Jessie Wallace - Look at Me Now Workout [DVD]

I have many workout dvd's (over 30 all in all - a bit obsessive...) and go to the gym weekly so do consider myself to be no stranger to keeping fit and like to push myself. I bought this dvd as I was curious to see how Jessie Wallace would rate in a workout dvd. I had seen her on Loose Women earlier on in the year whilst I was off of work ill, obviously promoting this dvd, and that had whet my appetite. The negative reviews on here did make me think twice, but then I thought what the hell as I have discovered that other fitness dvd's I have bought in the past, which fellow reviewers have slated, have turned out to be fine in my opinion and I am hard to please.

And thankfully this was the case here. I did sweat and felt like I had worked out hard. I found Jessie to be very much like an excitable puppy but in my book that is a good thing and can be put down to her sheer enthusiasium of discovering the joys of working out and the results gained. I found her to be pleasant and actually did not mind one bit her reminders of 'hold yer tummy in' etc. I did not find her fake or false, she just genuinly wanted you to experience what she was and good on her - she did do the harder versions of the exercises and her instructor showed the easier options, whereas she could have easily opted to show the less strenuous versions and the instructor the harder ones. Her Personal Trainer has been slated on some of the reviews here but to be fair, he is a personal trainer who probably does not train his clients in front of a camera each day of the week, so I can understand his slight uncomfortable demeaner. I wouldn't say he is wooden but again he is not the most charasmatic, but hey he is there to show you the routine and to train and to be fair that is what he does and Jessie inspires you enough as it is.

I am glad I purchased the dvd, it ticked all the right boxes for me, and being a fan of Davina and Nell McAndrew, I was surprised and pleased that it did. I will be using this dvd over and over again along with my others. It might not be everyones cuppa, you can see that from the varied reviews here on Amazon, but it is a little gem and good on yer Jessie and thanks!

To give some background, I am an avid exercise enthusiast at an intermediate/advanced level. I usually buy most of my workouts from the US as there tends to be more variety, but of late, I have purchased some "home-grown" exercise workouts (all of Davina's stuff, Claire Richards, Mel B, to name a few).
There are 7 sections to this workout, including the warm up and cool down:

Warm up: fairly standard stuff here, with large range of motion movements and even some higher impact stuff such as skipping. Quick stretch for all the major muscle groups and then onto the:

Total Body Workout: Consists of fairly easy to follow aerobic movements, such as jumping jacks, skipping, a little bit of boxing, scissor jumps, etc. Jessie does all the high-impact stuff, and Paul (her trainer) shows low-impact modifications. There are also some push-ups (done at a very fast pace - more like pulse push-ups really) and a little leg work thrown in in the form of lunges.

Boxing: Various punching movements (jabs, crosses, upper cuts, hooks) combined into different short combinations. This section is upper body focused and doesn't include any kicks.

Lower Body: Standing leg work comes first, consisting of squats, lunges, and sumo squats (toes turned out to work the inner thighs), the latter being the most challenging as you hold the sumo squat in a pulses for a while. Then its onto the floor on all fours for some straight leg lifts, pulses, side knee lifts and side leg kicks done at a very fast pace - rinse and repeat on the other leg.

Arm work: only approximately 5-7 mins if I recall correctly? Very fast tempo, with the odd lower body movement thrown in making it more multi-joint. Both Paul and Jessie use water bottles - one of my biggest gripes as I think if you are going to exercise at least invest in a pair of handweights.

Abs: fairly challenging ab exercises, particularly as there is little to no rest between each different exercise. Standard crunches, reverse curls and plank work are some of the exercises here.

Cool-down: standard fayre of stretches for all the major muscles groups, although as I recall there are no specific lower back stretches.

I got a fairly decent workout and a good sweat going all out (aka following Jessie's higher impact versions) all the way through, and would rate this workout at an intermediate exercise level. As a reference, it was not as challenging as Davina's workouts.

I agree with the previous reviewer in that I found Jessie annoying at times - lost count of how many times she told us to "enjoy yahselves" and "suck in yer belly!". She seemed to be on a very intense endorphin high from her new exercise regime!
She does look amazing, and I guess I was hoping for a more intense offering from her - I'm sure she didn't get that great upper body definition from pumping water bottles for 5-7 minutes every other day! I also agree that her trainer Paul,did not have the most exciting of personalities, but then if he had been as "peppy" as Jessie, I probably would have switched off the workout and legged it to the chemist for some happy pills of my own!

I was a little disappointed with this DVD. I am quite a big fitness fan, and looking at Jessie's amazing transformation I would have expected a more intense workout - I think other buyers need to bare in mind Jessie herself has admitted she also runs every day and does sit-ups every evening so has not relied on this workout alone to achieve her body.

There are 7 sections, including a warm up, aerobics, boxing, arms, legs and abs, followed by a cool down. The whole thing takes roughly an hour to complete.

The arms, legs and abs sections are fairly good, however I was particularly disappointed with the aerobics and boxing sections. Neither sections made me particularly work up a sweat and I wasn't out of breath at all. The instructor isn't very exciting or motivating, and leaves a huge pause inbetween each move while he is explaining the next which left me feeling inactive for a huge part of each workout. I also felt that for people of moderate fitness the moves weren't hard enough, and the rest periods too long.

All this said, I think that if you are a beginner at exercise then this DVD might be more suited to you, as much of the negative points above would be plus points for you (i.e. low intensity moves, time to rest inbetween moves etc).

On a final note I found Jessie actually quite annoying which I didn't expect I would! She constantly tells you to suck your tummy in (once or twice would be enough) and she comes across a little smug.