Last week, my goal was to start a round of Power 90. After giving it some thought, I realized my goal might be a little too ambitious and that I needed to lose a bit more weight before I could handle the power yoga part of that workout.

Instead, I revisited my collection of Leslie Sansone DVDs. They really are the perfect at home workout. You don’t need a lot of space nor equipment. The moves are easy to do and easy to modify.

I’ve been using her workouts on and off for ten years.  Over that time, I’ve bought 25 of her DVDs. I find that, even though she comes out with a few new workouts each year, there are certain workouts I keep going back to over and over again.

Here’s my list of the 10 best Leslie Sansone DVDs.

Walk Aerobics: 2 Mile Walk (1999)

This was my first Leslie Sansone workout. This workout is a bit more challenging than the Walk Away the Pounds DVDs she would release years after this one. This workout uses the same basic moves—leg lifts, kicks, side steps, and walking in place—but she adds variation that you don’t get in the workouts she released in 2001 and beyond.

This workout has you doing grapevines, side steps up and back, kickbacks with your hand touching your toe in the back combined with knee lifts touching your toe in the front. Just before you get to the cool down, you do a segment of squats and “abductors” (coming up from a squat and raising your leg off the floor).

It’s a fast-paced 30-minute workout that I like to come back to when I’m starting to get bored with Leslie’s usual choreography.

Heart Healthy Walk (2001)

I know a lot people don’t like the Leslie Sansone workouts in which she is working out alone. Personally, I don’t mind them. From what I can, her more advanced workouts are the ones in which she is alone. While this workout isn’t considered advanced, it does move briskly. It’s typical Leslie Sansone moves, but I found with this workout, there is less walking in place and more of the other moves are used.

Some days you’re going to be in mood for a long workout that moves at a steady pace. Other days you’ll appreciate a workout like this that is 30 minutes long, challenges you by not letting you rest up too much between the more exerting moves, and leaves you feeling like you got a lot out of the workout.

Walk & Kick (2001)

I have always been interested in kickboxing. When I weighed a lot less, I loved doing the original Tae Bo series. Since I’ve gained weight, I haven’t found many basic kickboxing workouts I can get through. This workout soothes my craving for kickboxing.

This workout is divided up into segments. Half the segments are of Leslie and her background exercisers doing Leslie’s signature moves. The other segments are basic kickboxing moves including: various punches, kicking, speed bag, etc. What I most appreciate about this workout is that the non-kickboxing segments are challenging while the kickboxing aren’t. During the kickboxing segments, you get a chance to catch your breath while doing some cool moves and then, before you know it, you’re right back into doing fast-moving knee lifts and kickbacks. The variety of moves and pacing help the workout go by really fast.

Walk Away the Pounds—Original Series (2001)

This workout series was the beginning of an annoying trend, but is the DVD I always recommend to people wanting to know which Leslie Sansone workout they should buy.

Leslie began using gadgets to make her various walking workouts just a little bit different. Over the years she’s used “stretchy” bands, weighted gloves, a resistance belt, and something called a “WalkBlaster”. In this original Walk Away the Pounds series she uses weighted balls. Substituting light dumbbells for the weighted balls is easy. I appreciate this series because it comes with two workouts—the 1 Mile Super Challenge and the 2 Mile High Calorie Burn. Both workouts move at a moderate pace. They’re good for the days when you want to get in a workout, but aren’t quite in the mood for anything too challenging.

Another aspect of this workout I like is that, while most of the background exercisers are following Leslie, one is doing modified moves that are a bit easier while another person is doing an extremely easy modified version. There have been times when I have just gotten back into exercising and couldn’t keep up with Leslie and had to follow the modifications. I appreciated having that person to watch.

Back in 2009, a DVD that has all the original WATP workouts was released. It’s called Leslie Sansone: Walk Away the Pounds Ultimate Collection.

Walk Strong

I’m all about doing dedicated strength training workouts. However, over the years, I’ve really enjoyed Leslie’s strength training interval workout. As always, After a warm up, Leslie takes you through a segment of her basic moves. This lasts about three minutes. This is followed by a weight interval. You’d think because her workouts are considered “basic”, the weight intervals would be a breeze to get through. Not so much.

For the few minutes you’re using weights, you’re doing compound moves (two moves at the same time, like, lunges and bicep curls). If you were using heavy enough dumbbells your biceps, triceps, back, and shoulders get a decent workout. She doesn’t do any exercises for the chest and abs though. Your lower body is also getting worked out with repeated squat and lunges. The workout is 30 minutes and for days when you want to do a workout that’s a bit different than the usual Leslie Sansone DVD.

In part two, I list the other five favorites. These are more recent workouts and are the ones that are longer, faster, and more challenging.

What are your favorite Leslie Sansone DVDs? Please tell me in the comments below.