Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss: Daily Quickies

It is a workout to help you strengthen and stretch every muscle in your body. Not only did I workout harder than I have in any workout I've tried recently, this took my body to new and undiscovered areas of fitness.

Rania Bossonis is an AFAA Certified Fitness Instructor and world famous Bellydancer. These workouts combine traditional strengthening exercises with moves and poses from Modern Dance, Yoga, Ballet and Bellydance. You are moving at a fast pace throughout the workouts and you will feel the "burn" and feel the effects and the day-after-I-worked-out-really-hard feeling.

This is a good workout to do if you are about to give yourself a day off or you can just do the 10 minutes after walking for 30 minutes to give yourself 40 minutes. I'm finding that 70-80 minutes of exercise 3-4X a week is the way to go if you want to start to see the inches drop.

You can really use this workout in a variety of ways. The most challenging way to start this workout is to go through all 5 sections in about 60 minutes.

Day 1 - Abs Only
This section is a combination of isolation exercises that will take your abdominal muscles to new and rather interesting places. This section features: crunches, oblique exercises, lower abdominal work, standing abdominal bellydance isolation, belly rolls and an abdominal stretch.

Day 2- Arms, Back and Chest
After doing this workout, I went out and bought some tiny little 1 pound weights to do during the second workout. The workout is intense enough by itself, but in a few weeks, I can add the weights for advanced training benefits. You will recognize moves like: Lateral Pull Downs, Upright Rows, Shoulder Presses, Biceps Flexion, Push-ups, and Prone Hyperextensions, combined with Bellydance Isometric exercises such as Chest Raises and Drops, Snake Arms, Shoulder Rolls, and Shoulder Shimmies.

Day 3 - Dancer's Legs and Butt
Rania teaches moves she learned in Modern Dance training. You will enjoy doing plies, bellydance pelvic camels, one-legged lunges with leg extensions, inner and outer thigh exercises. The floor exercises put an emphasis on the hamstrings and gluteal region.

Day 4 - Waist Sculpting
This goes beyond traditional abdominal workouts. We are talking about Figure-8 bellydance moves and rib slides. You start to feel a bit like a bellydancer in this segment. The isolations exercises encourage coordination and posture.

Day 5 - Flexibility Training
A combination of Bellydance, Yoga, Ballet/Modern Dance and stretches.

Special DVD Features:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Interactive Full Motion Menus
Chapter Selections

This is an amazing workout that will test your endurance and give you creative coordination challenges. I love the full-body workout when you complete all the exercises in about 60 minutes.

Very Impressed.

~TheRebeccaReview.com

If you already own any of the videos form Rania's "Bellydance for Fitness and Weight Loss" Series: Bellydance Boogie, Hip Drop Hip Hop, Cardio Shimmy, or Pure Sweat, or Veena and Neena's Bellydance "Slim Down" video then you will recognise these workouts (really just 10 minute long guided stretches) from the bonus sections of these DVDs. They've taken all five of them and put them on this one DVD.

Importat notes:
1. These are not "NEW" workouts. (Note to Rania and Natural Journeys) Please don't repackage old material and call it "NEW" just to pad your own wallet. This is insulting to the consumer and a waste of my money.

2. As a fitness professional, I can tell you that thse are not "workouts" for weight loss as claimed but merely ten-minute guided stretches. Stating that these workouts will help you loose weight is a gross overstatement. The body does not even BEGIN to burn fat until after more than 20 minutes of cardiovascular exertion. (Sitting on the couch burns next to zero calories so this workout would still be better than nothing.) :o)

3. This is't bellydance!!! Let me say this again, this isn't bellydance!!! It's stretching and strengthening exercises that will help put your muscles into the condition required to bellydance better, but don't buy this video looking for bellydance instruction or workout!

4. If you own any other fitness videos, I'm sure you've noticed that nearly all of them remind you to do at least twently minutes of warmup and stretching before beginning their workout. Now THAT's a reason to own this DVD. Just pop this puppy in first and you're on your way!

5. These are excellent guided stretches! You won't learn or practice any bellydance but if you use this video in combination with other fitness videos or as an addition to an existing fitness routine, it's great.

6. Current fitness research says that if you only have ten minutes to workout, that's OK. You can do three ten minute workouts in one day and get close to the same benefit as one thirty minute workout. Thirty-plus minutes is still better than three ten-minute sessions but 3 ten-minute sessions is still better than nothing! Try to fit more than one of these into your day for better results.

0 stars for remarketing old stuff as new.
4 stars because this could still be used conjunction with other videos.
2 average