Prenatal Pilates

This DVD was very disappointing to me. I didn't realize when I purchased it all the things you need to work out with and all the space you need. They require 2 soup cans, blankets and pillows. The worse of all is the space situation. They do most of the exercises against a wall that you need lots of space for. I actually hang pictures and such on my walls and couldn't find a big enough section of my wall with nothing on it or nothing infront of it. Also they don't tell you this but you need to do the floor exercises leaning up against a hard surface like a couch. I have a coffee table infront of my couch and being 7 months pregnant it is solid wood and too heavy to move on my own. And just to add to everything else, the pace of the workouts are very fast. When you are starting out and are not familiar with the exercises it is very hard to keep up with them. They go so quickly from one work out to the next.

I bought this, and HATED IT!!! I LOVE Pilates, but this one sucked. I ended up just going to the class at the YMCA and had the instructor modify for pregnancy. I was hoping to have a video that I could do at home, but this was a giant dissapointment. It is now collecting dust in the back of my DVD collection.

It's OK but not what I expected. It divides the workout in trimester. Each workout lasts about 20 minutes. Short workout for me but cool when I don't have much time.

This DVD is great if you've never done Pilates before and are new to exercise. As a qualified and experienced Pilates instructor but first time mum, I was hoping for something a little more challenging. Great explanations on how to do the exercises correctly but a tad slow for me.

A little advanced for my wife, who is a beginner with pilates.

ok

As an avid fan of pilates, this video allows me to continue with some of my pre-pregnancy moves (modified of course) and is brief enough that I can squeeze it in with the rest of my workouts during the week.

I'm not one who exercises regularly but when I got pregnant I was told (again and AGAIN) that I must. I don't like walking and I refused to buy a maternity swimsuit (it's not so much the vanity as the price of these tents!) so I decided to try yoga. I bought a yoga book and a yoga mat... but alas, yoga wasn't for me. Not only did I find it extremely difficult to follow written directions (yoga directions are anything but succinct) but I also fell asleep while doing the breathing exercises. So I learned my lesson: I need something that shows me what to do and something that requires a bit more movement. This is where this DVD comes in. I found the directions simple to follow, especially as they were acted out in the DVD; I found the exercises easy to complete and the time required was short enough that I could actually stick to doing this routine (well, most of the time...).There were some flaws however:1. the woman giving instructions talks in a weird intonation and there were some things I just couldn't understand regardless of how many times I re-played them. E.g., I still don't know if she says to breath out my nose or my mouth!2. the instructions don't always synch perfectly with the action, especially when she goes off on a tangent mid-exercise; so when you're supposed to be breathing in she suddenly says to breath out. What I did was learn the exercises (for the final trimester I just watched the DVD and wrote down the exercises since at this point I knew the names pretty well) and do them without the DVD playing in the background to distract me.3. I couldn't do all the exercises for various reasons (my writsts are too weak for a couple of the routines, and I don't have a wall in my house I can use to lean against with enough space to follow the directions). But I found that what I could do was sufficient for my level and I can definitely feel the benefits of a stronger back, legs, and muscles.In short, if you're not an exercise-daddict I recommend this DVD and this routine for you; I liked it enough to buy the post-natal version. If, however, you're very athletic and already in good shape you may want something a little longer and probably a little more active (I'm assuming... I don't know how athletic people cope with pregnancy since I'm not one of them).