Cathe Friedrich Core Max

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 Cathe Friedrich's Core Max is one of my favorite DVD work outs for the core and abs I own. There are three 20 minute work outs, watch the intro, or just go on to the workouts.


The first work out consists of just you and a floor mat. You start out with a lower back exercise than work your way through all three ab sections twice ending with planks, you can watch the sample below.



The second workout adds a stability ball again starting out with a lower back work out on the ball. You will work all areas of the core and abs, there are no planks with this one, watch the sample below.



Finally the last work out uses both a stability ball and an eight lb medicine ball. Once again you start out with a lower back exercise before working the entire core/abs. This one also does not include any planks watch the sample below.



You can choose to play each work out in its entirety or click on chapters to chose which exercise you want to start with. The chapters option will play through from which ever exercise you decide to start however each 20 minute routine is separate. If you want to just choose various exercises from each of the three routines you can select mix and match however, once again each routine is separated and would require you to play each specific exercise separately. Lastly you can choose premix which is broken down into three separate work outs, and combines exercises from all three routines.

The first routine in the premix is 22 minutes and called Balanced Core, next is Complete Core for 21 minutes, and than Tough Core for 18 minutes. I have never used the premixes, honestly this is the first time I have looked at them. Buttttt after viewing them I like that she has taken various exercises from each of the main routines to create something new. The Tough Core looks pretty intense, adding that to my exercise list for the day.

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 I want to add one more important thing, the cover of the DVD has been redone the one pictured above is the new one and. However, the one pictured on the right is the cover I have, so if you see this one you will know it is the same DVD discussed here.


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Cross Fire Review Cathe' Friedrich

Photo credit: Cathe dot com $22.95

I was so excited when I saw Cathe' was putting out a video which incorporated Tabata, and even pre-ordered it, which I have never done. Cross Fire is for the experienced fitness guru, and that it is. This is one that I had to take a few breaks the first time, to catch my breath.

While the cardio part of this DVD is exceptional, I was disappointed at the lack of upper body work with weights. While there is some, I love to have a combination of, cardio, upper body with weights, and lower body. Usually I do the whole DVD, this is the first one that I did not complete from beginning to end, and still have not.

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The DVD is 55:05 minutes long, and includes the following; warm up 6:30, crossfire fitness blast 8:50, longest 8:50 minutes of my life, firewalker Tabata 4:55 is intense, crossfire circuit blast 22:45 it is during this part of the work out weights are used very little, but the most, crossfire plyo Tabata 5:20, stretch. There are also two bonuses, one for core 9:10, and one for low impact cardio Tabata 4:40.

I thought I had all the resistance bands I would ever need, but in this DVD a new one was introduced. It is a loop, and she uses them during the firewalker Tabata part of the work out. I used one of my other one, which worked for the most part, but the loop would work better for at least one of the exercises.


You have options as to how you want to use the DVD, run the whole DVD, or chose from the premixes. The premixes include short work outs, I thought this would be good to use for doing a variety of them, but found that the warm up is featured at the beginning of each one of them.

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Equipment needed includes blue firewalker loop, 3, 5, 8, and 10 lb dumbbells, one 15 lb dumbbell, set of slide and glide discs, I used two wash clothes works great, and she has tubing on the list, but it is only used as a marker not really necessary if you ask me. If you have a resistance band like the one in the photo that can be used for the firewalker section, it is what I used.

Just take it and tie one of the ends around both ankles. Make sure it is tight enough so it will not come off, but at the same time you should be able to move your feet from side to side. Take the other end and hold it in your hands, Cathe' used this method in another one of her videos. While I was disappointed in the beginning, I am using this when I am just looking to really burn some calories fast, it is great for that.

The video below has a nice selection of clips from the DVD including some with the loop.

I receive nothing from this review, and I am only an affiliate for the downloads on Cathe's site.