Body in Progress – Jennie Garth (1992)

Cover blurb:

Fitness has nothing to do with a bathroom scale. Its [sic] about feeling great and looking your best. Jennie Garth has found the answer with a specialized low impact toning fitness program designer for her, by nutrition & fitness expert Tina Rocca.
In Jennie’s program she will show you that being fit,
feeling energized and looking terrific, comes from balancing exercise with a practical and nutritious diet. Join in as Jennie shows you that “Thin’s Out & Healthy’s In!”, as she starts you on a revolutionary program, that will bring out a healthy & beautiful new you!

Review: Beverley Hills 90201 star Jennie Garth presents a forty-five minute low impact aerobics program. After a warm up and aerobics section she moves on to a short series of lower body exercises – predominantly lunges – followed by floor work that includes a long section of ab work, and concludes with a stretch and cool down session.
This has been my only workout tape for over a decade, not that I’ve done it with any kind of religiosity. That’s made it hard for me to review the program with much objectivity, but I’ll do my best. I do remember reading a review of it quite some time ago – the main criticism I remember were that Jennie’s approach is informal, and I agree that she’s clearly not a fitness professional. There’s not a lot of warning about changing moves or direction, occasionally she miscounts, and there’s a striking cut at one point that skips a rep. But the biggest issue that long-ago reviewer had, of remarks like “this is pretty intense for a warm up,” and “you know what I’m doing, just follow along,” I find reassuring. Jennie’s certainly not intimidating, and the program’s aimed at beginners.
It’s also aimed at young women, and the focus throughout is on health over dieting and scales. After the workout section Jennie talks about issues she had with dieting and body image when starting out – fasting all day than bingeing in the evening – and how she realised that a healthy, well-rounded lifestyle was better and more sustainable.
What I liked: before the warm up there’s a reminder to have good work out shoes and water; the style is informal and genuine; as the warm up begins the audience is given a map of the workout so I knew what to expect; technique is both verbally emphasised and demonstrated during the sections where injury is possible (making sure knees line up with feet when bending, not using arms to pull up when crunching); there’s an opportunity to check your pulse part way through, with a chart of target heart rates according to age and advice on what to do is your pulse is below or above that target; there’s account down for the last couple of minutes of each section, reassuring the fatiguing beginner that the end approaches; and there’s a recommendation about how often to do the workout.
What could have been improved: one section, which I’ve never yet been able to master, is medium impact; the pulse check comes almost at the end of the aerobics section, which is a little late to change intensity; the stretching section is adequate but the individual stretches are only held for a few seconds.
Overall: even doing this workout for several consecutive days I find it engaging and challenging. I have enough muscle memory that I can follow along even after a significant break, and many of the moves can be modified more advanced viewers - Alex