Customer Reviews

Pussycat Dolls Workout

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

It's Monday, January 4th. First day back at work. All day long I am mentally psyching myself up to workout because, let's face it, if I loved working out I wouldn't resort to buying a Pussycat Dolls (PCD) Workout DVD at 1:38 am in the morning on Amazon.com. I would be asleep and wake up to take a nice walk. But no. I hate exercise, but love dancing.

It's 5 pm, I drive home, change into workout clothes, take the dog outside, and I put the DVD in.

The cheesy music starts and they show close-ups of the PCD girls and they're all sex-ified. Lovely. This DVD is made for 14 year old boys. I am kind of standing there waiting for the darn intro to finish. Robin Antin is apparently the "creator" (or pimp, your call) of the PCD group and she's going on and on about how great this video is. If you do it daily, you'll look like them in no time!
During this intro all I can think about is 1 thing:

This was probably a waste of $8.

But, I am still optimistic, and I even have a water bottle nearby because clearly to look like them, you gotta work out HARD. Sweat, get sore, be outta breath.

The first part of the workout (a term they use loosely, you'll see why) is set to their popular song "Don't Cha".

It starts off, and Robin is the one giving the instructions and it's easy. If you can walk forward 3 steps and place your hand on your hips on step 4, you've got 1/4 of the darn routine down. If you can do so while trying to act sexy, you've got another 1/4 of it down.

I'm doing it, and I keep thinking to myself that I am not remotely sweaty. Not even out of breath. I look at my dog and he's doing the routine because it's that easy.

At this point I also realize that none of the girls look familiar and this is because it's the PCD from the burlesque show and not PCD the um "singing" group (wink, wink). But this doesn't bother me any, because they all look the same to me. Nicole, the lead "singer", does come out during the 3rd routine to the song "Buttons" if that matters to you or your husband.

It takes about 15 minutes for Robin to teach you the routine, and during these 15 minutes she also mentions a bajillion times that once you do this DVD you'll really start to see results and get better at the dances. Really? Seriously? If you did this DVD everyday you'd be BORED TO TEARS like another reviewer said. Finally, it's time for you to perform the routine from start to finish. How long is the routine? Oh, roughly 30 seconds long. I'll even summarize it for you:

<cue the music>

Bow chicka bow wow.

Walk 3 steps, place hands on hips on 4. Shake your hips while doing so. Leave lips slightly open to look sexy.

Do a casual wave of the arm while "hot like me" is playing.

Bend down to the left and right, run your hands up your thighs, slap your butt cheeks once on each side. (yes, butt cheeks- make sure you slap both- no cheating! This is EXERCISE!)

Bend down again and on random beats pop your chest out- this will happen 3 times. Pop what your momma gave ya.

Do some random kickboxing like moves. If it helps, pretend your kicking your PCD DVD into the trash. It helps.

<cue music still playing but the routine you learned is over>

What to do now? The girls on the DVD are practicing their pole moves, I guess I'll do that.

Oh wait, here we go AGAIN.

Walk 3 steps, place hands on hips on 4. Shake your hips while doing so. Leave lips slightly open to look sexy.

Do a casual wave of the arm while "hot like me" is playing.

I think you get the point. You do the "routine" about 5+ times during the song and in between each set you just freestyle some stripper moves hoping your husband/boyfriend/child doesn't walk into the door to see you swinging your hair around while you're in sweatpants.

Not being too impressed with the first routine, I did decide to move onto the next routine. Maybe they get progressively harder, I thought to myself.

Up next, burlesque. More stripper moves.

Robin starts off the segment by telling you to get a boa or a men's tie. I don't have a boa, and my hubby does have a lot of ties, but they're zipper ties. Not gonna work. I finally found a suitable replacement...a pashmina.

The beautiful, magenta pashmina given to me by a friend/co-worker for Christmas. It is gorgeous.

The burlesque routine starts off and you hold the boa/pashmina over your head and move your hips from side-to-side. Then, you turn to the right and rub the pashmina over your chest and lift your leg up and rub it on your leg, too. Alright. You're supposed to do all that in like 3 seconds. FAST. They look all hot doing it, and I almost broke the coffee table trying to do it fast and getting my foot caught in the pashmina.

And this next move nearly caused a HUGE problem.

You take the boa (or my pashmina, which is considerably larger/heavier than a boa) and you swing it to the left and right. It basically slaps down onto the floor and you snap it back up and repeat on the opposite side. I did this forgetting that there is an obstacle to all this.

It's called a ceiling fan. The noise and movement my ceiling fan made when I whipped my pashmina up into it nearly made me shart myself. But after I consoled my dog, I went back to the routine. I decided to just not do the whipping/swinging of the pashmina, and I'd be good, right?

Negative.

After you rub the boa against your girls, your legs, whip it left and right without killing yourself or your animals, you're supposed to turn to the left, slap the boa onto the floor so that it GOES BETWEEN YOUR LEGS and you grab it with one hand behind/near your butt so you can like rub it between your crotch and look all silly and sexy.

I watched the PCD do this, and I looked at my pashmina, and I want to say I called it quits.

But I didn't.

I tried it once. JUST ONCE.

Okay, twice.

And I couldn't grab it behind my butt fast enough because I am like, ya know, FAT. And my butt is FAT, too. And so are my arms. Ugh.

I whipped my pashmina onto the floor so that it went between my legs and it was just ewww. No way I was going to rub my pashmina into my nether regions like I am trying to hump it or something.

IT IS A PASHMINA.

The third routine is set to their song "Buttons" but the only button I pushed was stop on the DVD player. I have tried a ton of workout DVDs, and I have to say this was the most awful one. It's not hard, you could cause bodily harm to humans/animals, and it's a waste of $8. Well, more if you don't have a boa and have to buy one.

Bottom line, don't buy it.

Bottom line #2, don't look at me funny when you see me wear my magenta pashmina.

So, this workout was fun and sexy so I gave it three stars; however, there were many drawbacks that prevent this from being a truly awesome workout. I'll tell you some details of the workout and then explain what I saw as deficiencies.

Pussycat Dolls (PCD) Workout DVD is led by Robin Antin, the creator of the group. She is joined by Christina from the group, Girlicious, and 3 ladies from her burlesque show in Vegas. Nicole Scherzinger only shows up in the performance section of the Buttons routine. All of the participants look fabulous and if their physiques don't inspire you to exercise- nothing will. They are trying a bit too hard to be sexy-but what do you expect from PCD.

The workout is split into 3 different 30-second dance routines: Don't Cha, Burlesque and Buttons. Robin takes about 10-15 minutes to teach you each routine, and then there are 3-4 minute performances of each routine. During the performance sections you perform the short routines multiple times with some freestyle dancing in between.

Robin is used to teaching seasoned dancers and it shows- she does not break down moves that other instructors would. However, she performs each move multiple times so that you would have no problem learning it. The dances are not taken strictly from the PCD routines, but are modified so that most people would be able to pick them up quickly. A word of warning- this routine may not be appropriate to perform around children (ie, this is the only workout my boyfriend can't wait for me to do). The women are very scantily clad and you will frequently be asked to grind it, pop it and slap your booty- among other maneuvers. The only equipment required to perform the routine is a feather boa, scarf or necktie for the Burlesque section.

Cons: The routines are very short at 30 seconds each, and not so difficult that you couldn't learn them on the first try. This means that you could easily grow bored with this workout. Also it is annoying that Robin frequently repeats, "You should do this workout everyday" (if you did you would be bored to tears) or "We do this move in PCD all the time" (marketing- much?). Most importantly, if you are anything but a very beginner at exercise-the DVD will be too easy for you. I think that Robin should make the routines longer so that you get a better workout and stop trying to ride the PCD train for everything it's worth.

This was kinda of an impulse buy. I was looking for something that would help provide a good cardio workout at home for when I am too lazy to drive to the gym. I am a big fan of workout dvds and am relatively picky with what I put in my collection. I do like this dvd, but I have to say right at the start that it is a little cheesy. I get really annoyed by things like that but it wasn't in excess so I got over it. I bought this at the same time as Julianne Hough's new dvd, and while she is a much better instructor, Robin Antin does a pretty good job too. She isn't as sweet as Julianne, but she does repeat the moves she teaches you enough times that you can pick it up pretty quickly and I have no prior dance experience at ALL! The breakdown of the moves is pretty good too, she doesn't throw so many new things into each set that you forget what moves your doing. I think the reason why you get some cardio from this is because you are repeating the same sets of moves over and over again, with a short break inbetween. While this is great for practicing getting the moves down and mastering those, it could also get VERY repetative if this was in your dvd rotation more then a couple time a week. Robin says 'you should do this everyday' to some of the moves and while that may be true, it would get really boring to do so. I do like that in some places there is at least one girl in the background doing a slight modification and I find that nice when I either don't know what I am doing or am too lazy to go all out on a workout. I don't think I will use this as much as Julianne's but it is still a good way to get a workout done at home. There are 3 dance routines on this dvd and a behind the scenes featurette.

ppl are getting on my nerves talkin mess about this dvd.

you have to keep it tight!!!!

this is the pussycat dolls...i dont see how ppl reviewing this are forgetting this. you've seen the videos and how they dance. what did you expect jillian micheals??!!!!

in order for this to be effective to have to keep your moves tight or it wont work. along with that you have to be comfortable and relax. if you know your gonna feel like a jackass popping and grinding, dont get this.

i do this dvd when i want quick fun cardio. ive been doing this a week straight and i sweat hard. i put my all in it and let my body get in the groove.. if this didnt work, why have i been losing a pound everyday ive done it?

with this dvd, you have to have fun with it, be comfortable being sexy, and put all of your energy in this or it wont work

I'm amazed that people making 'dance' dvds touted as workouts are still making this grave mistake: the routines need to be longer than 34 seconds long.

The chorography for the routines are a good mix between easy-to-learn and interesting. But in the end, working out to three 30-second routines barely justifies learning it in the first place. It gets boring as hell and you wonder: why didn't they teach us a whole song instead of just a too-easy, too-short chorus repeated ad nauseum that insults an average person's intelligence and stamina.

The routines also tend to favor one side of the body (lifting the leg, arm on only one side, which feels lopsided and leaves you wanting to some how reverse it to get your other side worked out). I just can't get over how short this 'workout' is, exactly where Carmen Electra's 'dance' dvds failed as well. If you're a PCD fan, of course, it's going to be fun just to (shortly) get into a bit of their groove. If you're a dancer, like me, you'll buy it just because you can't resist seeing for yourself. But if you want to dance and sweat hard go for 'Dance with Julianne' which is probably the best dance dvd in last 5 years.

At the end of the day this isn't a dvd anyone is going to go back to. It is just too lightweight and doesn't take the physical challange seriously enough by either making it longer or simply making more of it. Chalk this one up to what it is: a fun bit of fluff.

Okay, before I start I must say I'm not in horrible shape, but not great shape, either. The workout is broken up into three different dances: dontcha, a burlesque dance, and buttons. There is also a segment before each dance that breaks the dances down so you can learn them. The way Robin breaks the dances down makes it very easy to learn, as I am not the most coordinated person in the world. The dances are easy, fun, and very sexy. The first few times I did them I felt very awkward, because they all look so hot doing it, and I was struggling just to keep up. After about two or three weeks of doing the workout 3-4 times a week, I'm getting very good at it. I can't imagine anyone not breaking a sweat following the routines, because when I'm finished I have to head straight to the shower as my hair is soaking wet with sweat. And I don't sweat very easily, I'm 110 pounds soaking wet and this workout kicks my butt! HOWEVER once you memorize the dances you will have fun doing them.

All the girls are dressed VERY sexy, but hey, it's a PUSSYCAT DOLLS workout video, what do you expect? They are known for being sexy, so I don't know why people complain about the way the girls dress and strut their stuff as they dance, all this really motivates me to get into it, because they all seem to be having a great time. It makes it very cute, because I don't want to see a Pussycat Dolls exercise video where you do mundane lunges and sit-ups, this is a FUN way to burn calories, I don't even feel like I'm working out. The burlesque dance was not something I expected, but it was very fun and easy to learn (after a few tries).

If I had a complaint it would be that I wish there were more dances to learn, because there are only three. BUT if you do all three, you'll be working out for a good hour, and we all know to burn fat we have to keep our heart-rate up. Overall I love it and will never settle for a routine exercise video again.

Ok for those who said there were half naked girls and butt slapping are true. But what do you expect? If you have ever seen the PCD girls or listened to their music then you should have thought through the purchase more. Honestly, I think it's a good workout. However, I do skip the burlesque workout because boas kinda freak me out and made me uncomfortable. Yeah it's kind embarrassing if you do this video in front of someone but otherwise loosen up! It's fun and made me feel more confident. I just did it yesterday both the buttons and don't cha workout and my legs are killing me! In a good way.

I found this workout routine for people that are sexy at heart. For me, I put on sexy similar outfits (Things I would never where to a real gym, boyshorts and a tank top), to make me feel part of the group. Hopefully when I get a little more practice in I will have the nerve to pull the routine off in front of my husband, :). I did this for the first time yesterday and I am waking up with sore legs, back and stomach muscles. I read another ladies review and YES you should probably be a smaller stature or flexible to pull of this routine. Must be able to squat to floor and get up, be able to reach "under" self, and workout in heels (I would say the higher the heels the better the work out). Biggest flaw, is this routine probably does get old. Most of the workout comes from repeating moves while learning them, once you learn the routine it will probably lose it excitement.

I love this dvd! I read some of the reviews and hesitated about buying it, but I went ahead and picked it up. I have a considerable amount of weight to lose, and I can still do the moves in this dvd. I am taking one routine at a time, replaying over and over. I work up a sweat and feel the burn in my legs. I would never do this in front of others, but I live alone so it's not a problem. after my first night of working out, next day i kept thinking about it and doing the dance moves in my head. I'm on my third night and the second routine. I love it. I hate hate HATE working out and this is so fun for me. As for the girls looking "cheap". They look no different than the bitches that do all those exercise videos, except they aren't yelling at me and they are better looking. It's just fun and my body is benefiting from it. Woo Hoo!

How well you receive this video, based on reading other reviews, seems to be based on your expectations. Since all I wanted was a dance workout with fun music for my lower intensity days that I could follow along with, klutzy as I am, I was pleased with this DVD. Anyone knocking it because you'd get bored doing this everyday- well, duh. I'd get bored doing ANY routing every day, or even more than once a week for that matter. That's why I have several DVD's to switch from and heavily utilize my Netflix. If you have a problem with burlesque style moves or "stripper" moves, then don't buy this DVD. Fortunately for me, I don't really have a problem with that. My pros and cons:

Pros:
Good music
Keeps you moving - not a lot of waiting between sections, etc
The dances are broken down move by move, starting with the first move and then building up. This is perfect for uncoordinated people like me.
The moves themselves are easy to do
This is a low impact workout and easy on the joints

Cons:
A little cheesy - even for burlesque
Would be really boring for people who are coordinated
Would have preferred routines that were for a full song, not 30 second routines repeated for a full song length.