Yoga Meltdown

Not THAT kind of Meltdown. The Jillian Michaels kind of Yoga Meltdown, which I do and review so you don’t have to (unless you really want).

Not that long ago (it seems like) I reviewed Bob Harper’s Yoga for the Warrior, for which the overall review was positive though not for beginners. Specifically there are a couple of transitions with twisting triangle where you can grievously fuck up your back if you don’t do it right and his verbal cues for how to do it right are… nonexistent. I liked the DVD, found most of the verbal cueing to be helpful and definitely felt challenged. Today I picked up Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown, mostly because it features two 30 minute workouts and of late I’ve been splitting my workout with running followed by yoga.

This DVD (vs. the hour long Yoga for Warriors) means I can run/jog for half an hour and then yoga for half an hour and feel like I’m hitting all the bases. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t watch The Biggest Loser. I’m not a fan of the show but I know who the ‘coaches’ are, obviously. The DVD is billed as “hard-core fitness techniques with the sculpting power of yoga, for an intense workout designed to melt away stubborn fat fast.” I’m down for power yoga, as evidenced by my fondness for the Yoga for Warriors (and the fact that I taught a power yoga class several days a week for more than a year) so I was interested in a shortened version and how effective it would feel.

First: this video is ABSOLUTELY NOT for beginners. If you’ve never done yoga, you need to get to an in-person yoga class before attempting this DVD.

Second: Even if you’re familiar with yoga, you need to watch this DVD AT LEAST once before attempting it. The reason(s) is that this is the worst verbal cueing I’ve ever experienced in any class or DVD. I couldn’t get through the DVD without having to watch the screen because half the time I couldn’t figure out where the fuck she was going AND I’M A YOGA TEACHER. I’m not sure if this is from a career of one-on-one coaching, but if Jillian Michaels has ever taught a group class it’s not evident by this disc. I was doing the Level 1 workout and the absolute lack of direction was shocking to me.

That said: even Level 1 is a fast paced workout that is plenty challenging. Unfortunately because so much goes unexplained and changes are poorly cued, I felt like I was playing catch-up for about half the video. Not great when it’s only 30 minutes long. Not only that, there are some moves that beginners should NOT be doing without quite a bit more explanation (the Camel series, for example). There are a lot of potential injuries in this thing. In point of fact, I wouldn’t recommend this video to anyone unless I was pretty confident in their strength and anatomical understanding of how to protect their joints. There’s a Warrior II flow which made me shudder thinking about how many people probably do it incorrectly.

End result? It was a solid workout that could have used a better cool down stretch. I think once I memorize the sequence it might even be a great workout, so I’m going to give this one a while before I move on to Level 2.

So. Yoga Meltdown. 3 out of 5 stars because it’s a great workout but hard to follow.