Product Description

These exciting 25-minute programs, developed by renowned instructor Suzanne Deason, bring mind and body together into pure fitness twice a day! A.M. Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss is a revitalizing morning workout to help you wake up, energize and set your intentions for the day. P.M. Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss is a rejuvenating and relaxing program to help you release the day’s tensions and stress from mind and body, helping you to stay on track with your goals.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36472 in DVD
• Brand: Am
• Released on: 2002-11-19
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 80 minutes

Features

• $20 off any order $100+ use BYDP20

Customer Reviews

Great shorter yoga practices appropriate for beginners and others
AM/PM Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss provides three short yoga practices (AM, PM, and a bonus practice) that are especially appropriate for someone just starting out with yoga, but more experienced yogis looking for some shorter, basic practices are likely to enjoy these as well. Although the workouts in and of themselves are unlikely to provide weight loss, instructor Suzanne Deason makes a point of saying (both on the DVD itself and in the helpful included leaflet) that these practices form just a part of an overall weight loss program that would also include healthy eating and other fitness activities.

All three practices are filmed in beautiful outdoor settings, and for both the AM and the PM workouts, there is a list of poses included in the accompanying leaflet. The AM practice begins and ends in hero's pose (which I believe she calls "seated warrior"). It focuses on gentle opening of all areas of the body through lunges, standing poses, twists, and finally, simple core work and backbends; two yoga bricks are used to allow greater access to the postures. The PM practice also uses props, this time a yoga wedge and strap (substitutions can be made for these). It starts with some nice shoulder openers using the strap and then includes just a few standing postures such as downward dog, lunge, and wide-legged forward bend. However, the focus of this practice is on seated forward bends, which are supposed to be calming, and so you will do a variety of these before ending in relaxation pose. The AM and the PM workouts come in at just under 25 minutes each.

The bonus workout, Breathwork Through Yoga, is a bit shorter (about 22 minutes). This time, Deason does not use any props (although she reminds you of how you can use them as in the other programs if you wish), and she places a greater emphasis on the breath while moving through the postures, with the practice beginning and ending in a seated meditation. She again leads a brief series of standing poses--pyramid pose is included this time, and the wide-legged standing forward bend is especially nice--moves to kneeling for gate pose, and then moves to the floor for both backbends and core work. The most challenging poses included in this practice are probably bow pose and a boat pose variation; therefore, it has a higher difficultly level than the other two practices but would still be very doable for experienced beginners. A final bonus on the DVD is an approximately 7-minute interview with Suzanne Deason during which she explains the rationale behind each of the workouts.

Overall, this DVD provides some excellent practice experiences for those new to yoga as well as offers options for the more experienced yoga practitioner.

Don't let the title fool you
It's called conditioning for weight loss, but it's just an all around nice workout. Here are the things I like about this product:

1) The DVD lets you choose from four difficulty levels, or watch them combined. I really liked working my way through the levels so the same workout remained challenging. If I'm having a bad day and am too stiff, I can scale back to a lower level for that day.

2) I am a musician and am picky about background music. The Gaiam series of yoga tapes that I've purchased all have pleasant evocative, well performed music that doesn't annoy or distract me, but supports the ambience I'm wanting.

3.) I appreciate yoga and the culture that developed it, but I prefer to imbue the experience with my own spirituality, so I appreciate a workout that doesn't push any belief system too heavily.

4.) The instructor talks during many of the poses about how the different poses can affect your health. This is interesting and informative.

Slow-paced, well cued, relaxing, easy 2 25 min routies
White waves wrote a great review in 9/22/2005.
The scenery is beautiful, Susan's words are inspirational & on cue, but the pace of speaking is slow. This workout seems to be geared to absolute beginners with limited flexibility & endurance. There are a lot of short breaks between poses. There is heavy use of blocks & straps & many poses are modified. If you have decent flexibilty, just don't use these props.
The AM starts with 5 min of breathing, then child's pose, lunges, standing fwd bend, chair pose w/breathing, mountain pose, modified standing thigh stretch, standing wide legged torso side stretches, triangle, side angle, standing wide legged stretch. Then sitting torso twist, butterfly (no going down), modified boat. Laying down, a simple sustained ab crunch, knee to chest stretch, knee to side spinal twist, bridge pose. Laying on stomach, raising torso on ground with hans still on ground. Then downward dog & sitting in meditation.
PM: Begins with 5 min of scenery & mountain pose with breathing. Using towel, simple shoulder stretch, child's pose, downward dog, lunges, standing wide legged stretch, downward dog, child's pose, staff pose, modified sitting 1 legged fwd bend, sitting wide legged simple torso stretches, sitting 1 leg out to side torso side stretch. Laying down 1 straight leg to sky stretch, straight legs in air (very modified plow), knees to chest, knee to side spinal twist & ends in meditation.
The Bonus 20 min breathwork is a more normal pace, beginners' workout with out props & full poses. Twisted seated position, standing fwd bend, mountain, modified standing 1 legged pose, warrior 1, standing stretch for thighs, wide legged standing fwd bend. Then half kneeling torso side stretch, then lying down: locust, bow & bridge, 1 leg in air stretch & to the side. Then ab work while on elbows & legs raised in various degrees. Then seated twisted sage pose, sitting 1 straight leg stretch, seated wide legged sterch & ends with seated 2 min meditation.

The 5 min trailer is still at gaiam com but not sure how much longer.