Fat Burning Workout [VHS]

Molly Fox is a veteran instructor who has been in fitness for a couple of decades, and her experience shows. She is friendly and personable, and teaches clearly. This 51-minute aerobic workout is from 1989, but that doesn't outdate the effectiveness. The moves are mostly simple--lots of walks, step-touches, and lunges, for example--with plenty of repetition. The choreography never gets more complicated than a turning grapevine, and usually it is simpler than that. Fox includes a couple of impact moves, such as jumping rope and a plié jump that is similar to a jumping jack. (It would have been helpful to have someone in the class demonstrating low-impact modifications for exercisers who would rather not jump.) Each time she adds a new move, Fox repeats it until you get it, then strings it onto the moves you've already done, so you're building a sequence and repeating the first moves through the whole workout. The music is both low-key and low-volume, used mainly as background and to keep the beat, rather than to add excitement. --Joan Price