My Review of Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred Workout DVD

*First of all, this is not a paid review in any way. I have actually watched and performed all three levels of the 30 Day Shred DVD and I’m going to share my honest thoughts and experiences with you.

Who is Jillian Michaels?

Just in case you aren’t familiar with Jillian Michaels, she is one of the trainers on the hit TV show Biggest Loser. She is best known for her attitude and the way she pushes people to workout and get in shape.

I think after seeing a few minutes of Jillian, she’s either a person you love or highly dislike. Personally, I love her. I love the way she pushes people to keep going, even if they’re tired. Working out isn’t supposed to be a piece of cake. It’s a time to challenge your body and improve it’s current state by pushing the muscles to become stronger and also to improve the overall endurance of the body.

If you can’t stand her on the Biggest Loser, then the 30 Day Shred isn’t going to be a good buy for you. Now on to my personal review…

What You Need

• Tennis shoes (sneakers)
• Mat or carpeted floor
• Dumbbells (optional)

Overview

For the 30 Day Shred, Jillian Michaels has come up with a combination of strength training, cardio and ab moves to get a full body workout. The routine focuses on compound body movements (including exercises that combine both the upper body and lower body). One example of this would be the squat press. The entire program goes through a series of 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of ab work. She promises that this 20-minute workout is superb enough to get anybody into shape.

(One thing to note…if you aren’t interested in changing any bad eating habits, you can workout all you want and not see any real results.)

Though each level is more like 27 minutes, it’s still a relatively short and intense workout that works every major muscle group in the body. When compared to the current 60+ minute workout I currently do, 27 minutes seems wonderful. Don’t be fooled though, you will have to work hard for the entire 20 (or 27) minutes. There are no breaks.

One nice thing about the 30 Day Shred is that Jillian provides an assistant who performs modified versions of some of the exercises. Modified versions should be completed by the absolute beginner.

30 Day Shred Level 1

• Definitely the easiest level
• Basic compound strength training moves
• Basic abdominal moves

30 Day Shred Level 2

• A bit more challenging
• Intermediate compound strength training
• Intermediate compound abdominal exercises

30 Day Shred Level 3

• Advanced – my favorite of the 3 levels
• Advanced compound strength moves
• Advanced abdominal exercises (these were definitely tough)
• This level also introduces you to plyometrics, which simply refers to “jump training”

My Only Complaint

Throughout each level, she says that proper diet and these moves (this DVD) is all you’ll need to “lose weight and feel great”. However, she never actually gets into any information regarding diet. She simply refers you to the books she’s written about diet. This isn’t all bad though, I’m sure her books are excellent, but I wish she would’ve at least touched on it a little bit in the video I guess. Even under the “Recommendations” portion of the DVDs main menu, it says to workout with Jillian 20 minutes a day and follow the information about dieting in her books. I suppose I will review some of them in future blog posts!

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think this is the best workout DVD I’ve ever seen – and that includes some of the programs that are featured on cable or satellite TV channels. She condenses everything (strength training, cardio and abs) into 1 20 minute workout. I think the 30 Day Shred ($10.99) will be my next workout. I honestly love it!