Prenatal Fitness: Gabrielle Reece

Pros:
--Short, 15-minute workout sessions that can be strung together to create longer workouts or done individually if you are pressed for time
--Each workout covers all of the major muscle groups
--Lots of variety in the exercises and equipment used

Cons:
--Workouts are free weight/body resistance training only; no cardio
--Quite a bit of specialized equipment is used (stability ball, free weights, exercise band, etc)
--The segments move very quickly and often require pausing the DVD in order to get the equipment/positioning ready to go (Gabrielle has a trainer that helps get the equipment ready for the next exercise)

Honestly, I probably can't give a very accurate review of this prenatal fitness DVD because I only did two fifteen-minute segments. So take my opinions with a grain of salt. That being said, the reason I only did two segments of this DVD was that I was not very impressed with it. While the individual exercises themselves were great, the setup and flow of the DVD made it nearly impossible to follow. Gabrielle is actually not the one leading the exercises; she is working with a trainer who is the one dictating the exercises being performed. This causes an issue if you are trying to do the DVD by yourself; the trainer is able to assist Gabrielle in getting equipment ready for each exercise (and do things like anchor the stability band), so they are able to move pretty seamlessly between exercises. If you are working alone, however, you frequently have to pause the DVD in order to move into the necessary position or get the equipment situated correctly. I found that it took me nearly forty minutes to complete two fifteen-minute segments because I was having to pause and move around so much (which really killed the flow of the workout). Additionally, most exercises are done for fewer than ten reps, so if you don't pause the DVD to get set and start at the same time Gabrielle does, you won't get very much repetition (and then it's time to move around or grab new equipment for the next exercise).

Like I said, though, the individual exercises themselves are pretty good. In fact, I continued to do a lot of the exercises (especially the stability ball ones) as a part of my own workouts. I even considered just watching all the segments (without actually trying to keep up with Gabrielle and her trainer and do the exercises) just to get ideas of more pregnancy-friendly exercises, but was ultimately too lazy to do that. I'm sure that this would be a great DVD if you have a really nice home gym set up (and/or a workout partner willing to be your "trainer"), but for the setup I had it just wasn't ideal and subsequently not a very good prenatal fitness DVD.