Camper English reviews fitness DVDs so you don’t have to

Baywatch Beach Body Workout (2007)

The Program: The DVD is an hour-long workout, divided into 5-to-10 minute segments with themes like “swimming,” “resuscitation,” and “surfing.” There is a bonus feature on “Baywatch sun protection tips,” in which one girl rubs suntan lotion on the other while looking sexy, and then a guy comes up and says, “Pizza boy!” as if it’s the start of an erotic adventure. It makes no sense.

Equipment needed: One light set of dumbbells and a floor mat.

Instructors: Instructor Lauren Jones was never on Baywatch, but she was on Guiding Light and WWE Smackdown. She has two back-up exercisers. One is named Derrick, and Jones refers to him as “man candy” as she sends him to the truck to get the floor mats.

Pacing: The video consists of pretty basic exercises, completed quite slowly. You won’t get lost. The only area that went fast was the nearly five minutes of single and double crunches in the abdominals section.

Doin’ It: They couldn’t have sent this video to a better person, for my love of Baywatch knows no bounds. On Zuma Beach in Malibu with a background of a lifeguard tower and the yellow Baywatch truck, the red swim-suited instructors lead us through this workout, which starts with slow-motion running-on-the-beach. Perfect.

The workout itself is not as terrific as the set-up, unfortunately. The exercises are pretty simple (dumbbell exercises, legs lifts, sit-ups), which might be good for beginners, but on the other hand they’re not very aerobic. If you’re trying to slim down to get a ‘beach body’ this video isn’t going to help- go for a jog or do something else that’ll make you sweaty and burn calories. Perhaps if you’re already slim and just need to tone up, this might help. I dunno.

The fun part to the video is Jones’ constant chatter and encouragement. Between counts in exercises she interjects “nice job!” “I’m really proud of you guys!” and “sexy buns, baby!” At one point she says “great job” just for putting your mat on the floor. She’s very easy to please. At first, I was put-off by the incessant talking, but the turning point came when Jones said, “Just imagine how happy that drowning victim is gonna be when we save their lives- and we’ll look cute doing it!”

That’s when I realized that in this video, as in Baywatch, you just have to give in to the cheese. Eventually I was thrilled whenever she’d say something goofy like, “This is a really sexy workout. You should get a partner and let them watch!”

Verdict: With all the other great workout videos on the market this one is only exceptional for being silly. Though I’m unlikely to repeat the video, I’ll certainly add it to my DVD bookshelf next to the rest of my extensive Baywatch collection.

More Info: www.amazon.com