The Step Original Aerobic Platform, Health Club Size Steppers for Exercise with 4 Risers for Adjustable Home Workout, Stair Stepper for Exercise and Home Gym

I purchased the Freestyle Step via Amazon Prime and received it in 2 days as usual. The box and item were in perfect condition as expected.I sit in a cubicle most of the day, and needless to say my legs do not get worked out. Even with running and other activities my legs are still a little weak, my first idea was to find a school with a stadium close by to run stairs, but it’s hard to find any that aren’t locked up anymore. I thought about a stair machine of some sort, but finally decided on giving the step a chance to start giving my legs a challenge.The Freestyle step I got has 2 risers on each side which gives me 8 inches to step up to. I thought this was not going to be challenging and that I’d have to buy additional risers, but nstead I figured I’d try it out and give 8 inches a chance.Since it came with 2 DVDs I wanted to see what they were like, so I tried the first, Beginning Step, in which you basically use it in multiple aerobic movements such as: stepping up, straddling, leg and knee raises, hamstring curls, around the world, a few basic dance moves, and more. Since I am constantly moving I think more risers would have been too much for beginning, so I am going to wait a little bit to order additional ones. The Beginning Step DVD is about 35 minutes of workouts: warm-up, more advanced, a core workout on the floor, and a quick cool-down stretch. This does get the blood pumping, and although they do get a little quick, it’s not hard to keep up with once you get the moves, and if you want you could go at your own pace by not doing as many of each.I have not used the second DVD yet which incorporates the Freestyle moves which puts The Step into unique positions (tilted, not level), but I’ll try these in a couple more weeks and try to remember to come back and add to this review.The Step also works great as an additional tool to strength training such as calve raises, lunges, and core. You can use it for many other strength exercises as well as adding in cardio to the strength training activity.Overall, I really like the added aerobic/strength workout I get, and after I see how the second DVD is, I might look for additional videos too. I definitely would recommend this Step to anyone who wants a fun aerobic activity.EDIT: April 23, 2012 – I have now been actively using disc 2 of the DVDs that came with the Freestyle Step. They use some of the same variations I listed above with some additions and variations. The second DVD is about 51 minutes as opposed to 35 minutes for the first DVD.There is more of what they call power moves where you jump or hop step. You also get to invert the step in the standard position with the angle facing down toward you with one freestyle riser on each side. Then they go into a core workout and cool-down with 3 risers on one side (2 regular rises and a freestyle riser), and one riser on the other (the other freestyle riser) which you use to do different variations of crunches (they call curls), knee crunches (knee curls), bicycles, leg extensions, plank, and different variations of these.I found a few different workout videos that I haven’t tried yet but will try once I get familiar with DVD 2 Freestyle Stepping. I could not find any DVDs specific to the freestyle (inclined) step workout, but am hoping that one of the DVDs I am going to try has some incline in them since the original step had special risers too. [...]