Turbo Jam
I bought my first Turbo Jam video (Punch, Kick & Jam) almost two years ago, and it sounds hokey to say, but it’s been one of the major turning points in my fitness journey. I started working out to this DVD more and more, and eventually became fit enough to try other DVDs, embrace other workouts, and join a gym. Honestly, I think of Turbo Jam as my exercise gateway drug.
Punch, Kick & Jam is about 45 minutes long, and involves a warmup period, the core of the workout, a short segment using weight resistance (she uses a rubber band type thing, I use hand weights—neither are necessary, though), and a cool-down/stretching at the end.
The workout itself uses a lot of repetition, so even if you aren’t familiar with the moves you’ll get there fairly quickly. The instructor, Chalene Johnson, incorporates basic boxing/kickboxing techniques like jabs, uppercuts, speed bag, roundhouse kicks, front kicks, etc, and mixes them with high energy repetitious movements (squatting, marching, jumping rope). In researching the links for this review I found a comment that said her “cueing” isn’t that great, I agree that she doesn’t waste any time but once you do the routine a few times (and listen to the music) it becomes almost intuitive which moves are coming next.
I noticed that the better I got at the routines, the better of a workout I could give myself. When you start getting stronger and you’re rotating through the punches, bending your legs and getting low, etc, you’re working your muscles even more. It’s definitely not a workout that you’ll ever think is too easy, no matter how good you get at it.
Some nice touches: there’s a little graphic at the bottom of the screen that shows you how much time is left in each segment, with the “turbo” (a short period of high intensity) segment highlighted so you know when it’s coming; one woman in the class demonstrates lower-impact modifications to the whole workout.
I also have the Fat Blaster video, which is 30 minutes of interval training: there are four “turbos” mixed with slower versions of the turbo exercises. It’s pretty good—leaves me sweaty and panting, anyway—but not as fun as the Punch, Kick & Jam video.
For more variety, I really like the goofily-named 5 Rockin’ Workouts DVD. This DVD collection has an instructional ‘Learn and Burn’ video, which isn’t terribly useful; but also offers a 20-minute workout, a comprehensive strength training section, a workout devoted to abs, and a cardio workout that’s much more choreographed than Punch, Kick & Jam. Of these, my favorites are the 20 minute workout and strength sections, those alone are worth the price of purchase in my opinion.
The music is fun, the instructor is inspirational, and the time just flies by. If you’re looking for an intense cardio workout to do at home that also builds strength, I highly, highly recommend Turbo Jam.
Some notes:
• I don’t know anything about the Beachbody company, which owns Turbo Jam. It seems that you can’t buy just one workout from them, they have some expensive package deal.
• I bought my Turbo Jam DVDs used from Amazon; they were cheap and came in great condition. You might also try checking them out from Netflix, if you’d rather not buy them without trying the workout firsthand.
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 am
TurboJam was also my gateway drug – although I started with the class version (TurboKick). It was the first time that I found myself looking forward to working out, and I haven’t looked back. I now do the DVDs, too, and I love the Fat Blaster and 20 minute workout (mostly because 30DS has spoiled me on longer workouts.
I will always have special place in my heart for that nutter Chalene.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:10 am
Because of you, Linda, I am asking for this for Christmas. If I don’t get it, I will be purchasing it myself! I’m a home workout video junkie and so tired of the ones I’ve had for several years. It’s time to change things up!
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:32 am
I’ve been loving Turbo Jam for a little less than a month now, and I can ALREADY see changes in my body. It’s a fabulous workout.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 am
After I had my first son, I bought Turbo Jam’s 5 Rockin’ Workouts and that helped me not only lose weight but feel confident that I could actually DO these workouts. I started off doing the whole workout in the low impact style and as I felt stronger moved onto the regular style. It helped me get strong enough to join a gym and continue working out through my second pregnancy and after. Great article Linda.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:02 am
Have you seen that Chalene has a new workout comign out called ChaLEAN Extreme or something? From what I can tell it’s all about weight lifting and sculpting. I agree that her Turbo Sculpt video on the 5 Rockin’ Workouts pack is one of my favorites, so I’m really intrigued by this new one.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:20 am
FYI Linda – I am finding that the ads aren’t clickable, I just get a mouse pointer over them, thought you might want to know.
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Can any of you ladies recommend a good pregnancy (I’m in the second trimester) work out video for people who have been pretty athletic all along? I’ve found a couple of good ones, but some of the others I’ve tried were kind of boring.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hey Molly: I wasn’t, ah, very consistent at keeping up with my workouts during my last pregnancy, but I really liked Jennifer Wolfe’s “Prenatal Vinyasa Yoga”. If you like yoga, it’s a great DVD and although designed for pregnancy (with modification for all trimesters) it’s not wimpy at ALL. I felt it really helped stave off some of the body aches and pains, and relieved some of the crazy restless legs syndrome stuff too.
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I’ve purchased 2 different workout “sets” through Beach Body and was able to do so as stand-alone purchases.
That being said, for some reason I’ve felt too intimidated to try Turbo Jam, but I’ll give it a shot now!
Site looks great, Linda.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I bought some workouts from BeachBody.com back in college. (Off an infomercial – in VHS format) Great Abs Guaranteed, Thin Thighs Guaranteed, Great Arms, Great Stretch, Great Buns etc. I actually LOVE the abs one and use it often. (use the others every once in while) They are constantly talking about ‘sectional progression’ during the workouts and most moves are isometric. I know they still sold the set online in the last year because I was considering buying it in DVD just in case the VCR dies one day – couldn’t justify spending the money though. I don’t see it now – but Tony Horton and Debbie Siebers are the trainers on those videos. Looks like they have new stuff (repackaged and remarketed).
I’m not big into punching routines – or else I’d try Punch, Kick, Jam 
So there’s my mini review of beach body
December 4th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
WOW~~!
really? I did like the infomercial, but I was like it’s an “infomercial” so now after reading this review I AM gonna try it..Yay, thanks.
December 16th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Question: I am looking for a new workout and have seriously considered this one but I have a question. I bought the whole Tae-Bo set way back when it first came out and loved it at first. I quickly became bored with it and began to hate it even. This workout seems to rely a lot on kickboxing moves, etc. so can anyone tell me is this is remotely like Tae-Bo or is it more dancy (which I prefer)?
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:08 am
[...] kept writing about TurboJam on her blog and I was just so curious. She wrote a review about it here. If I had to describe it, I’d say it is very close to TaeBo but with a less [...]
February 12th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
It’s very similar to TAE Bo and a lot more kickboxing. It’s somewhat dancy but not a whole lot.
December 15th, 2011 at 6:32 am
motivating staff…
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February 24th, 2012 at 8:02 am
yoga workout…
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