Workout Review: TheFirm Standing Legs/ Standing Arms

Ho-ly crap. I haven’t seen this much spandex since 1989. And I gotta tell you, I liked it.

So today’s exercise DVD was from The Firm. This was a much-lauded brand of home workout tapes in the 80’s and early 90’s, and I always used to see ads for them in health magazines when I was a kid. I always wanted to try them but they were wicked expensive for a 10 year old, so you can imagine my excitement when 16 years later, Netflix kindly delivered the DVD to my door.



So first order of business: if you have any appreciation for vintage home exercise videos, run, don’t walk, to get this DVD. There are men in unitards. There is intense eye contact with the camera. There is a slim lady with a soft, breathy voice rhythmically saying, “up, down, up, down, power up, squeeze down, ugh it’s so hard!” She will later tell you to “work the belly of the muscle.”

So on to the review. The DVD provides two separate workouts, each about 40 minutes long. One is for your arms and the other for the legs, but the legs workout seems to use the arms too. You will need a few props: hand weights, a chair or stool, and a mat for the floor. You will also need to be wearing scrunch socks, brilliant white sneakers, tights, and a thong leotard. A French braid is optional.

The Instructors (there are a few of them) in the DVD use multiple sets of hand weights, and they’ll tell you when to use heavy ones and when to use light ones, but I only have one set so that’s how many I used.

Lower-Leg Injury Compatibility: Sure
Obviously, the standing legs is out, but I did the arm workout. There are some portions of the workout that are done standing, but you can just sit down or stand with your trusty peg leg, so it’s no big deal. I could do almost the whole program. I couldn’t really do the warm-up, but it took my eyes a little while to adjust to the spandex anyway.

Difficulty: Variable
If you have some fairly heavy weights, I’m pretty sure your arms would be jelly after the 30 minutes of continuous arm exercises. I have a meek 5lb set of hand weights, though, and I’ve been crutching for a few weeks now, so it wasn’t all that challenging. There were some pushups near the end that I really didn’t want to do, but other than that my arms felt tired but not pooped.

So that’s The Firm. I finally tried it. Oh, and I’d like to thank Kenny G for providing the soundtrack.

BONUS
And for those of you who just can’t wait until your copy arrives, I’ll give you a little taste…


Yeah, I did that. In my living room.