Tone It Up Beach Babe DVD Review and Giveaway!

• January 7, 2013

Before this post gets going, please read this hilarious Gawker article my friend Rachel sent me about the food menu at this year’s Golden Globes. I hope it brightens your Monday!

I was first introduced to the Tone It Up trainers, Karena and Katrina, through Heather. She’s a huge fan of their workouts, boho style, and general real-ness. I have to agree! I even had the chance to meet the lovely ladies themselves at the Oakley Store in Times Square.

At the event I received some fun freebies, including a copy of the Tone It Up Beach Babe DVD, which the trainers kindly signed for me. I also got a coupon for another copy of the DVD, which I redeemed for the express purpose of giving away here on the blog!

It’s been awhile since I received the DVD in May 2011, but I have been waiting until I tried every single workout at least a couple of times before reviewing all the content. I want to give you all my complete, honest opinion! I’m a group fitness class lover and a gym rat, so it’s hard for me to find home workouts that satisfy my fitness itch.

The Beach Babe DVD consists of seven workouts (it’s actually two discs) that can be done one at a time or mixed and matched. I love customizing each Tone It Up training session I do by combining different workouts to fit how much time I have, which muscle groups I’m planning to work, whether I want cardio or strength or stretching, etc. Here’s my take on the workouts:

• Surfer Girl: This is my absolute, 100% favorite workout of the DVD. I adore circuit training and the 24 minutes totally fly by yet give you a GREAT workout. It’s a five-move (3x) circuit and ends with some abs. Each circuit gets progressively harder and once you’ve done the workout a few times you can even start doing the harder modifications earlier on in the workout (if you want). I love how high my heart rate gets during the cardio-heavy portions and I can even quote this workout (Heather and I did it together once and totally did) I’ve done it so many times. The ladies’ fun personalities come through during one portion too…you’ll see. 🙂 
• Bikini Sculpt: To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of this workout; however I did it with access to only one pair of 10-lb dumbbells, and a lot of it would have been better if I’d used a lighter set because the moves have higher reps. I think someone with access to the correct weights can get a lot out of this sculpting routine, but I’m just too cheap to buy any more dumbbells right now!
• HIIT the Beach: This is the first workout I ever tried on the DVD and it had me hooked and ready to try the other six. HIIT is my jam – don’t let the 20 minute run time fool you. You’ll get a total body strength and cardio session in that short period of time. This routine is all about training smarter not longer – something I’m a huge advocate of and am learning for myself.

• Summer Arms: Again this routine is better if you have a lighter set of weights, but I have been able to adapt to it with my 10-lb dumbbells much easier than the Bikini Sculpt routine. Where I can I just hold one dumbbell instead of the two lighter ones, or I’ll do a different move for whatever muscle group Karena is working. I enjoy tacking this onto a Surfer Girl or HIIT the Beach session.
• Bikini Booty: While this is not my favorite leg routine, it’s a great way to learn new exercises to do on your own and gives the quads and glutes quite a good burn! I found I needed extra resistance with some of the routine, so I just made sure to have dumbbells handy.
• Bikini Abs: I love to work core and this routine is AWESOME! Katrina really pushes you hard and if you’re looking for a core focus, not just tacking on core to the workout, this 15 minute routine gets you there. So much variety fights boredom too. You’ll plank, do fun exercises like the mermaid and the rainbow, and even some standing abs to warm up.
• Long & Lean: I totally appreciate that the trainers included a stretching routine, especially since the stretching at the end of the other workouts is either nonexistent or very short. I’m the kind of person who only stretches at the end of group fitness classes because I have an instructor telling me to do so (I’m a bit exercise-ADD) so Karena’s 10-minute calming combination of yoga-inspired moves is perfect to do at the end of other workouts or even on its own. I feel like Karena is also the most “chill” of the two trainers, so her personality fits well with this workout.

Now if only I could be as stylish as Karena and Katrina are in these workouts! Seriously, I covet the clothes, including the gorgeous Maaji bathing suits.

Overall, I totally recommend getting the Tone It Up Beach Babe DVD. With so many workouts of different focuses and lengths, anyone can find a routine or multiple routine combinations that will work for him or her! Especially for those crunched for time and/or working out at home – this DVD is awesome.

Giveaway:

I want you guys to try these workouts, and I’m giving one winner a free copy of the Beach Babe DVD! Here’s how to enter (extra entries don’t count unless you leave a separate comment for each):

1. Comment on this post and tell me which of the seven workouts you think you’d enjoy most! (mandatory) 
2. Follow @CaitPlusAte on Twitter and comment here saying you did.
3. Tweet “I entered to win the @ToneItUp Beach Babe DVD from @CaitPlusAte! http://caitplusate.com/?p=7067” and comment here with the link to the tweet
4. Follow @CaitPlusAte on Instagram and comment here saying you did.

General Giveaway Rules: The giveaway will be open until this Wednesday 1/9 at 11:59PM EST and is open to continental US readers only. No Purchase Necessary. The email addresses that are collected for this giveaway will only be used for the purpose of contacting the winner and will never be given out to anyone nor sold. The winner will be randomly chosen and contacted via email. The winner will have 24 hours to respond. Please make sure you check your junk mail folder.

Good luck to all who enter! This review/giveaway is not sponsored by Tone It Up and is just something I want to do to share an awesome product with you guys 🙂