What The Heck Is a Work Out DVD?

What the heck is a work out DVD in the first place?

Here I go diving right into my review of a work out DVD, all their nutrition supplemental material, and whatchamacalits without even explaining to the rest of you folks at home what it even is. Forgive me!

So, what exactly is a work out DVD and what does it do for you?

Well, if you are old enough like me to know about those sometimes bubbly and silly broadcasts on the TV featuring a pair of folks in leotards, headbands and wristbands, then you know what an exercise show is. You pretty much show up to the TV with your own leotards, leggings (complete with whatever disco style print you fancied) at the same time every day (or week), and you follow every aerobic move the perky and optimistic fitness instructors on the screen were making.

These shows had tons of jingles and flashy basic-looking graphics to encourage you to engage in all sorts of aerobic activity and stretching moves. While you were breaking tons of sweat, you often wondered why the instructors still had smiles plastered on their faces with no drop of sweat to show for the entire half an hour.

I myself always admired the gym attire these ladies and gents were wearing, and wondered where I could pick up a neon pink bodysuit myself!

Now, you know you remember those shows! No one will judge you if you admit to sweating to the oldies with Richard Simmons, or if you were body buddies on KDOC. You had to get your work out on somehow, and at that time it was whenever the show was on.

Well, eventually the advent of the VCR came about, and people realized the power of recording a fitness exercise routines. They could mass produce this and mass distribute the work outs to people all over the country (and all over the world), so people like you and me could tone our muscles in the comfort of our own home at any time we wanted to.

For as long as we owned a TV and a VCR, we could simply rewind the work out video tape, press play, and follow the overly bubbly instructors' every step.

It was a lovely convenience of an exercise product to have in the home, and I am sure that it was a high reflection of one's financial status as VCRs were quite expensive at the time.

But, fast forward to the advent of the laserdisc player, where those discs were at least 35% larger than a vinyl record. Home of many karaoke sing-alongs, those discs held a lot more information and video content than a VHS tape.

Then, they brought on the advent of DVD players, where DVDs were so much more smaller (the same size as CDs) and could hold twice as much information on each side.

What an even greater way to be able to work out at home. Not only did these work out DVDs take up far less space than work out videos, they had space on the top side for some neat little graphics or pictures of a swimsuit model, or an extremely muscular bodybuilder. Surely, seeing images of that were a bigger incentive to keep lifting those weights and doing those jumping jacks a little bit harder.

Work out DVDs are just like work out videos. They consist of 20 minutes to over an hour-long worth of recorded exercises for you (and/or your friends) to follow along in the comfort of your own home. They can be very different from each other, and can come from very different bodybuilding companies (with very different ethics, morales, beliefs, philosophies, etc. on fitness and achieving that beach body).

There are both female and male instructors, with a variety of personalities on-screen. Whether it is a gentle female instructor making complimentary references to your "gorgeous appearance", or a strict and rigid male instructor who literally yells at you through the TV screen to push yourself as though you are at a boot camp for fitness, you will have your run-of-the-mill of all sorts of work out DVD programs.

If you are lucky and have gotten your hands on a decent work out DVD, you will feel either at ease, or pushed to your limits. The instructor on the screen will be in a staged area that will appear to be a dance studio, an industrial-like gym, or a beach on some island.

Most likely, there will be a group of other men and women alongside and behind the fitness instructor following the work out moves. This is to show you that you are not alone as you exercise in your home fitness center.

This is also to provide you with the opportunity to relate to at least one or more of the people moving to the instructor's commands. There will be some exercisers trying an easy version of a movement, while there will be others trying a rather difficult version.

While some work out DVD programs will show that none of these folks are sweating, others will show that the folks are clearly struggling and gasping for a water break. It is all up to the director whose beliefs can go either way about what is best for you, the consumer, should and would see as you are busting your own bum for an hour.

The beauty of purchasing a work out DVD (or two, or three!) is that the return of investment is far greater than purchasing a gym membership. The more you use the DVD, the cheaper it will have cost you to use it! This is different than the cost of a gym, where you have put down a far larger payment and continue to make monthly payments afterwards.

You can interchange the work outs at home if you become bored with the entire program. Or, you can reuse them once you are done with program. Some folks will have enjoyed an entire exercise routine so much that they will go back and use the work out DVDs again to achieve even better results.