Reviews of Best Yoga DVDs for Weight Loss

Sadie Nardini is a popular yoga instructor, youtube queen and co-owner of The Fierce Club, a  yoga studio in Soho. Nardini is an expert in yoga fitness and balanced living and is a columnist at GaiamLife and has written for YogaJournal and The Huffington Post.  She teaches at all the big events like Yoga Journal and Omega.

Sadie Nardini will kick your flabby butt with inspiration with her Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga Series.  Her style is more of a philosophy on yoga than an actual branch of yoga.   I actually have taken classes in NYC with Sadie.  Her classes were always completed packed with mats just a few inches apart.  She even had students that wanted to take her class even if that meant they had to do the practice in the hallway.  I also took her teacher training.  So I know this practice well and know her gutsy style as well also.  She demos the poses with confidences and integrates meditation into each practice.

This DVD includes six full workout sessions that last for an hour or more each, as well as twelve smaller, quicker sessions, each under fifteen minutes. It’s better to do 15 minutes of yoga every day then just one 90 minute session once a week.

Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga: Total Body Transformation

A highlight to this DVD is the ‘Learning How to Fly’ workout which focuses on building yourself to the readiness to do headstand, as well as other gravity-defying postures.  I don’t recommend headstand though since that pose can lead to neck pain if you do it improperly without professional supervision.

The focus on weight loss is integral to each workout. In her Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga Series, Sadie does not treat body fitness as an obsession, but simply as a result of a balanced way of living.  I love how she infuses living your life more authentically and how your practice is a metaphor for how you live your life.

 

Total Body Yoga Sculpt: Calorie Burn + Deeper Core Strength

Not another power yoga DVD that is just filled with a bunch of standard sun sulutations….. this 90-minute practice with a matrix menu with unusual poses and flowing sequences keeps you engaged while you activate deep core muscles for more sweaty weight loss.  This yoga weight loss DVD is filmed in Sedona (no voice-overs)

I’ll start this review by saying that I am a huge fan of Sadie Nardini’s dvds. However, this is probably my least favorite for a few reasons. First, this dvd seems considerably less “athletic” than the others. If you are not a traditional yogi and you prefer athletic power yoga you might prefer some of  her other dvds  This video is considerably slower paced than Sadie’s others, and much more “chatty”.   I will say that there are still some powerful, excellent strength-building sequences in here, but I found myself really missing the faster flow of her other DVDs.

I’ve done many of her classes before so I had an idea of what to expect.  The matrix menu is great because on busy days it allows me to choose what I want to focus on (it’s divided into core, standing, floor, etc). This is so useful because I can build the practice I want on any given day.

This DVD is set up with a “matrix” menu, i.e. there are 8 individual segments that you can play from start to finish or pick and choose based on time and mood. The segments are:

Warm-up (12 minutes)
Core Salutations (14 minutes)
Warrior Sequence 1 (14 minutes)
Warrior Sequence 2 (12 minutes)
Balancing Sequence (11 minutes)
Deeper Core Strength (7 minutes)
Floor Stretch (12 minutes)
Inversions/Counterposes (12 minutes)

However, I am giving the video 4 stars because it does contain very helpful, very detailed instructions, and awesome cueing. I can see how people looking for a more spiritual yoga video would love this one, but if you want a faster paced workout then  stick with her other dvds.

Sadie narrates the whole workout while still doing the routine –  no voice-overs. Her alignment tips are spot-on and her background in truly understanding anatomy shows through. She’s also very good at knowing when you’re likely to slip out of proper alignment and will remind you to straighten this or support that at just the right moment. More than just a yoga workout, this DVD truly encompasses the inner workings of yoga as well, helping you to focus and let go of things you no longer need to hold onto in your mind and heart.

 

The backdrop of Sedona makes for one heck of a beautiful and inspiring session.  There is also no cool down segment and I really missed that. If you want to end your practice with Savasana (corpse pose) you’ll either need to do the Inversion segment (includes headstand and wheel) or you’ll need to add it on your own.  I wouldn’t recommend this for pure beginners, however if you have some yoga experience  there will be something for you in this.

 

Total Belly Transformation: Whole Body Tone + Deeper Core Strength

Yay!  A core workout that’s creative, flowing and tones your whole body along with your center in 30- 45 minutes. .  Her very detailed instructions and visualizations come into both my left and right brain through her use of physiological detail and metaphorical imagery (belly bonfire anyone?) . After just 3 meetings on my mat with this DVD, I am learning how to send different kinds of instruction to my core, using deeper muscles than have become my habit.
This series of abdominal/core flows are deep and tough.  Because this DVD is easily done as either one continuous series of flows or 3 individual sections, it is very easy to insert into the middle of a longer practice when you want to focus more on core work.
If you have Shiva Rea’s Core series DVDs and wondered if this was worth having too, it is, absolutely worth having ( I have a few Shiva Rea DVDs…. her  tummy toning one and her yoga trance dance one)  It’s mucho different from Shiva’s work and would make a fine addition to a serious, yoga loving, core focused person’s collection that wants a gutsy workout.

If you have been practicing Bikram yoga for awhile and wanted a dvd you can do at home when you can’t make it to the hot studio.  (or maybe paying $20 a Bikram class just isn’t in your budget right now)  First thing I noticed is that the entire DVD is actually 45 minutes long as opposed to the 30 it says. There is a 15 minute warm up, a 15 minute standing series and a 15 minute floor series (you can pick and choose or do them all).

I wouldn’t call myself a beginner Yogi but some of these poses were too advanced for me to come close to completing on the first attempt. That being said: I am, again, more than ok with that. I will follow along as best I can and now I have an additional goal of learning to complete all the poses.  It’s a nice change of pace from Bikram and if you follow her instructions about the way to hold your stomach and your lower spine, you can really feel your “belly bonfire” ( she does have a way with words).

My only other suggestion would be to watch this dvd through one time and watch how each pose is done if you are unfamiliar with this type of yoga. I think it would be much easier to follow along the first time you try if you have seen each pose done first.

This video is very different from her other Sedona video, as well – no repeats here. In fact, between the two Sedona videos, this one is definitely my favorite. I found this to be a very unusual yoga workout with several moves I have not seen elsewhere – it is almost like pilates in the sense that it is very targeted towards the core.  My only complaint is that I feel as if the floor segment in particular could move a bit faster with less talking.

Overall I would say that this is a very solid intermediate level video with one or two advanced moves (crow and side crow),  which make it different from other power yoga DVDs with a bunch of sun salutations.  This is not a great fit for someone brand new to yoga…. you’ll probably feel overwhelmed unless you are very athletic.