This Playboy can teach you the correct way to slap your booty

Author's Rating:

Pros: New exercise idea, fun

Cons: Terrible camera footage, I wouldn't consider it a workout

The Bottom Line: 
Carmen teaches the dance steps. It's up to you to spice it up on your own time.

Author's Review
This workout is designed to get your body in shape and maybe spice up your personal life. Carmen has put together several different DVD’s in her series to accomplish different things. This is the first one of the DVD’s is low impact that features work on the hips, buns, thighs, abs. It is an introduction to striptease dancing and features hip action and head rolls.

Who is Carmen Electra?
Carmen Electra is an actress and a trained dancer amongst other things. She has recently released a set of DVD’s instructing striptease dances and aerobic exercise which include some workouts. This is the first in the series of five.

Equipment
Stacey and Ashley are also performing the workout with Carmen. The setting is an empty room with a wood floor and windows in the background revealing the sunlight and trees. Full-length mirrors on the walls. No poles or chairs are needed.

The Workout
The workout starts out with a 12 minute warm up which consists of head rolls, shoulder shrugs, and wrist circles. The next task is to work on the ribcage and abs without moving the hips. A few side to sides are done, some contracting and releasing like a cat cow pose and then take that motion into circles. The hip rolls are next followed by butt dips. Some side stretches and then stretching out the back and the back of the legs, an assortment of plies, and a final stretch.

These moves are done very slowly and we are standing still while she is talking. I felt like I was waiting on her rather than the other way around. You won’t want to sit though this every time so the next time you can jump ahead and follow the workout as it is put together without the talking or instruction. I really can’t get past her working out in what looks like pajamas. They are ugly and distracting.

Finally when it’s time to get to the dirty dancing Carmen shows up in ponytails and the most ridiculous sweat suit outfit that I’ve ever seen. This is probably fashionable but I’m not digging it at all. Too youthful if you ask me.

She starts to teach the routine and stops to act shy and giggle. Please spare me the innocence, you don’t teach a striptease and giggle. She proceeds on pretty well but does a lot of smiling and the whole camera zooming in and out begins to give me a headache. You swing you hips out to the side, do a crawl down to the floor, rub your legs, and slap your butt, body rolls, walk back, and some more butt slaps.

“Do not under estimate the power of the finger in the mouth.” The next dance session gets more table dance in nature with hips action, slowly walk forward and finger in the mouth. With finger in your mouth slap your butt twice. Going down to the floor there are some leg in the air movements and you learn to gracefully stand up.

My biggest beef is with the filming of the video. The cameraman kept zooming in on her face which I could care less about. The video feels very choppy. One minute she’s sitting on a window ledge talking in a long sleeve shirt, the next minute she’s in a skimpy outfit exercising. I feel like there were a lot of takes and they were spliced together.

This DVD is in the exercise section because were else would it go. The DVD is not a rated R workout, the girls are always clothed and it isn’t seductive at all…after all the workout is targeted to females. However, I would not consider ever doing this DVD in the presence of the kids. That’s not to say the DVD is too sexy, just that it is inappropriate and would make everyone feel uncomfortable.

The DVD is 53 minutes long. In minutes, the information is drawn out slowly but the bottom line is 3 similar dances, 2 minutes each. Indeed you may be exercising while dancing but how many times are you going to do the dances? The moves were easy enough that most people will be able to follow along and perform the movements and do the dance without sweating.

The DVD is about a dance and Carmen does a good job teaching the steps. Her presentation leaves a lot to be desired but she’s not a fitness instructor so we can’t expect too much. She does dance confidently and looks believable. The dance is toned down to strictly the dance moves. If you want someone to teach you how to be sexy you won’t find it on this DVD. These are the moves only. I think if you are looking for a real workout that you’ll want to skip this and move on to the second or third DVD.

Does this compare to the dance in the strip bar? How would I know!!