DVD #6 - Rosemary Conley's Fat Attack

You will need a pole. Seriously.

Rosemary reckons that the best way to attack fat is through aerobic exercise and muscle toning exercises. Which is fairly obvious to me, though we may have been a more clueless nation in the early 90's.

But this workout: it's hard. There is a countdown clock in each section so you know how much longer you've got left. Tell you what, when I saw almost 12 minutes pop up on screen at the start of the abs section, and 'when you're in love with a beautiful woman' kick in on the stereo, I wanted to kill Rosemary. I had toyed with these feeling during the first toning section when she had cracked out a pole and was squatting around it*.

The sections are tough going but not necessarily fast. I'm used to the Martine McCutcheon abs section which is an awful lot faster than this. Rosemary does explain each stretch or movement very clearly, so you won't get lost.

I did feel that Rosemary wasn't working as hard as her class. Maybe that's just me, but she did look like she was blagging it. There is an easy version demonstrated, as in most fitness DVD's, but Rosemary seemed to be doing something somewhere in between.

Also, she was always pushing. Even in the cool down routine, she was saying 'if you want a better stretch do blah.' Which is normally OK but I'm not sure that in a cool down you want to be pushing it further.

In the first of it's kind, Rosemary has included a circuit for men, but 'its also suitable for women'. She acquires four, probably unwilling, men and one of her ladies. She says all you need is 'a couple bottles of water and a rope', possibly and unwanted insight into Rosemary's almost healthy sex life...

Anyway, the cicuit has the usual warm up which is uncannily familiar to the normal warm up at the beginning, just with a couple more squats and marches.

And the circuit stations were absolutely hilarious. They had jumping jacks, sit ups, press ups, weight lifting, all to the sultry sound of Hot Chocolates 'You Sexy Thing'. Rosemary then explains the use of the rope, or basically, a line across the ground that you have to jump over. And because the guys go at their own pace, I was falling about laughing for most the time and couldn't join in. Especially when David, her chap doing the high impact stuff, obviously thought he wasn't on film and was clearly not working as hard as he should.

Rosemary then suggests 'rewinding' to repeat the circuit, before launching into the cooldown.

In summary: It's pretty decent, but I can't see the men folk taking it seriously.

Score: 3/5 - I suspect you could get pretty fit with this one, but Rosemary needs a new haircut.

*Some of her dancers were of course using chairs, demonstrating that the workout could be done whether or not you had a pole in close proximity.