Customer Reviews

Karen Voight - Yoga & Sculpting

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This tape is a great workout, has great production quality, and is a good value (two videos in one DVD). I highly recommend it!!

The Yoga Sculpt has a 25 minute yoga workout that does chair pose, downward dogs, planks, and some nice twisting spinal stretches (among others). It then has a 20-min. pilates routine, focusing on ab strength. The pilates centers around a modified teaser-type pose. My only concern regarding this DVD is that at first it is tricky to achieve proper form in this pose (to fully use ab muscles and not cheat with your back). She does explain it, but if you haven't done Pilates it might take some time to do it correctly.

The second half of the DVD comes from Karen's "Core Essentials" video. This is my favorite workout!! It is broken up into sections, but the best part is the killer warm-up found at the beginning of the full version. It is approx. 15 minutes of squat & lunge variations with upper body movements. The pace is quick, aerobic-like, and will warm up and work out your whole body, especially your legs. The next section is 10 minutes of intense legwork, but I've found I have a hard time getting through *both* the warm-up and leg work. I usually get through one and a half and then collapse with a great after workout burn. Then there is a 10 minute ab section with curl variations, followed by 10 minutes of arms. Each of these is accessible through the DVD menu. The great thing about the DVD is that you can pick and choose and create your own workout. I love warming up with the yoga portion and then going through core essentials.

All in all, a great workout, and a great value.

I'm your typical middle aged male recalling the great athletic younger days but noticing more than a little extra developing :). So my wife and I bought Yoga Sculpt and the Pilates DVD by Karen Voight. I'll discuss the good and the bad-

Good- Core Essentials lunge and squat workout. Just step aerobicky enough to make it interesting but nothing you men out there will be too humiliated to do. She gets those legs burning.

Yoga workout. Especially if done after Core Essential lunge workout it is quite challeging but doable by a beginner. I like it.

Voight is ripped! Especially in the lunge workout which seems to have been filmed years ago. Even to a man it is inspirational.

Bad - After the lunge workout Voight takes you through some routines that involve special equipment you can purchase. Better stomach and legs workout in here pilates DVD.

This DVD contains two of Karen's workouts: Core Essentials and
Yogasculpt. They both provide non-aerobic, Pilates and
Yoga workouts that are challenging and invigorating. Karen's precise, no-nonsense instruction is so helpful, especially to those who are new to Pilates and Yoga.

This DVD is a little missleading. When you buy it you think that you are getting several different workouts that last for different lengths of time. When I opened it, I chose to do the first workout. A 45 minute Yoga Sculpt routine. This is a great session for beginners like me. But, when I finished, I wanted to try out the 20 minute Pilates routine. Well, turns out, I already did it in the 45 minute Yoga Sculpt session. What they did was add the 25 minute Yoga Flow routine and the 20 minute pilates to get the 45 minute Yoga Sculpt session. I was a little disappointed with that. Plus, the pilates basically focuses only on abs.

The second half of the DVD, like other reviewers had mentioned, required more equiptment, and included a wierd flailing of the arms warm up.

Overall, the Yoga is very good. I was just dissapointed when there weren't more options.

There are 2 workouts on this dvd--a yoga workout, and a core essentials workout.

The continuous camera movement for the yoga portion makes me feel ill. So, the rare times that I view this dvd, I try to avoid looking at the screen. Unfortunately, I can still see the screen out of the corner of my eye. The music is of the ballet-piano variety, which I am not the biggest fan of. The instructor breezes a little too fast through the poses, and her voice sounds like Jenny Jones's--this I wish I had known before I bought the dvd.

The core essentials portion of the dvd is strange--the instructor starts off with this weird speed floor aerobics. Then I realize that in order to do the workout, one needed to have purchased this weighted little ball (a catalog and order form is 'conveniently' included inside the dvd) from her store. Voight doesn't even suggest modifications in the event you do not have this ball, which I found annoying.

There are much better yoga dvds out there.

1. First Workout - YOGASCULPT

Karen Voight's two workouts will leave you refreshed and invigorated. Once I have completed the first challenging workout I feel stretched, strengthened, toned and very peaceful. If you are just starting out, be patient with yourself. Yoga will develop patience, character and strength. Think of each posture as a goal. By the third or fourth time, you may achieve what you see. This video is a combination of Pilates and Yoga. Ordering a sticky mat is essential so you don't injure your muscles by slipping on a carpeted surface. The choices for the Yogasculpt workout include:

Full Workout 45 minutes
Yoga Flow 25 minutes
Pilates Matwork 20 minutes

Karen's calming voice leads you through the poses in her organized way. The music is very relaxing and almost makes this the Nordstrom of Yoga videos. I recommend walking before attempting the stretching exercises. This helps to warm the muscles and allow for a deeper stretch. The flowing postures are healing and you move from a standing pose to downward dog and then to some cat stretches. Plank follows with some challenging legwork and there is a creative series for hips where your balance is tested. In the matwork boat pose makes its appearance as do many pilates exercises for the abs.

2. Second Workout - CORE ESSENTIALS (Same workout as Core Plus More 1999)

"I'll show you how to minimize wasted energy while maximizing concentration on the targeted muscles of your core essentials." ~ Karen Voight

In "Core Essentials," Karen Voight presents a workout to target the core muscle groups. She also focuses on the arms and legs by using weights to increase the intensity. The added resistance increases your efforts so on exercises for the abs, holding weights above the head while doing a crunches makes them super effective. As always Karen emphasizes proper form to optimize your results. The main sections of the workout include:

Aerobics - Warm up
Legs & Butt 10 minutes
Arms, Back & Torso 5 minutes
Abdominals 10 minutes
Cool down - Stretch

The workout begins with a brief aerobics section to warm up the muscles then moves right into leg exercises inspired by Pilates. She uses her green genies (weighted balls) to increase the resistance. The main workout is on a round blue platform and she is wearing a ruby outfit so the colors are interesting.

During the Arms, Back & Torso workokut she does quite a few sets of push-ups which I found challenging when combined with Plank. Next you use weights while you are on your back and then move into a cool down with unique side stretches and plenty of attention to stretching out the legs.

Overall, I'd say this is a challenging workout with unique exercises. Karen Voight's teaching style is very precise so the cueing is always excellent and you feel like you have completed a calorie-burning workout with an artistic appeal.

~The Rebecca Review

I already own Karens Yoga Sculpt Video and have enjoyed the routine for many years. It is still the most completely relaxing and comprehensive yoga workout I own. If I am being honest I only wanted to see this part of the DVD combo as my video has eventually worn out. It takes a bit of getting used to but is worth persevering as the results are better that any other.

In Yoga & Sculpting, instructor Karen Voight has packaged two of her previous workouts on one DVD. I have outlined each of these two workouts below.

YogaSculpt is a 45-minute workout which combines classic yoga poses with innovative twists to turn up the intensity and focus on sculpting. Karen begins the workout with a relaxing breathing exercise but then quickly steps up the pace with a challenging sequence which combines down dog with high push up pose. The standing series includes traditional yoga poses such as Warrior 1, Warrior 2, and Triangle pose, but Karen combines each pose with extra lengthening and stretching moves. The first half of workout, which can be selected separately on the DVD menu (YogaFlow), is 25 minutes, and then it's on to the floor for matwork focused on the abdominals and back. In this section, Karen combines yoga poses such as Boat and Bridge with Pilates-type movements. Both the abs and the back receive thorough attention, and then the practice ends with a brief stretch. On the DVD menu, this section can be selected as a stand-alone practice as well; it is listed as "Pilates Matwork" and labelled as being 20 minutes long, but I timed it as less. Although Karen is an excellent instructor who performs the workout fluidly and with flawless form, there were a few times when I felt that she failed to adequately cue a change in movement. Overall, this is a challenging yet relaxing workout which may add some nice variety for those with some prior experience in yoga.

Core Essentials has been marketed under several other names, including Pilates Core Essentials and Core Plus More. It is 40-minute, full-body toning workout similar to the first half of one of Karen's other videos, Streamline Fitness. The workout begins with a simple, 4 minute warm-up to get your body moving; this is followed by 8 minutes of standing strength moves. The exercises consist of traditional squats and crunches, but Karen makes them unique by adding more movement. Although her cuing is excellent, I found this section to be a bit hard to follow, particularly given that the arm movements didn't seem well-suited to the leg work. Karen then moves to the floor and continues the legwork with extensions done both on all fours and on the side; she sometimes uses her weighted "genie balls," but the moves are challenging enough without the added weight! She also targets the arms with a tough push-ups sequence as well as performs several exercises with dumbbells. Karen ends the workout with ab and back exercises followed by a 6 minute cool down. The DVD menu offers options to do several components of this workout separately: Legs & Buttocks (10 min.), Arms & Back (5 min.), and Abdominals (5 min.).

Both of these workouts are unique and different, and they may be a good option for those who would like to incorporate more core work into their strength training but who don't enjoy traditional Pilates workouts. Finally, I feel that this DVD would be best suited to exercisers at an advanced beginner or early intermediate level.

Karen Voight is very cut. I doubt she got that way from these routines.

The yoga is the best part. There are some good stretches. The instructions are pretty good. Its a good off day yoga routine.

The sculpting was disappointing. First of all, you have to buy extra equipment (Green Genie Balls). You can get them at Wal Mart for half of what Karen Voight's website wants. The routine starts with some clunky cardio that's hard to follow. The instructions are poor. The sculpting routine is not very challenging.

This may be okay for a beginner, but someone with experience will be let down.

I've only done the full yoga segment so far but I really liked it. She does a great job of cueing you through the poses and giving great instructions to ensure your form is correct. She also instructs on how to move from 1 pose to another so that particular aspect is good for beginners. My only complaint is that I wish it did go faster. She does take a bit of time getting from 1 pose to another so your heart doesn't get going too much. Even the sun salutations are rather slow so that doesn't get the heart rate up. But the routine is good and she intersperses spinal twists throughout the workout and she has some different poses so it's not just "same old/same old". If your upper body strength isn't great or you have any shoulder issues, this is good because she doesn't do a lot of 1 arm balances or excessive sun salutations.