Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA brilliant road to better health and fitness
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2015
If you're looking for a way to improve your fitness or that of a parent or grandparent, I can't think of a better place to start. I've no experience with the shorter, completely seated workout on this DVD. Last year, I purchased the first edition which has one work out very similar to the middle one here on the second edition. The third workout is more difficult--we plan to work our way through this eventually, but for my 85 year old mother it was a little too much so we went back to the more modest middle workout.
Key differences between the first and second edition's middle workout: The sound is set louder on the first edition. If you're using headphones that aren't always loud enough, the first edition could be better. The second edition shows multiple camera angles, so you can better see what you're meant to do. Ms Adams has modified this workout a little bit. In the end it's four minutes longer. You might think 36-40 minutes is a long time and worry it'll become tedious, like I did. After doing it for a few months, my mother still looks forward to it every day and it still surprises us both how quickly it goes by.
My mother's posture, back pain, balance and endurance have improved. Between them, my parents have had years of professional physical therapy (both in-home and at rehab facility) and I've never seen a significant improvement like this. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a set-back last month where her knee was hurt (considerable pain for a few weeks but nothing fractured, broken or torn). Now we're quickly getting back to where she'd been--I credit this workout (which she still wanted to do despite the pain) for the speedy recovery, perhaps preventing a worse injury.
The middle workout is the perfect gentle, yet serious nudge toward better health and fitness my mom needed. You or yours won't do every exercise with effortless perfection. It might take weeks to work through the whole workout, as it did for us. And if this becomes too little of a challenge, the third workout (which we've only tried once, not quite making it halfway) looks fantastic too.
I thought so highly of the first edition that buying the second edition for Seniors, then another Jane Adams DVD for me was a no-brainer. Nothing is for everyone, but I'll bet this comes closer to disproving that than anything else. The value is far greater than anything I've bought in this millennium.
