Video - Ab-Trimming Yoga Workout

This 10-minute yoga workout features poses and exercises focused on strengthening and tightening your core muscles to trim that waist and strengthen your midsection. The awesome thing about yoga is that it actually works your entire body, even while focusing on certain areas, so your whole body can get stronger and leaner even just in a short workout. Do this a couple of times a week to build a strong core and back, improve your posture, and flatten your abs. Some of these exercises are fairly challenging, so be sure to use the modifications where suggested if you need to, and be careful of your lower back if you have had problems in that area. Once you get your core stronger, you'll be able to do the full versions of the exercises.

Yoga Abs Workout
This ab workout is designed to strengthen and shrink your midsection using core-focused yoga moves to define trimmer, tighter abs.

Review: 10-Minute Solution Yoga (DVD)

I'm always excited when I get a new workout DVD - sometimes I don't do anything but the new one for a few months! I'm trying to keep myself on a more varied rotation these days, but this new one I just got just lends itself so perfectly to the short workout time I usually have available.... I had this one on my Amazon wishlist for a while, but I wasn't sure it would provide me with a good enough workout, so it took me a while to actually order it. I've had it for a few weeks now, and am extremely happy with it.

10 Minute Solution Yoga is part of the 10-Minute Solution series of workout DVDs, and is one of the most highly rated in the series by users.

It consists of 5 different 10-minute yoga sessions, which can be combined in any order for a longer workout, or done individually as a stand-alone workout if you only have 10 minutes.

The 5 sessions on the DVD are:

Yoga Basics - Designed as the "first" session, this workout takes you through several basic yoga poses at a nice pace and flow. I thought this one would be too easy, but it really wasn't. The rather quick pace was a little unexpected the first time through, but even now that I'm used to it, it's still challenging enough and a lot of fun. So far I'm liking this session the best.

Yoga for Buns & Thighs - This session works the larger muscles in the lower half of the body, with poses such as Chair and some of the Warrior poses challenging your thighs and butt, but without ignoring the rest of the body.

Yoga postures Navasana (Boat pose) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yoga for Abs - This session is all about the abs, and boy does it ever work them! As someone who has done Pilates for over 10 years, and yoga for two, plus lots of other ab-focused workouts over the years, I didn't expect this one to be so challenging for me. By the end of the 10 minutes, my entire mid-section was totally burning! This session features Boat pose, and other core-focused poses.

Yoga Burn - I've only done this session once so far, and I wasn't as impressed with it as I had expected to be. It seemed slower than I thought it would be, although it did have a few more challenging poses. I may come to like it better as I get used to it though - maybe I just was distracted by concentrating on the instructions the first time through.

Yoga postures Shavasana (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yoga for Flexibility and Relaxation - Flexibility is something I really struggle with, with all the back problems I've had in the past. I could really do this session every day. It really stretches all of my tight areas like hips and butt, and it's a nice, relaxing pace to end the workout with. I do wish it included a longer Shavasana pose at the end though - I know they were trying to fit it all into 10 minutes, but it would have been nice to have like a "Bonus" optional 3-5 minute Shavasana at the end (I usually just do one anyway).

Overall, this is a really nice beginner-to-intermediate yoga DVD. It could stand to have better music - the music seems a little canned and boring - but it doesn't really bother me.

My favorite thing (and I love this and think ALL workout DVDs should have this feature) is the "Create Your Own Workout" feature. This allows you to choose which sessions you want to do, and in what order, before beginning the workout. This makes it easy to pick two or 3 sessions and play them all, without having to stop in the middle of your workout time and find the next session you want to do. It's really cool!

Since a lot of times I only have 10-20 minutes to work out, this DVD fits really well into my schedule. I do have several other yoga DVDs I really like, but sometimes I don't have enough time to do the whole workout, so now, rather than skipping a workout that day, I can just pull out this one and play a session or two. I've found myself getting a workout in a lot more often lately, which was my goal in purchasing this DVD - and I'm really enjoying it!

Whether you're pressed for time, like me, or you just want to add another good yoga DVD to your rotation, this is a great one to grab - and you can find it for less than $10 on Amazon.com.


This & Other 10-Minute Solution Workouts:
   

Video - Transurfing Yoga Examples

This new yoga craze utilizing weights is becoming more and more popular - but some people are wondering exactly what this might look like. This video gives a quick overview of some of the exercises and poses in the program.  Check it out, and for more information on Transurfing Yoga click the link below the video.

Transurfing Yoga with Dumbbells.
www.TransurfingYoga.com Transurfing Yoga - be your own personal trainer.
• If you are a girl who wants to lose weight, get a lean sculpt body, then this Yoga is for you!
• If you are a guy who wants to challenge your muscles strength, then this Yoga ...


If you think Transurfing Yoga is something you might like to try, click here to learn more....

Jillian Michaels is Kicking My Butt!

Wow, well it's been a while since I have visited my Yoga Meltdown video on here.... I would like to report some great progress, but the truth is I've been a bit lazy lately (see, it even happens to me sometimes), and haven't been doing my yoga workout as often as I should. I'm still doing it - it's just only about once a week lately (although, to be fair, I have been throwing some other workouts into the mix, so it's not like I've just been sitting around most of the time).

Anyway, I've been doing Level 1 of Jillian Michaels' Yoga Meltdown workout since last July - fairly regularly, except for during my back pain episode last fall. I am someone who is gung-ho about a workout for a while - love it, can't get enough of it, etc., until I get bored. So lately I've been feeling less motivated about the Yoga Meltdown workout, and I figured what the heck, I'll try Level 2 - it can't be THAT much harder, right??

Ummmm...WRONG. This workout is some serious stuff! I'm in pretty good shape (and have been doing yoga for 8 months now), and there were exercises in there that I couldn't even do - not even the beginner version! I was seriously sore (my entire body) for 3 full days. Not that it wasn't fun...or it will be, someday, when I'm ready for it. But for now, it gave me a new-found appreciation for Level 1, and I will be enjoying this one for some time to come. :-)

As a funny, slightly related note, I was on an exercise forum the other day, and someone was asking for a good, challenging workout video "without an annoyingly perky instructor". Someone else had suggested a Jillian Michaels video, with the comment that "Not only is she not annoyingly perky, she seems like she would come to your house and punch you if you don't work hard enough."  Ha ha! So true....

More Jillian Michaels Workouts: