Title: Natalie Jill's REV4
What's the goal? Improving functional fitness and strengthening the body's muscles to eliminate pain in the back and elsewhere.
Who's it for? Beginning to intermediate exercisers who have no equipment and minimal time. Jill is a single mother in her 40s who says she has lost 60 pounds and aims to help others "change their bodies."
Format: A 16:9 wide-screen DVD with a 50-minute total run time that includes a warm-up, four 10-minute "Rev" workouts and a cool-down. The warm-up, consisting of a few minutes of lunges, air punches, jogging in place and core stretching, precedes the DVD's "full-body" workout, "Rev 1," which is heavy on forearm planks and lunges.
The second workout focuses on lower-body muscle groups with around-the-world lunges, donkey kicks, plyometric hops, drop squats and a hamstring curl exercise, among others. The third segment targets the upper body with a swimming stroke, tricep pushups, elbow planks, bicep curls that use the opposite hand for resistance, shoulder rotations and crab crawls.
The final workout is the "core crusher," which features a number of moves originating in plank position -- stretching legs out into side toe taps, maneuvering from forearm plank to full plank and back, and work done in the side plank position. Jill also performs standing side crunches targeted at the obliques, plus floor work, including bird dog exercises and leg lifts.
The cool-down features arm and hamstring stretches, plus yoga moves such as child's pose. The DVD's bonus features include Jill talking about the importance of functional fitness and a clip in which she delivers safety tips (namely: always warm up, cool down, hydrate and don't do anything painful).
What's to like? Jill focuses on functional fitness, meaning lots of work toward core strength and stability. She also touches on ways to modify many of the exercises (usually simple swaps, such as knee pushups for standard pushups) and alerts exercisers to when
weights could be added for an extra challenge.
What's not to like? Since each workout segment is only 10 minutes, Jill has little time to explain the moves or offer thorough form cues. Exercisers might find that just watching her isn't enough guidance, especially her transitions between exercises are often a little clumsy, and she looks like she's stifling a giggle when she can't get her footing quite right.
Other exercisers might be disappointed by the routines, especially those who think "revving" should mean lots of plyometric jumps, burpees or similar high-intensity interval work not found on this DVD. Many of Jill's moves seem geared toward challenging relatively inexperienced exercisers, but a few interspersed among them -- such as her modification of pushups to focus on the triceps -- seem likely to lead to injury for those who aren't comfortable with proper form.
Necessary gear: Despite her claim that the workouts require "zero" equipment, she does use a mat, which probably wouldn't be necessary on a carpeted floor. At least 6-by-6 feet of floor space is necessary, but more is better.
Distractions? There's no apparent way to rid the workouts of the industrial stock music in the background or to shake the thought that Jill probably couldn't have attained her impressive abs with this workout routine.
Can I do it barefoot? Yes, but the lower-body and stability work might be easier if you're shod.
Instructor's credentials: Jill has a bachelor's degree in health and human performance from the University of Maryland. She is a licensed master sports nutritionist, certified personal trainer and fitness model who has appeared in many magazines, according to her website, nataliejillfitness.com.
Price: $19.95
ActiveStyle on 09/29/2014