Customer Reviews

New York City Ballet Workout: Fifty Stretches And Exercises Anyone Can Do For A Strong, Graceful, And Sculpted Body

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What a wonderful book! I just bought it and I can't wait to get started. I've read it from cover to cover a few times, and I'm more than pleased with my purchase. The magnificent bodies are marvelous and breathtaking. It's true that the first few pages are bios and frou frou, but their stories are inspiring and motivating. Plus, they discuss why dancers' bodies are more agile and sculpted than most athletes, as well as tips on getting started, how to listen to your body and optimize your workout.

The workout is divided into six sections. Warm up and Stretch, followed by Abs (14-20 minutes), Floor barre (12-16 minutes), Ballet center (16-22 minutes) and Legs (16-22 minutes). Although they say you can do the entire workout as time permits, they offer suggestions for 10 or 20 minute workouts, as well as specialized workouts to correlate with specific sports for strength and flexibility or body parts of concentration. The instructions are clear-cut and detailed and along with the music selections they recommend, you'll feel like a prima ballerina. Personally, I have a lot of fat to lose so I plan on using this workout as a supplement to an aerobic regimen. I'm looking forward to using this workout every morning to get my day started.

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer but was unable to take lessons. When I opened my amazon.com shipment and took out this book, many (MANY!) decades later, I actually got a lump in my throat, feeling that at last I can participate in a personal way, in that awesome world of the dance. The book is beautiful, informative, and challenging. It presents enough exercises to keep me busy for years, and best of all, it is written with a true sense of what a body is capable of doing. I go to the health club and do aerobics and weight training, but this book takes working out to a much higher level, a level where we work toward grace, balance, and elegance in movement. We are reminded to pay attention to the "quality of movement," and to "move like a dancer," which is very good advice, especially for women. Not that these are easy exercises, by any means. You can pace yourself, work as hard as you wish, and know that every erg of energy you expend will bring you closer to having a beautiful body. Motivating! (Do NOT look for me onstage at the NYC Ballet, however. Alas.)

I started this workout the summer after my senior year in high school, I wanted to tone up and lose a little weight before I went off to college, but I wanted something I could do at home without much preparation or equipment. I did these workouts, mainly the abs one and the basic workout, four times a week, sometimes in the morning, mainly at night watching David Letterman. The results were subtle, but by the end of the summer everyone in my family was commenting on how I looked so much slimmer (though the scale stayed the same) and a couple of acquiantences even asked me if I was a dancer! I could tell the difference in increased flexibility and the wonderfully tight stomach i developed. Its awesome, it really yeilds results!

This is a great book for anyone that wants to achieve results without a lot of hard work. I ordered this book just before Christmas, and within just a few weeks of doing these exercises for about 45 minutes 4 to 5 times a week, I am already seeing results. The exercises are easy to do, and there are so many different ones in the book, you can pick the workout that's perfect for you. This is one workout I really look forward to.

I heard about this book several years ago, and never bought it. Now I am sorry for my lapse. It made me feel so strong and beautiful. But even more so, my body felt fantastic when I was done. It is wonderful to feel how every muscle in my body works, and that is what this book did for me. The exercises are challenging, but they made me feel great. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new and exciting way to tone their body.

I have had this book for at least 3 years and I got it because like lots of other girls, I liked ballet and it has always been a dream for me, another dream for me is mac'n cheese so, girls if you know nothing about ballet and can't even do a split dont worry, this book is perfect. You can go at your own pace and pick out the excercises that target your undesireable areas but dont pass up the ones that dont look hard, you dont work up a sweat but every one of the stretches does something good, pretty soon people will start to notice you because, you will start walking different, I sometimes do one or two of the balancing excercises before I go out and I have to say that this book will have you striking a pose without even knowing it. There is one thing that I think can be done to make this book perfect. I have literally worn out my book and I would purchase it again if it were smaller and wire bound and use it for travel. The pictures are lovely and even if you are a "couch potato" this book will do wonders for your posture and personally, the Complete Spinal Stretch has worked out crooks in my back like magic. This is the kind of book that becomes like a big secret because it does not take much for you to feel a difference, the change will be gradual but lasting.

No. I didn't say "Ow". I said Oo-oo-oo! That's what I said when I opened the box and saw this book for the first time. This book is so beautiful! There is no escape. You can't get away from the enlightening commentary of Peter Martins. The photographs are spectacular and spellbinding. The dancers' stories are real stuff - I had to admit I thought ballet dancers were all those uppity kids in well-to-do families who took riding lessons and went to the shore for the summer...NOT SO!

The most compelling thing about this book, however, is that the information is accurate and healthy, and the exercises are DO-ABLE!! Maybe not all of them right away all at once, but then, why should they be? These things take time. Anything which produces such litheness, flexibility and grace requires dicipline. There is nothing referenced in this book that is not achievable, and Martins and his company are as encouraging as they can be without coming to your house.

There are so many silly diets out there enticing people with that "lose-a-lot-of-weight-fast-without-sacrificing-or-exercising-at-all" siren song. You need to snap out of the delusional drift and do something beautiful for yourself that DOES take a little time, energy and commitment. You're going to love what it does for you!

This book is a wonderful way to firm and tone your muscles while achieving a balletic grace. I usually hate workout books or even using exercise machines because the routine seems so pointless. This book, however, gives a purpose to the exercises. It won't make you a professional dancer, or even an amateur one, but you'll feel more graceful and become more flexible.

Before you even start the exercises, you're inspired by the excellent photographs of the beautiful dancers. If you're as out of shape as I am, at first the stretches and exercises seem almost impossible, but after only just a few days they become easier as you regain flexibility and muscle tone. Most importantly, you develop an awareness of your body that stays with you long after you've finished your workout.

This is the best workout program I've ever used. I recommend it especially as a post-partum routine for women who want to regain their pre-pregnancy muscle tone and flexibility.

This book is written by the ballet expert Peter Martins. There are plenty of good stretches and exercises in this book, and they are easy to perform. The result is a toned and firmed body with strong and very elongated muscles. Several exercises to develop sculped legs. Very nice photos increase the pleasure to read the book.

There are too few stretches for arms and that`s the disadventage with the book. Excpept that, I enjoyed reading it.

I will especially recomending the book for

a person that dream about having a fit,slim and flexible body, without bulk.

However ,keep in mind that this book first of all is suitable for fans of dancing and body toning. If you hate both ballet and sculped bodies, and want to do splits in suspention, you should rather read "stretching scientfically".

I find this a great reference for working out, especially with the NYC Ballet workout on DVD.

My biggest complaint is that it's designed more like a "coffee-table book" than an exercise manual. A spiral binding would have made all the difference, as the pages would be able to lie flat. I *do* enjoy the commentary at the beginning, and the photography is simply luscious.

Because the book doesn't lie open on it's own, I have a little trouble following the whole "long" routine directly from the book. However, the shorter routines in the back are easier to do, as I can usually remember all the movements (or only need to reference one or two).

I read a suggestion, somewhere, that you make an audio recording of each movement (reading out the text description) and the number of reps counted out, and then play it back while working out. This would be instead of fumbling with the book. I'm working on doing that, myself, and I hope it will aid me in doing the whole long routine.

I think the pictures in this book are clear and detailed enough to even teach someone who doesn't have a ballet background "how" to do the movements, but, I coudn't say that for sure, as I had 8 years of lessons.

Gwen