Giveaway: “Denise Austin: Shrink Belly Fat” DVD Review! (3 Winners!)

What Is It
The Denise Austin Shrink Belly Fat DVD is a 50-minute DVD broken into multiple segments of exercises designed to firm the core of your body. Led by Destin Austin and four other people (two male, two female, all in fantastic shape), the DVD has high-quality music and a good set to look at. Featuring common ab exercises as well as new and unique exercises, the DVD is designed to help you tone up your core – even with a busy schedule.

The Denise Austin Shrink Belly Fat DVD includes three different segments – each being 15 minutes. This makes it easy to fit the workout into your day. There’s Cardio Abs, Athletic Abs, and Classic Abs. Each segment has the option to turn on the voice commands from Denise Austin or just listen to music. Each one of the segments begins with a warm-up and ends with a cool-down, so each segment can be used stand-alone, or you can partner up one or more of the segments. With the “Custom” feature, you can make the multiple segments play one after another as well.

Keep in mind that two of the three segments do require a single hand weight. It doesn’t mention what weight to use, but I was using a 3 pound, so if you want to make things easier or more difficult, just change the weight. Many of the movements require grabbing into the sides of the weight, so a weight with defined sides works best for this DVD ab workout.

My Opinion
I like that the DVD is split into three 15 minute segments. For someone with a packed schedule like myself, these smaller workout segments fit really nicely into a day. It’s hard to “talk” myself out of a 15 minute exercise DVD – especially with something like the “Classic Abs” segment which is all floor work. I really am fond of the 15 minute segments, and it seems like a great time frame when you consider you’re continually working the same muscles.

To be honest, I wasn’t very fond of the instructor, Denise Austin. She just seemed way too peppy, and she was constantly talking. I understand the need for her to talk since we move from exercise-to-exercise quickly, but there wasn’t really any quiet at all. If she didn’t need to be explaining something, there was a constant “Good job” or “Keep Going!” or “Zip it Up!” or repetition of the same word like “Twist, Twist, Twist!” The DVD does have an option to turn off her voice as well though.

Aside from the instructor, though, the DVD itself was pretty helpful for core work. While I’m not sure it would give you a very-defined six pack without extra exercise, if you don’t have defined abs and have more stomach fat, something like this could help tone up and strengthen your abs. I don’t think it has the very-very-hard exercises that will define ab muscles, but to reduce stomach fat and increase core muscle, this DVD does pretty well.

The neat thing about this DVD is that it really isn’t that advanced like something like P-90X. How difficult the exercise is depends on you. You can go farther into a movement or less far into a movement, and depending on how much you tighten and use your abs, you can make everything more difficult. For beginners, just don’t take the movement as deep – you should still be able to do the vast majority even if you’re just getting back into exercise. For people who workout more often, really go in deep with the movements and focus on moving from the core, and it works for you too. I tend to be in the second group, and I definitely felt my core working during the DVD. After each day I did it, I wasn’t sore, but I did feel the workout while I was using it.

The DVD is relatively low-impact on most places which is good. There are some spots where you really should be a bit more advanced or able to take high-impact (in particular, I’m thinking about some Jumping Spider Planks or Modified Jumping Jacks they do), but you can modify things as needed. For the most part, the DVD, even on the cardio portions, doesn’t require jumping or too much pressure on the legs. In case you do have a bad leg/ankle/knee, though, a lot of the moves (a surprising amount!) do require placing your entire weight on one leg and balancing on it while you raise the other leg. The moves only really work if you do the balancing, though, so there isn’t too much of a way to modify it.

There are three segments on here. The Cardio segment consists of more active movements. You’ll probably start breathing heavy, but don’t expect a full, strong cardio experience. It is much more active than the other segments, but it still is very focused on abs, so it’s much less active than cardio exercises you may be doing. There also is the “Classic Abs” segment. This segment focuses on tried-and-tried movements for abs such as planks. The “Classic Abs” segment is done completely on the floor, so for your lazy days, the “Classic Abs” segment is a good choice. Don’t think it’s easy, though; I’d argue that the Classic Abs one is one of the hardest ones on the DVD – hands down. I still can’t fully do some of the exercises. The other segment is the Athletic Abs. These exercises are active floor exercises that have you moving around a lot and doing more difficult moves. For example, there are some really hard Walking Floor Planks that I can’t even sorta do. Beginners may want to avoid this segment as it’s one of the hardest ones on the DVD – even though most of it is done on the floor.

Pros
Shrink Belly Fat from Denise Austin includes a wide variety of ab moves – including ones I’ve never done before. With the ability to go less-deep into a move or to reduce the hand weight, this DVD is also beginner-friendly and exercise-pro friendly at the same time. The 15 minute segments also make this workout ab DVD very friendly to those with tight schedules.

Cons
Denise Austin’s Shrink Belly Fat may not fully define already-defined abs, but for the average person, it will help you strengthen your core quite a bit. I’m also not fond of the instructor.

Recommended
If you are looking for an ab workout DVD that will fit into your busy schedule and will still challenge you, Shrink Belly Fat does that. If you regularly do very difficult core work, this may not be the best, but for most people, this will be a great difficulty.

Buy It
Denise Austin’s Shrink Belly Fat DVD is available anywhere workout DVDs are sold. It also is available directly from Lionsgate to buy Denise Austin: Shrink Belly Fat DVD.

WIN IT:

Lionsgate has generously offered to send a “Denise Austin: Shrink Belly Fat” DVD to THREE lucky winners! To enter, simply complete the form below (one entry per person, per method). Info collected will only be used to verify the winning entry and contact the winner. This giveaway will close on February 1st at 11:59pm EST. The contest is open to readers in the US only.

One winner will be picked randomly through Rafflecopter and I will contact them via email. Winner will have 48 hours to respond with mailing address or another winner will be chosen.

Click on the “Read More” tag below to enter the giveaway if you are viewing from the home page.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

Disclosure: No compensation was received for this post and the views expressed here are my own. I received a sample of this product in order to facilitate my review.