Two 35-minute circuit-style cardio-weight workouts, one for upper body and one for lower body. Cindy Whitmarsh instructs.

Intermediate exercisers and up. By varying weights and low/high impact options, you can dial these routines up or down, but even at their most basic, they're still pretty intense. You will need at least two sets of weights, one lighter (around 3 to 5 pounds) and one heavier (around 8 to 10 pounds), and a mat.

Cindy Whitmarsh, you kicked my butt and I had no clue you were going to be so hard on me. Yes, you warned me about what was to come in your little intro, but I didn't believe you. See, I've heard the same rap from other exercise DVD instructors, but then when I went onto the actual workout, I was able to breeze through and only barely break a sweat. Not this time. I did each workout on separate days, and even though they were only 35 minutes each, I was thrashed by the time I finished. A lot of that probably has to do with your approach, alternating a minute's worth of athletic, high-impact cardio with a minute of weight training. That makes the most of the time spent, and squeezes sweat out of every last minute. The exercises themselves are classic moves — squats, lunges, triceps kickbacks, lateral raises, etc., but doing them for a minute straight using the right amount of weight is bound to fatigue your muscles. Both the lower and upper body workouts end with a few challenging ab exercises. There are also lower impact variations to the cardio, if you can't handle jumping (or if you're just plain getting tuckered out by minute 20). And Cindy is a likeable personality — she's encouraging instead of bossy and makes an excellent workout buddy. My only complaint is that there wasn't enough stretching at the end, so I added on a few extra minutes; and the upper body section didn't have enough chest exercises for me (gotta keep those chest muscles strong — it helps keep your breasts perky). But the intensity of these routines is great. The idea of "10 days to a better body" is that if you alternate these two workouts for 10 days straight, you'll see significant improvement in your shape. Although I can't prove this because I have to move onto other DVDs to review, how could such fab workouts not work? This is one of the best exercise DVDs of the year.