Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss (2000)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Instructor Suzanne Deason

Features:

• Personal Instructor provides access to in-depth information
  
• Choose your workout level via camera angle
  
• 16-page Exercise, Nutrition, and Weight Management Guide
  

Rating: NR

Anamorphic: N/A

My Advice: Buy it to spice up your regime, or rent it for a way to break up exercise boredom

Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss presents a comprehensive yoga-based workout suitable for all experience levels, from beginner to advanced. Ostensibly, yoga will also help reduce stress, help you lose weight and then keep it off, and strengthen and tone your entire body. Instructor Suzanne Deason begins the session with a good warm-up to get your body loosened up. There are standing asanas, forward and back bends, etc. in the full 45-minute workout, no matter which level you choose. If you’re looking to increase your physical activity without killing yourself or aggravating old injuries, then this might be just what you’ve been looking for.

The instruction is quite good: since there are four different yoga instructors demonstrating essentially the same poses with variations for ability, viewers can choose their own level and cause the camera to focus upon any of the four instructors. Each move is carefully discussed and demonstrated, with appropriate cautions and helpful hints for doing these poses correctly.

The audio and video qualities are good. You’ll always be able to hear the audio cues, and the ability to switch camera angles in the midst of the program is nice. The backgrounds are attractive without being distracting, and the moves are carefully photographed and framed.

The features on this disc are also nice, if not astonishing. The sixteen-page booklet that comes with the case is a good look into nutrition, general health, and weight loss. It’s a good accompaniment to the workout on the DVD, and there’s even a short bibliography with suggestions for more in-depth reading in weight loss and health. Enough cannot be said about the flexibility of the four different instructors also. While many discs may provide two different levels--easy and advanced--Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss provides four: basic, advanced, and two mid-range versions. This enables any viewer to suit their own level and needs, while also keeping this same disc useful and interesting for many viewings to come. You won’t have to toss this one aside in just a couple months when you’ve mastered the one program; it will grow with you.

This disc may not cause as much weight loss as hardcore military workouts, but it will promote body awareness, enable you to reshape your body, and provide a light cardio workout that will help burn fat and strengthen muscles--which in turn encourages even more fat burning. If you have physical injuries or other limitations, then yoga might be just the thing to get you moving and healthy again. Don’t underestimate it as too easy, nor overestimate how cryptic you assume yoga is--anyone can do some version of this workout, and even real athletes will get a good workout from this program.