Home Gymin' it & Elle Make Better Workout DVD's Feat. Brooklyn Decker (love!) Review

Last night my personal training session was canceled so I finally decided to pop in one of my Elle Make Better series workout DVD's featuring Brooklyn Decker that I talked about in this post.

First off, let me start by saying my home gym isn't anything fancy. In fact, it's a small section of our guest bedroom, which is never used because we hardly ever have guests stay over.

So far, this is what it looks like:

Yes, that is yet another box from Marshall's. It is a larger version of the smaller one I got a couple of weeks ago. It holds an excersice mat, free weights and resistance bands. I may replace the one in my gym room with the smaller one so I can put the larger one upstairs in an area we use more often. I'm going to think about it.

Here is the inside (minus the mat)

Pretty simple. I'm sure my collection will grow. Here is the room:

That is my actual workout area. There's my pretty blue mat and my stability ball. I just set them out like that for the picture...I typically have them tucked away. Here's another view so you can get a better idea of the space. That door leads to a full guest bath:

There's enough room for me to move around and do all of the moves I need to. It looks pretty small in photos, but the space is actually quite good. Here's a view of my DVD collection. Please note that the TV stand is absolutely horrendous and I plan to replace it:

And...here they are all laid out:

Okay, so back to the topic at hand. Like I said, my trainer canceled, so after doing about 30 minutes of cardio, I decided to pop in Elle's Make Better "Beauty Sculpt" DVD.

I got an intense workout. In fact, I'm not sure if a beginner could even do the workout. I broke into a sweat and was pretty out of breath, and I've got good core strength and work out regularly. I would say these DVD's are for someone at an intermediate level. I also should mention the Beauty Sculpt routine is an interval training format (so weights and balance moves mixed with bursts of strength cardio.)

That's the only DVD I've done so far from the set of 3, but I've previewed them all and they all look great. Another fun feature is that they have little fashion, beauty and travel segments with Brooklyn Decker. Since I could pretty much stare at her perfection all day, those are fun to watch (and you can learn or thing or two from Elle EditorJoe Zee- love him!)

If you are looking for a more intense workout, I recommend this set of DVD's. I will report back when I try the cardio one. Truth be told, I probably won't do the yoga one very often, however, I will try it once just for the purpose of reviewing it.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I am not a huge fan of Yoga. I don't know if it's because I can't relax or whatever...but I prefer the fast pace of pilates. I do like Bikram (hot) Yoga though. I guess I just feel I get a better burn with pilates but I do understand that Yoga has great benefits as well.

One more thing I wanted to add that I liked about the videos was that they feature Brooklyn and a trainer. Brooklyn isn't perfect at all of the moves, which actually made me feel better. You can tell she is working hard, but you can also see she isn't as perfectly coordinated as the trainer is. It makes me feel better to know it doesn't have to be perfect and over time it gets easier. Also, her body is amazing, but she isn't so crazy thin that she wasn't relatable. I actually found her body to be thin but more achieveable than most models (at least the way it looked in these videos.) Brooklyn is curvy. She's got boobs and hips!

Here is my list of home gym improvements I'd like to make:

1. Hardwood floors
2. Flat screen TV on wall
3. Prettier TV stand
4. Large, full-length mirror
5. A Bosu ball
6. Inspiration wall (with pics of celebrity bodies to motivate me- though, Brooklyn Decker's body is motivating enough!)

I think adding those elements over time will make the space more work-out friendly and will encourage me to work out at home more.

Do you have a home gym? Does it motivate you? Let me know in the comments below. Also, if you have some fave workout vids, please share those too!

xoxo,

Veronika.