Ballet Beautiful Review Series

Hi Everyone!

So I just received my two Ballet Beautiful DVDs by Mary Helen Bowers. I’m so excited to get started using these!

Ballet workouts are a great way to cross train when you are doing Pilates.

This review will be for the Ballet Beautiful: Body Blast DVD.

This Ballet Beautiful workout will help you get a beautiful body with ballet movements and promises to give you “long, lean lines with ZERO bulk.”

Sounds good, right?

We shall see.

Why I Wanted These Workouts

I had to have these workouts for a number of reasons:

I will sit up and pay attention to any ballet or Pilates based workout that promises an intense, challenging, muscle-burning experience. As I continue to move far, far away from traditional weight lifting, I am always on the hunt for good low impact workouts :).
I loved the fact that these DVDs are made up of shorter workouts – four 15 minute segments. These are ideal for me because I don’t always have much time to workout with a 20 month old little boy at my feet demanding my attention! I feel like I can always find 15 minutes to do some sort of exercise.
I love anything barre and Pilates, and so it seemed natural that I should have these in my collection too!

Set Design and Instructor Details

First off, the studio set and production quality of these videos is stunning, just what I would expect from a professional ballerina.

The set color is all white, except for Mary Helen’s colored leotard and exercise mat.

The simple white set design makes the workout relaxing but without being boring or making you sleepy. It just feels very bright, fresh and clean. I really liked it a lot.

The simple background also prevents you from getting distracted, I think. I have some DVDs with busy backgrounds that get me thinking about other things besides my workout, which isn’t good when I am supposed to be focused!

As an instructor, Mary Helen is likable, a typical soft-spoken and graceful ballerina. She isn’t irritating and she doesn’t talk non-stop, which is good because I hate that.

Here’s a short Ballet Beautiful video describing the workouts:

Does Ballet Beautiful Work?

As I said before, the Body Blast DVD is made up of four 15 minute segments that target different parts of the body – Swan Arms, Butt Series 1, Butt Series Part 2, and 15-Minute Body Blast.

These small workouts are HARD.

If you have spent any time doing barre or ballet workouts, then you are very familiar with the intense, fire-hot burn you get in your muscles during these workouts.

And Ballet Beautiful is no different. In fact, I would say that I think the exercises in this DVD are harder than the majority of my barre workouts.

I’ve already done Butt Series Part 1 and I was very sore in my hamstrings and inner thighs the next morning, so I know I got some good work done.

As long as you are getting some cardio exercise in a few times a week, there is NO WAY that you would not see results from doing this workout on a consistent basis.

My plan is to do one of these 15 minute workouts per day, adding one segment to the end of my current Pilates fusion workout.