Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease: Sexy but More of a Dance Lesson than a Workout

Author's Rating:

Pros: Sexy, Different, Choice of Music Types

Cons: Lengthy and repetitive

The Bottom Line: 
A sexy DVD that is much more like a dance lesson than a true workout. Fine if you have the time and patience.

Author's Review
I have the entire set of Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease Videos - all five of them. I bought them as a package deal.

To date, I have only used two of them and probably won't even open the other three.

The first DVD is the Basic Aerobic Striptease which is the one being reviewed here. I bought these because I thought a little spice would help keep me working out and interested in my routines rather than dreading them. I am not one of those people who loves to workout and pops up every day just itching to get a good workout in before breakfast. If it isn't fun or if it isn't at least interesting, I just won't do it. Striptease, I figured, was fun.

The DVD is set in a dance studio with Carmen and a few other very in shape women doing the routines. It has the look and feel of a real dance lesson, as opposed to an aerobic workout.

A warm up starts the over 53 minute workout and then it is on to learning the dance routines. Carmen is very down to earth and makes you feel like you are right there with her, learning the steps in person rather than on your TV screen. She also has an amazing body, which she shows off freely, leaving you either feeling motivated to look like her, or frustrated because, without implants and lipo, you never will. But I digress, most trainers and workout divas are in great shape. Carmen just has a little more booty and bust than most trainers and manages to look extremely sexy and refreshed throughout the DVD rather than looking like she has done any work at all. I like to see a trainer or instructor huff and puff a little along with me!

After the warm up, you are launched into learning the first set of steps and moves. There is cool feature on this DVD where you can pick from three different soundtracks when doing the actual routines. The techno sounded best with the routines but I did play with the rock themed music as well. It's a nice feature that not many workout DVDs and videos have and one you should take advantage of if a certain style of music gets you moving more than others.

Carmen starts out slow, showing you very basic steps and making you repeat them over and over, adding another step to the ones learned, practicing them in combination and then adding yet more steps on, until you have a dance routine.

It's not easy. If you aren't a dancer or don't pick up dance steps easily, you could get easily frustrated with this workout. I am SO not a dancer but I do like dancy workouts. However, I found myself bored doing the same set of steps over and over until I finally could put a routine together. There are some flirty little moves that make the DVD fun. You lick your finger, slap your butt, and throw off your jacket (or hoodie or whatever you may have on) during the routines. You are reminded to look sultry. You run your fingers through your hair. You blow a kiss.

It's cute but it isn't the aerobic workout I like. I like to dig in and get the thing done. I am the type of person who bores easily and is always crunched for time, so I found myself watching the clock rather than finding my inner stripper while doing this DVD.

Aerobically, you don't get a good 30 minutes of fat burning, heart pumping action. You do get segments where your heart rate goes up and you are in fat burning territory but you are brought down quickly by learning more steps and practicing those over and over again until you are ready to put everything together in another routine.

I imagine, in the 53 minutes you are actually doing this workout, that you will get your heart rate up enough to burn fat 20 or so minutes. As cute as the routines are and as much fun as it is to pretend to be a sexy stripper (It was fun for me anyway the first few times), I would rather just do an aerobic workout for the 20 minutes and dispense with the lessons and practice and save myself a half an hour to do other things.

This is from the official website www.aerobicstriptease.com, where you can see a short compilation clip of the five DVD set:

Developed by Carmen Electra with top choreographers and fitness professionals, Volume I in the Aerobic Striptease series introduces you to the striptease basics. Carmen takes the most popular techniques from fitness and dance, and puts them into a low-impact workout that conditions and strengthens the body with moves specifically chosen to tone hips, thighs, buns and abs. Aerobic Striptease helps you look good, feel great and spice up your personal life in the comfort of your own home!

That description sucked me in. What more could a woman ask for? Toning, aerobics, and spicing up your personal life to boot!

Unfortunately, I didn't notice any spice in my personal life and the elements of toning and aerobics could be found on many other workout and dance DVDs that take far less time and are as much fun.

This is a sort of sexy, different workout for those with an hour to spare who want to learn some striptease techniques as well as get in a workout, but I don't recommend that you go and buy the entire set like I did before trying this DVD first. If you find you have the time and enjoy the pace, then you can get the Fit to Strip (a more advanced routine which looks more exercise based rather than dance based), Advanced Striptease (Just what it says), The Lapdance ( self explanatory) and the Hip Hop DVDs in the set. The other one I tried was the Hip Hop one and I bored quickly because, again, it was show a step, practice that step over and over, add a step, practice that several times, etc. If I truly wanted to learn the basics of hip hop dance, I would have enjoyed the DVD. But because all I want is a fun workout that burns calories and get me going, this series simply isn't for me.

I would categorize this series as more instructional than workout.

I want to stress that, if you have the time and enjoy the different atmosphere (and, at times, costumes like a man's button down shirt, tie, and top hat, all to be tossed off later as seen in the preview for the Lapdance DVD), you will enjoy this DVD and probably get a decent workout from it. For people with busy schedules who would prefer to get right down to their workouts and get them over with to go on with their lives, this DVD just is too long to justify doing. The benefits just aren't great enough and, with so many great workout DVDs on the market, why not get the most out of every minute you are working out?