Cindy Crawford – Shape Your Body

 This workout was first released in 1992. Presumably on VHS or by means of a zoetrope. This is probably why there are no extras on the DVD. We didn’t need extras in 1992. We just sat dumbstruck in front of the magical moving pictures, occasionally shaking the television to see if the tiny people fell out.

Apparently, though, we did know how to make excellent workout videos in 1992. And when I say ‘we’ I mean people other than me obviously. In 1992 I was too busy dying my hair purple and getting drunk on snakebite and black.

Cindy Crawford’s workout is amazing. She introduces us to our trainer Radu Teodorescu at the beginning and tells us “Everyone thinks that I have the perfect body because I model swimsuits”

 I have no idea why anyone would think that.

The workout begins on a beach with Radu giving the instructions off-screen. He sounds like a cross between Steve Zissou and Pepe le Pew. The whole sequence is surreal yet mesmerising.

 Radu also sounds like he’s telling Cindy to move her arms “Upridee, Downbridown”. For which I respect him.

When it switches to the studio, it is a little disappointing to see Radu in person. I prefer him as a disembodied cartoon voiceover. He’s tough with Cindy too. “If he counts too fast, don’t let him rush you” Cindy tells us at one point. In response to this Radu picks up the speed and ensures that Cindy does not get to rest for a second. It’s like the bit where the demanding dance instructor bullies the ingénue ballerina in every ballet movie you’ve ever seen.

“I said, ‘Upridee, Downbridown’ godammit!”

Either that or the whole video is an extended training montage from an inspirational underdog movie . Crawford carries out her workout on top of a building with sirens blaring in the background. Now she’s in a basement! Now she’s on the beach! She’s just a plucky girl trying to pursue her dreams of becoming a supermodel aided only by the cranky French janitor who works in her apartment.

The DVD contains two 40 minute workouts and a 10 minute Jump-Start Mini Workout. The Mini Workout is terribly casual. Cindy wears cut-off jeans and no shoes. Radu is nowhere to be seen. (Or heard.) Maybe this is Cindy’s idea of slacking off when Radu’s nipped out for a coffee and a pain au chocolat.

"Great, he's not here! Time for some sit-ups."

 

The whole thing is marvellous. It’s been put together and produced with care and attention. Not something I can say about any of the other workout DVDs I have reviewed so far. The hastily cobbled-together shit put out by soap stars and reality tv has-beens is going to look even more slapdash after this. I wish I’d watched this one at the very beginning. I could have hated Nadia’s Latino Dance workout even more than I already did.

Difficulty Level.
This was incredibly difficult and, to be fair, Cindy doesn’t pretend otherwise. There’s no perky whooping here like she’s Jordan or Jessie Wallace or something. This is work. We are not here to enjoy ourselves.

And if doing eight hundred crunches, lunges, sit-ups and the like is the price you have to pay to look like this then so be it.

Disclaimer: Doing Cindy Crawford’s workout video will almost certainly not result in you looking like this.

Best Bit
I could go on about Cindy Crawford’s luscious honeyed golden looks and how she looks like a Disney Princess made flesh and how her smiles probably cure terminally ill children but, you know, I think I may have a bit of a girl-crush on Cindy and I should probably tone it down a bit.

Instead I’ll concentrate on the soundtrack. This is the third DVD in a row which has featured proper songs – rather than anodyne plinky-plonky lift music. It is the first workout DVD, however, which has featured songs I actually want to listen to. Stuff I have on my spotify playlist, no less. More than half of it is by Primal Scream which is an enormous improvement on the Pussycat Dolls.

Would I do this workout again?
I feel like someone who’s been drinking meths out of a brown paper bag their whole life and then been given a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. I had no idea exercise DVDs could be this way. I may just review Cindy Crawford’s Shape your Body every week from now on.

Of course, if I do decide to do that, the exercises will definitely kill me.

Pussycat Dolls Workout

The first indication that there’s something amiss with the Pussycat Dolls workout is the sticker on the front of the DVD which says “Featuring Nicola Scherzinger”. A cursory amount of research reveals that Nicola Scherzinger is the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls. Why is she merely ‘featuring’ on her own DVD?

It’s because – and this may shock you, gentle reader, the Pussycat Dolls workout doesn’t have the actual Pussycat Dolls in it!

Actual Pussycat Dolls

 

 

 Not Actual Pussycat Dolls

 

The Workout is fronted by Robin Antin, creator of the Pussycat Dolls who is joined by Jersey, Jenny and Jamie from the Pussycat Lounge Review and ‘special guest star’ Christina from Girlicious which is, apparently a real band.

It turns out that the Pussycat Dolls are not merely a pop group. They are also a burlesque review, a nightclub and quite possibly a range of pro-biotic yogurts. All created by the scarily toned & sculpted Robin Antin. I imagine this took place in a lab somewhere in much the same way Professor Utonium created the Powerpuff girls.

In fact to hear Antin talk about her ‘journey’ in the DVD extras, it appears she invented the whole concept of attractive women moving around in time to music altogether. This elicited much delight and amazement amongst her celebrity friends. You know cool famous people? So does Antin. ALL the cool famous people.

From top left: Johnny Depp, Scarlet Johansson, Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, Christina Applegate, Fergie, Carmen Electra and  Charlize Theron. All BFFs of Robin and namedropped in the DVD extras.

These people are literally always going for pub lunches together and borrowing one another’s lawnmowers.

Nicole Scherzinger does put in an appearance, as promised, in the Buttons performance segment. The DVD is divided into Warm Up, Don’t Cha Breakdown, Don’t Cha Dance, Burlesque Breakdown, Burlesque Dance Workout Buttons Breakdown, Buttons Dance Workout and Cool Down

I'm worried about Nicole's outfit here.

It looks like she's got the gusset from her tights caught on her bra.

In the Breakdown sessions we’re taught a series of dance moves which we then all perform together. Antin asks invites us all to unleash our Inner Pussycat Doll as we perform their “Sassy but Classy” signature moves. “That was amazing everyone! I am so proud of you” Antin exclaims at the end of one of the workouts. It’s almost like she couldn’t see my terrible dancing through the TV screen at all.

Difficulty Level
Well, I still can’t dance. But as far as a strenuous workouts go, this one isn’t. And my threshold for “strenuous” is very low indeed.

Stepping back and forwards, flicking your hair and slapping your arse from time to time doesn’t burn many calories or use muscles you wouldn’t otherwise be using in your daily routine (especially if your daily routine involves a lot of arse slapping.) This pace gets picked up a bit in some of the numbers with some high kicks and some jumping up and down but you might as well just try energetically doing the hovering while wiggling your bum a lot and it would probably have much the same effect.

The girls rock the “Dressing As Characters From The Board Game Cluedo” look.
I like that Robin sees herself as Mrs White.

Weirdest Bit

Antin really does have favourites amongst her girls. For most of the workouts Christina is her golden girl and gets called upon to show the rest of the class how good her stretches, bends and arse aerobics are. “Have you got this? I know Christina’s got this!” yells Antin. As soon as Nicole Scherzinger shows up, though, poor Christina is relegated to the back and Antin’s focuses exclusively on her new Head Cheerleader. It must cause a lot of tension. I’ve changed my mind about wanting to go on a picnic with Antin and her celebrity friends now. I’m not sure I could handle the stress of watching Johnny Depp being played off against Christina Aguilera.

Would I do this workout again?

No. I’m not sure who it’s for really. Although anyone with an appreciation of a well-formed female bottom will find something of interest here.

There's a lot of this sort of thing

 

Overall, I think the ideal audience is 13 year old girls at sleepovers. They can fit the dance routines in between making friendship bracelets and eating Pringles.

When I grow up, I wanna see the world

Drive nice cars, I wanna have boobies

 

I just hope they won’t be too disappointed that the actual band isn’t in it. Still, who knows, if they manage to release enough of their Inner Pussycat Doll, they could end up starring in the next one.

Jessie Wallace – Look at Me Now

A  new year, a new set of resolutions and the return of C-List Celebrity Workout. It’s been a while, I grant you, and while this might not be entirelyworth the wait, it certainly is a C-List celebrity working out. And that, quite frankly, is all you can really expect.

Jessie Wallace is best known for her portrayal of Kat Moon (nee Slater) in Eastenders. I say best known, I’m not sure your average man in the street would be able to think of anything else she’s been in?

Love Actually? Those Activia yogurt adverts? No, wait a minute...

The DVD cover shows our celeb looking toned and happy beside the almost obligatory paparazzi shot where she’s wearing a swimsuit looking a bit saggy.

Jess has got no time at all for her old fat self. “Just a few months ago, I looked like this.” she tells us before doing the most enormous eyeroll. “Urggh! What a state! I was fat and out of shape.”

I can’t stress enough how much disgust she manages to convey in that “Urggh!”

She then goes on to tell us how she’d ‘ballooned’ to a size 14, explains that merely looking at a picture of herself from 2 months ago, causes her to be violently physically sick and then proposes that all fat people should be rounded up as a kindness to the rest of us and either forced to do Jessie’s Look at Me Now workout or shot. It’s possible some of this was cut for length.

The video appears to be set in an abandoned warehouse primarily used by criminal gangs to hide stolen Neon signs. There’s a massive neon “Me” behind Jessie throughout her workout. I presume the police arrived before the thieves could make off with the “Look”, “At” and “Now” ones.

There are also some massive lights and some tea-making stuff in the background by the looks of it so it’s possible the whole thing is supposed to be backstage on the Eastenders set. IMDB and Wikipedia both refuse to acknowledge this DVD’s existence, let alone give me comprehensive filming locations. I’ll either have to create www.CLCWDB.comor just make shit up.

Jess assures us that her diet and exercise plan are “Not a fad thing and not a passing craze.” I’m not sure it’s the celeb’s job to decide that. I don’t think this workout was any kind of craze back in 2009, even a fleeting one.

The workout consists of Warm-Up, Full Body Workout, Boxercise, ‘Legs, Bums, Arms and Abs’ and a Cool Down.

Jessie’s trainer is Paul Ellis, a buff, tattooed, mumbly sort of chap who doesn’t seem over the moon to be there but is prepared to put in a decent days work. In the Warm Up we get our first view of Jessie’s comedy marching which is marvellous sight to behold. At one point Jessie affects what I presume is supposed to be a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice and says “I call this one the Booty Booter?” Eh? Booter?

The Boxercise session was the most fun. It’s always pleasing to do a workout while imagining you’re taking part in a barroom brawl.  There’s one exercise where you simulate grabbing someone by the ears and then breaking their nose with your knee. Mostly it’s just pretending to punch people in the face. And step to the left. Punch! Step to the right. Knife to the kidneys! And rest.

There are a pretty varied bunch of exercise on this DVD and the instructions are straightforward enough. Jessie was quite excitable at times but not Barbara Windosr levels of crazy. She performed the advanced workout while Paul was the go-to guy for beginners. The camera sticks to Jessie pretty closely for a lot of the workouts making following Paul’s instructions a little tricky. Some of the beginner’s exercises could have involved reading the paper and eating ginger biscuits. I have no idea.

I did all the workouts in the workout section and the whole thing took about an hour. There was a “Killer Abs” workout in the Special Features section fronted single-handedly by Paul the trainer. Does Jessie even know this is on here? I skipped this as I am a woman of principal who refuses to do any exercise not endorsed by a celebrity. My abs will simply have to remain non-lethal.

Best Bit

There are proper songs being played during these workouts! With actual lyrics. Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” are included. I’m not a massive Lady Gaga fan, to be honest, but I was hugely excited that it wasn’t just plinky-plonky lift music again. You know what should happen, though? A Lady Gaga workout video with Jessie Wallace doing the music. Who wouldn’t pay good money for 60 minutes of this sort of thing:

 

Worst Bit

In the ‘Interview; section, Jessie discusses how she was inspired to spread the love and joy of her fitness regime to the world. Basically she was approached by Acme Personal Trainers Inc who asked her if she would like to get a bit fit and then release a celebrity workout DVD. It’s that blatant. She isn’t even pretending that this something she happened to be doing anyway before she hit upon the happy notion of flogging a DVD in time for Christmas. I know this is the way the world works but I feel a bit let down. The magic’s been destroyed.  Another tiny piece of my faith in humanity has crumbled away like when my parents lied to me about taking Tiny Tears to the Doll Hospital.

Why did you stomp on my dreams Jessie?

Difficulty Level

You know I think I was OK with this one. I was following the easy version but I was generally lunging and punching and marching as instructed. I got out of breath in an encouraging rather than scary way and no-one tried to embroil me in a complicated dance routine.

I have to take issue with the lunges though. Paul was very insistent that I not let my knee overshoot my toes. I’m not sure he and Jessie were playing by the same rules.

Would I do this Workout again?

You know what? It’s a new year, a new start and I’m being all positive about things. So why don’t we assume I will.

A Slightly Longer Interlude

You know I love you, CLCW readers, don't you? Utterly. Desperately. It's almost obscene, my love for you all.

And yet I neglect you.

I'm like a footballer too distracted by the glamour of kicking a ball around a field to advertise crisps or appear in "Hello" with a lovely wife and/or mistress.

Unfortunately for all of us, my attention is being unreasonably taken up at the moment. I'm living the life of Rodney Dangerfield in "Back to School". With slightly less wisecracking.




This is not Rodney Dangerfield.

I wanted a clip of the studying montage mentioned in this Cracked article. But YouTube let me down. But that's how my life actually is right now.


I literally have to study using only my lighter.
Thinking of you all. Lovingly. Longingly. Almost a little too intrusively, if we're honest.

Mr Motivator - All New BLT Workout

And once again, I shamefully left you hanging on for the next exciting instalment of C-List Celebrity Workouts.

I’ve become inexcusably slipshod. And this is since getting Clare Balding as a celebrity twitter follower as well. What MUST she think of me?

Ah well, I won’t bore you with the humdrum aspects of my life which have hampered my ability to upload this week’s reviews. It’s not like I’m the only hard-working parent with super-villains to vanquish and fiendish plots to undermine. The city is safe again, at least. And it’s nice those orphans can sleep soundly at night. Of course, it’s a shame that they are orphans now but – meh – you can’t have everything.

This week’s reviewee is 1990’s GMTV fitness instructor – Mr Motivator.
He and Mad Lizzie (from TV-am) are the only two TV fitness instructors I can think of who became celebrities in their own right. And by ‘celebrities’ I mean people of whom an exertaphobe such as myself was vaguely aware.



Mr Motivator - or Derrick Evans as he is known to his friends and the inland Revenue – looks fab. Some might say he overdoes it a bit with his bandana AND glasses AND moustache AND mad clothes. And they’d be right of course. Overdoing it is Mr M’s USP.

The whole DVD is filmed in Jamaica. The workouts are performed against a backdrop of tropical greenery, cliffs and sandy white beaches. I am so OVER fake celebrity houses now. All workout DVDs should like this.


Or this.


This would also be acceptable.


One of the locations is an ecotourism resort owned by Mr M himself. It’s called H’Evans Scent. Do you see what he did there?

Mr Motivator is joined by a whole bunch of impossibly gorgeous young Jamaican people. And a couple of very fit – but quite mumsy – looking ladies from the UK.

The workout sections consist of: Fun Calypso Workout; Upper Body Conditioning; Bikini Body Workout, Pyramid Workout and Bums Legs and Tums.

There’s a Party Workout at the end. Although, it looks like a pretty rubbish party to be honest. I’d like to hang out with Mr Motivator. He seems like a cool guy. But if his parties consist of jogging on the spot and arm-stretching rather than booze, snacks and impromptu balloon games, I think I’ll probably give it a miss.
Most of the sections are great – I particularly enjoyed the Upper body conditioning workout. But you all know how excited I get when there’s an opportunity to use my dumbbells.

I didn’t like the Pyramid workouts where Mr M dresses as an army sergeant major and orders his coquettishly-dressed squadron to perform a bunch of jumpy-up-and-down exercise. This is partly because I prefer lovely Mr Motivator to bossy Mr Motivator. But mostly because jumping up and down a lot is logistically awkward.

Best Bit
I love Mr Motivator. Normally I complain about people talking too much rubbish in workout DVDs. I could listen to Mr M talking rubbish all day though. He is, to be fair a professional at it.


“They started out with me looking rough but I’ve rebuilt them.”

“Smile! Jesus loves you!” (You know hardly anyone says that on Fitness DVDs.)

MrM: Every lady here say ‘Yes’!
Ladies: Yes!
MrM: I love it when women say ‘yes’

This really is the perfect mix of holiday brochure and pantomime.

Worst Bit
I originally assumed it was a re-release of one of Mr Motivator’s original videos from the 90s. However further research (Wikipedia) has revealed this is a new recording made in 2007.

In which case the production values are truly terrible. All the time I was excusing the shoddy quality because I thought it had been copied straight from VHS to DVD and that they’d tried to make up for how shit it was by introducing a “select your own workout” feature (that doesn’t really work).


If this was recorded in the current century on a camera designed for the purpose then the fact that this woman’s face looks like it’s been blurred out for security purposes for the Upper Body conditioning workout is a little bit disappointing.

Weirdest Bit
Between workouts there are baffling “comedy” segments with The Mad Professor and his assistant. The credits reveal that both the characters share Mr Motivator’s surname (not Motivator , the other one) which, at least explains what they are doing on the DVD.



Difficulty
Mostly OK. Apart from the Pyramid Jumping which I didn’t attempt. And the dancing. I REALLY can’t dance.

Would I do this DVD again?
Well no. I’m not going to do any of these workouts again probably. I should get rid of this section. Maybe replace it with “Would I recommend this to a friend?” or “Would I sooner do this again than wank off a pig?”

Katie Price - The Jordan Workout

Wikipedia lists Katie’s Prices career achievements as: media personality, author, former glamour model, occasional singer and businesswoman. It’s a pretty underwhelming set of achievements, really.

As an author, every one of her 38 books has been written by someone else. The glamour modelling with which she first came to the public’s attention is now just a ‘former’ occupation. And is there any adjective damning with more faint praise than ‘occasional’ singer? All we’re left with really is “personality” and ‘businesswoman”. Jordan makes money out of her selling herself.


Not that she's pretended otherwise, to be fair

This workout DVD was brought out in 2005, the year after she appeared on ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’ where she hooked up with 90s pop star Peter Andre. They were married in September 2005. Jordan tells us that she adopted this workout following the birth of her second child in June of that year in order to get back into shape for her wedding.

Jordan and Andre just before Junior's birth. I can't believe it didn't work out for these two crazy kids.

As Jordan tells us ‘I was due to get married AND go on my honeymoon.' What are the chances, eh? Both those things happening at the same time.

She also tells us that she had never dieted or exercised in her life. This comes across as an admission that as she neither really needed to lose weight, nor enjoys exercise, she was blatantly releasing a workout DVD for the cash.



The DVD itself is fine. It appears to be literally set in Barbie’s Fashion Fairytale Palace. If ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ were still around, I’d be convinced that dressing the set had been left to a very lucky six year old girl who had a whale of time purchasing fluffy lights, disco balls and novelty seating.

Oh, I see, it's a shoe

Trainer Richard Callender tries to counteract the girliness by using lots of boxing expressions and frequently reminding us that he’s heterosexual.



There’s lots of punching and jumping and stretching. None of the sequences are difficult to follow. This is probably for Jordan’s benefit, who really doesn’t look like she’s done this (or probably any) workout before. Plus she really doesn’t seem all that bright, bless her. Richard tries to engage her in conversation during the workout. When he asks her how she’s down during the warm-up, she replies perkily “Warming up!” – a pretty typical Jordan comment. Her internal thought processes seem to be a running commentary of whatever she’s doing at a given moment.

I’m not sure who this DVD is aimed at. As I said, it looks like it’s set in a child’s bedroom. Trainer, Richard has a great line in cheery encouragement that I’m sure would endear him to middle aged women. Jordan, though, seems to think she’s making the softest of all softcore porn movies. It’s all low cut tops, bouncing, bending over and telling us how hot she’s feeling. For most of the workout she wears a pink miniskirt over a white leotard thus giving the impression of an upskirt panty shot every time she moves her legs.



Except that anyone with an amorous interest in Jordan wouldn’t be seeking gratification from a workout DVD surely? It would be a pretty rum state of affairs if this DVD were the only thing you could rustle up as a wanking aid. I believe they even have porn on the internet these days.

This is the first picture you get if you type 'porn' into a Google Image Safe Search. Wait, Is that a rubber band round his hand? What on earth is he planning to do with that?


Best Bit
Knowing that this workout allowed Jordan to look so lovely at her wedding to Peter Andre.



Worst Bit
Knowing that the marriage was doomed to failure. Poor sweet ignorant 2005 Jordan. What know you of life?

Difficulty Level
Easy peasy. Although I did leave out the “Hard Core” section. Which was a killer abs session, incidentally. I’m not returning to my previous pornography digression.

Would I do this workout again?
No. It wasn’t the worst workout I’ve done by a long way. However, watching the Jordan Workout once can be considered a duty. Watching the Jordan Workout twice looks like an indulgence. I do have to live with myself, you know.

Gabby Logan - Twin Results Workout

The reason for choosing Gabby Logan as this weeks CLCW review is a pretty exciting one. Last week in aid of Sports Relief, a whole bunch of celebrities participated in Twit Relief and us hoi polloi were invited to buy raffle tickets in order to win, for example, dinner with Emma Kennedy or a phone call from actress, Diane Vickers. A lot of the celeb prizes included – or consisted solely of – a Twitter Superfollow. This is very much like a regular follow but instead of being followed by an common or garden pleb, you are followed by a living, breathing actual celebrity! Yes it’s THAT exciting!


Your chance of winning has passed now, of course.

And wait, I haven’t even got to the truly exciting part yet! C-List Celebrity Workouts (@clcelebworkouts) have won BBC Sports Presenter, Clare Balding! She will be following the CLCW twitter account for a minimum of three months and has to retweet something I say at some point! I feel like Clare and I are best friends now. OK, I had to pay for it and she hasn’t actually started following me yet, but we’re like sisters, really we are.

Here’s one of Clare Balding’s tweets from earlier today:

“Having a fun day out at Ascot races with @antanddec Have advised their mates to back Desert Law in 3.20 at Doncaster so the pressure's on.”

Now if this doesn’t prove that Clare and I are soulmates, I don’t know what does.
Admittedly, I have never been to Ascot. Or met Ant or Dec. Or advised anyone regarding who to back in the 3.20 at Doncaster . But if I DID do any of these things, I’m pretty sure I would consider it “A fun day out”. It’s uncanny.


How Clare might look hanging out at my house.

Clare Balding hasn’t released a Workout DVD of her own yet. However, as I fully expect her to hightail it over to my blog any time now, I thought I’d do the next best thing and feature a Workout DVD from one of her celebrity mates.

Clare and Gabby are, no doubt, constantly hanging out together at BBC Sports Presenter barbecues, quiz nights and Tupperware parties - swapping anecdotes, sharing beauty tips and recommending obscure blogs to one another.


Gabby Logan : So pretty she should probably do yogurt adverts.

Gabby Logan’s “Twin Results Workout” is the workout she followed while she was pregnant and just after the birth of her twins. Happily, she tells us that being pregnant isn’t compulsory and the workout's fantastic “even if you haven’t had children and just want to feel and look fit and healthy”.

She probably realised that marketing a DVD purely at people expecting multiple births would have had a bit of a detrimental effect on her sales figures.

Gabby is the first celebrity we’ve had on this site who’s a sports professional and former international athlete. It shows. This is a proper no-nonsense work out. Her trainer, Colin Allan appears stern and intimidating, although the DVD extras would suggest that this is a bit of an act he puts on.


Do not mess with this man.

There are five sections and all are sensibly named: Warm-Up, Trunk, Upper Body, Lower Body and Cool Down.

In each section there are three different levels of difficulty depending on whether you follow Gabby, Mel or Jo. Mel and Jo being the other women doing the workout. They are both friends of Gabby’s and we’re given a bit of background about them - neither have kids. Mel plays hockey. It makes a nice contrast to the neglect of Helmut and Pedro on Nadia’s DVD the other week. (These are possibly not the right names. I can’t be bothered to go back and check. They’re old news.)



From top to bottom: Mel, Jo and Gabby. The gang's all here!

I don’t have a lot to say about this workout, to be honest. This is Gabby Logan's fault for making her workout sensible and useful rather than ridiculous and self-indulgent. Luckily I don’t foresee that being an issue with most of the workouts on my “to watch” pile.

The only time Gabby wanders off-topic at all is when she goes into more detail about Diastasis Recti than I felt I really wanted to know. (A defect caused by the stretching of the abdomen by a growing uterus, apparently).

Would I do this workout again?
Yes definitely. Apart from anything else I got to use my lime green dumbbells in the “Upper Body” section and that always makes me happy.

Difficulty Level
For most exercises there were three levels – easy, hard and Gabby-level. That woman likes to push everything just that little bit further. Still you don’t get amazing buttocks like hers without putting some effort in.


Aforementioned amazing buttocks.

I found I was able to keep up the easiest level of exercises. Particularly the ones where all I had to do was concentrate on my pelvis. I find I have quite the knack for that.

Best Bit.
The out-takes. Colin gets the giggles! I’m always a sucker for blooper reels at the end of films so I think this is a trend worth encouraging on fitness DVDs.





Worst Bit.

I thought there would be more mention of her twins considering they are part of the DVD title. The extra “Twin Story” turned out – a little disappointingly - to be the story of the Twin Results Workout. Not the actual twins.

Although thanks to this thing called the internet I found what appears to the one picture in existence of her son and daughter.



I’m not sure what I actually wanted her babies to contribute to the workout. It’s not as though I expected to see Gabby hurling them about “Baby Yoga” style.
(You really don’t want to click that link, by the way.)

Maybe I’m just spoilt after seeing Geri Halliwell’s dog the other week. Not that Gabby’s kids could have competed with him, no matter how lovely they are. In fact, until a celebrity releases a workout DVD incorporating kittens or a baby panda, Geri’s still winning.