Davina - Ultimate Target (New for 2012) [DVD]

I've never reviewed any of the hundreds of items I have bought on Amazon but I wanted to say if you are looking at buying a DVD to work out to then look no further. This is so worth while. I was not into exercise at all and after a futile attempt at jogging I thought I would never exercise. I so desperately wanted to lose weight and if that meant getting fit too, so much the better. I've lost two stone in six months and it is largely thanks to working out with Davina, Jackie and Mark. I do their DVDs about four times a week and on the other days I try and get a walk in. Like Davina advises I have tried to eat more sensibly but lets be honest I'm never going to diet. After a while you will feel better and before long other people will start commeting on the fact that you look better. I should be on commission for the amount of people I have recommended the previous DVDs to and I'm delighted to do it. We love these guys in Ireland!

The exercises are clear and easy to follow and most importantly for me who is not a gym bunnyy they are explained really well with the team advising you on common mistakes, which I was making in the beginning. I also love Davina's face when the workout gets tough and you think you can't go on, she is going through exactly the same thing. I probably laugh more than I should working out. Jackie is a brilliant teacher and is so encouraging while Mark makes you feel like you have climbed Everest.

This one is broken into easy to manage workout sessions with two half hour ones at the start and a few shorter ones if you're low on time. They know what parts we want to tone - bingo wings, summer shoulders, abs etc. The music is a good match to the exercise and isn't that annoying boom boom boom stuff you usually get and it makes you keep going. I am delighted that the trio keep releasing workouts as you can mix and match to your hearts content.

Good luck to all of you who are working out seriously for the first time. If I can do it you can do it!

Couldn't wait to do this new Davina DVD and minutes after it landed on my door mat I was working out. This has seperate warm up and cool down/stretch sections which I like as I can do as many or as few of the workout routines as I want to. The Fat Burning section had some cool new moves and it was nice to not know what was coming next. This is my 5th Davina DVD (I own others but they aren't a patch on Davina) and it lived up to my high expectations. The Abs section was agony, fantastic! no pain, no gain. Haven't done the Boot Camp section yet but took a look and will be putting my new 3kg hand weights to good use this week. I would recommend this DVD to anyone wanting to get fit or keep fit you can't go wrong with Davina, Jackie and Mark who explain the correct way to do the moves and you can work at your own level. I've lost over 4 stone since discovering Davina 2 years ago and her DVD's combined with healthy eating and taking up running have made me the fittest I have ever been and I'm on the wrong side of 40. Buy this DVD you won't regret it.

I've yet to see a review of this item from the point of view of someone as fat and unfit as me, so if you're very large and want to know how difficult these workouts are, hopefully you will find this review useful.

I'm 42 years old, 5'3" tall, and weighed (at start of using this DVD, a week and a half ago) 15st 11lb. Like I said, I'm very fat :) Add to that, until the day I started using this DVD, I had been a 20-a-day smoker for 30 years. I hope this builds an accurate picture for you of just how unfit I am! And I'm sure I'm not the only woman out there with such serious health, weight and fitness problems who is determined to do something about it, so that's the point of this review :)

So, here's how this DVD is for me...

As expected, it's bloody hard work. I'm knackered by the end of the warm-up section. Being so fat and unfit, trying to bend my limbs into the positions expected of me is like trying to bend cooked sausages in half without splitting them. I physically cannot do some of the moves in the DVD; for example, in the warm ups, there's this move where you stand on one leg and hold your other foot behind you, bent up as if you're kneeling, to stretch your thigh. I can't do this because my legs are too fat and because I'm so stiff and unfit, I physically cannot reach my foot to hold it in place. So I have to compromise by just standing on one leg and not attempting to hold my foot. Probably doesn't do any good but what can I do if I physically can't reach my foot? lol :D

The fat burning section is the only one I've attempted so far (apart from warm up and cool down), because obviously at my size burning fat is my prime objective. This section is about 10 minutes too long; I'm half-dead after the first 15 minutes and by the end I'm unable to do much more than march on the spot. There's a bit in this section, about 5 minutes from the end, where Jackie says "if you're starting to get a bit tired by now..." and every time, without fail, I'll scream at her "STARTING? STARTING? You're effing mental, woman - I was knackered after the warm up!" - she can't hear me, but it makes me feel better :)

I do get very frustrated because I'm so bloody uncoordinated, I struggle to get both arms and legs doing what they should be doing at the same time. But I figure, compared to my old lifestyle of sitting on my arse all day doing nothing, never getting any exercise whatsoever, it probably doesn't matter as long as I'm moving.

Usually at some point during the last ten minutes of the fat burning section I will have a bit of a cry because my legs are in so much pain. If you're very fat or very unfit, do expect to feel some frustration and a bit of self-pity because these slim, healthy, fit people are jumping about on the screen, laughing and smiling and not even slightly out of breath, rubbing your nose in it that they're so healthy and you're not (they don't do this of course but it feels that way because you're so annoyed at yourself for letting yourself get in this state in the first place).

BUT. If you're looking at this product at all and reading this review, you've already decided that enough is enough and it's time you did something about your weight, so you should give yourself a big clap on the back and feel good knowing that soon you're going to be fitter, healthier and happier. Yes, as a fatty you're going to really have your work cut out, but it does get easier with each go, and it doesn't take long to remember which move is coming next and ease yourself into it without looking and feeling too stupid.

I guess I've done the fat burning section 4 times so far (will be doing 3 times a week without fail - this is only the beginning of week 2) and will say that I have already lost at least 3lbs and because I stopped smoking the same day I started the exercises, I'm finding the exercises a tiny bit easier to do each time, because my lungs are starting to clear out and I can cope with the exertion a bit better.

The DVD gets five stars for being fun (despite the tears and tantrums; Davina, Jackie and Mark are a great team and very entertaining). However, I'm knocking one star off for the constant references to the previous DVDs and the assumption that because you've bought this one, you've also bought the other ones. I haven't got any of the others, so there are things in this DVD that don't make sense because they're not explained properly because the team assumes you've learned this stuff already in previous DVDs. That's a bit of a naughty assumption and I would hope they will fix this in the next DVD.

So in summary: if you're very overweight, you will lose weight if you use this DVD 3 days a week and improve your diet (no stupid crash diets, just sensible eating, which nobody can claim not to understand these days). You will experience frustration, a bit of pain, annoyance; you will laugh, you will probably cry, you'll feel stupid and you'll kick yourself for letting yourself get this big in the first place. But you'll be very proud of yourself for doing something about it, and when in a few months you've dropped a few sizes and can squeeze back into those jeans that stopped fitting you years ago but you've hung onto just in case, you'll be very glad of the investment in this DVD :)