you to buy her longer Self Esteem video. Or something else. I have absolutely no idea what’s happening here.

Still, back in the mid 90s Susan was on top of her game. She even appeared in an episode of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air in 1994 which is the nearest thing Americans have to a knighthood.

She was permitted to breathe the same air as this man. She is truly blessed.

‘Burn Fat and Get Fit’ is an interval training workout which Susan is keen to emphasize is suitable for all levels of fitness. She passionately cares that everybody gets moving regardless of current fitness levels. There are frequent reminders to modify the moves so even the rolliest polliest tubs of lards can jog on the spot if we can’t do the step ups, sit on a chair of we can’t do the floor exercises or enthusiastically nod our heads if we are comically stuck in the doorway or something.

She is joined by her two workout buddies Sally and Eric and claims that the workout is being filmed in her own home. In which case, it’s very nice. It could do with a bit more furniture though.

 

Also, is that ivy growing over your worktop?

Being an ex-fat person, Susan has a photo of her old glum tubby self to show us in the usual “Can you believe I literally used to weigh more than I do now?!?! Crazy, huh?” fashion. As it's a US workout, she is not required by law to stick this on the front of her DVD in greyed out tones otherwise reserved for miserylit as celebs are in the UK.

Susan talks non-stop. Her most used phrase is “Think about it!” which she utters hundreds of times over the course of 54 minutes.

“Knees forward. Think about it!”

“Chest press. Think about it!”

“The energy is in the ham strings. Think about it!”

STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO THINK, SUSAN POWTER!

During the leg strength exercises, she tells us: “This is the sort of strength that gets you out of the house. It gets you from the car to the house”. Thanks, Susan. I was actually already aware what legs are.

The workout includes both aerobic and anaerobic. Is it safe to combine the two? Or is it like mixing matter and anti-matter?

 

Weirdest Bit
Powter’s scary enthusiasm reaches fever pitch when she congratulates Sally on her breathing. “Listen to Sally breathing, class!” she shouts. I’m not sure if she’s means us at home who have no chance of hearing anything over Powter herself or if she means Eric who’s the only other person in the room. Quite an awkward moment for Eric, if so.

Difficulty Level

Even without modification, the workout is quite doable. You switch between jumping about stuff and stretching stuff and nothing goes on long enough to get really boring. This might be quite similar to the techniques used in Hannah Waterman’s workout a few weeks ago. If I retained any of the information from these workouts longer than the time it takes to write the reviews, I might be fairly knowledgeable on the subject by now.

Would I do this Workout again?

I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I should ask Susan.

Hannah Waterman - Body Blitz

I don’t doubt for a moment that Hannah Waterman – daughter of Dennis and third wife of Ian Beale – really did lose all the weight she said she did. I have seen the video evidence after all. Why then does the picture of her on the front of the DVD box look like it was hastily cobbled together in Photoshop?

The face is at the wrong angle; the skin tone doesn’t match and just look at the unconvincing edging round her hair.

Was she hoping that people would purchase her DVD in the spirit of scientific curiosity to determine for themselves if the weight loss really did happen or if it was all part of some fiendish conspiracy?

Other celebrities who have benefitted from Waterman’s workout plan.

Hannah is keen to assure us that her workout is all based on ACTUAL SCIENCE backed up by Martin MacDonald from Loughborough University – the leading centre for Sport Science in Britain. The workout is based on interval training – 15 minutes of which is apparently equivalent to 1 hour of aerobics - a pretty impressive claim given that the workout seems to be full of the same leaping, jogging, bending and stretching that make up half the DVDs I’ve reviewed here.

Hannah is joined by not one but TWO fitness instructors, shouty Elia and quiet Adam. They both appear to be about 15 years old and all three have very sensibly decided to dress in white and fluorescent yellow clothing in case they need to cross any roads on the way home and want to be clearly visible to the traffic in accordance with the guidelines on the Government’s Road Safety website.
 

Always remember to stop, look, listen and Jesus Christ, that’s a terrifying website.

There’s plenty of uncomfortable flirting between Hannah and her boys, most of which revolves around her physically threatening them in some way. Adam gets to display the easier versions of the workouts while Elia and Hannah show off with the harder ones. By the look on Adam’s face, he isn’t particularly happy about this arrangement. ‘I could have done the hard ones,’ he’s clearly thinking. ‘I’m super-fit. If only Elia hadn’t won that game of stone, paper, scissors just before we started filming.’

Unlike other celebrities who have released workout after being caught by the tabloids daring to look like regular human beings at the beach, Hannah doesn’t keep her old fat self all greyed out and lurking in the background on the DVD cover. Old Hannah looks on admiringly  while - based on her body language – New Hannah is saying ‘Look on but do not come close, woman, lest your fat folds wobble in my general direction.’

 

They don't have this pair's chemistry, that's for sure.

Not only does the DVD display dozens of pictures of Hannah from the same paparazzi shoot, there's also footage of her doing the exercises at the beginning of the workout regime when she was at her ‘before’ weight of 10 stone something. I can’t decide if this is a positive move or more masochistic self-loathing. It’s hard to tell sometimes. To be fair, it’s enough of an effort to understand a celebrity’s workouts without trying to understand their minds as well.

Best Bit

Adam doesn’t say much but every so often Elia calls on him to explain something like why Interval training is better than other sorts of training. Adam concentrates and then recites his spiel like a kid reading his part in a school assembly. He looks utterly delighted with himself when he’s finished.

Difficulty

This is hot, sweaty and knackering work. It’s probably best to do these sections in twenty minute bursts as recommended rather than try to plough your way through it from beginning to end as I did.

Would I do this workout again ?

You know, it sometimes seems like I do nothing else with my life but watch people from soap operas leap around and bang on about their newfound love of fitness like a particularly tedious co-worker. Then I write it up while simultaneously stuffing bourbon biscuits into my mouth so it doesn’t do me much good in the end. I probably should do this one again; it was reasonably well put together and would probably be quite effective. I won’t though. I’ll watch Tamzin Outhwaite or Natalie Cassidy or some other Eastender in a week or two and it will just feellike I’m doing this one all over again.