Laura Woodside Hartness, a long time friend and Video Fitness Forum regular, took it upon herself to design a cover for her fellow workout friends who like to keep their dvds in order.  We appreciate it Laura!

Download PDF file for Print (on Windows, right click link and select “save target as”) – CQ Cover  

To Print on Letter Sized paper:  choose 100 %, NOT fit to screen, and trim along dotted lines.

Full View of Cover

Kenneth Blackstone, Jr SFC

- In the fall of 2006, we received an order from SFC Kenneth Blackstone with a note: “Ma’am, I am from Georgia, but please be advised I am in Iraq and need the products sent here. I have been asked to start teaching aerobics to soldiers who are interested, but it has been awhile. So if there be any words of wisdom or any workouts you could offer, it would surely help the morale, health, and welfare here. Pray for us in harms way.”

After sending Kenneth her entire collection, Gin wrote: “Let me say we are very proud to have you using our DVDs – I’m sure you are doing an outstanding job, and if I could see you there leading our brave men and women, I’m sure I would be impressed. Thank you for your hard work on our country’s behalf.”

Kenneth responded: “The guys in my unit are some of the most fit in the military. We have strong man competitions, there are some triatheletes and bunch of bodybuilders. Surprisingly alot of guys from my unit attend my class. I think it’s cool, that even here in Iraq, we can take an hour and forget the war. Last night I started the class by saying, ‘I know it’s Monday and I know you’re worn out. I know there are insurgents and IEDs waiting for us at every turn, BUT THIS IS OUR HOUR AND THEY WILL NOT TAKE THIS AWAY FROM US.’ Cheesy I know but it got everyone going. Thank you for your kind words and the support you have shown.”

It was this back and forth connection made with a dedicated soldier that inspired Gin to create a workout specifically to honor our men and women serving overseas. After holding a contest to cast the workout titled “Cramped Quarters”, the 7 segments of the cardio strength circuit workout, designed to be done with minimal equipment and in small spaces, was finally produced.

The entire workout has been posted to view free online and is also available on a ‘cost-of-goods’ DVD.   Gin’s fans have wondered how she can afford to sell the Cramped Quarters workout on DVD for only $2.99, – but this not-for-profit project is intended as a gift for our men and women in service.

We hope that family members will share this gift with their loved ones overseas, that spouses can enjoy the workout at home and know that their loved ones are appreciated. We also hope that all of Gin’s fans – or any others who might be enjoying this great workout for small spaces – will be inspired in-kind by her gift of appreciation to the people who have dedicated their lives in service to our country.

For those so moved, there are a wide variety of organizations that support our military and their families and we hope you will consider paying it forward by making a donation to the charity of your choice. These are just a few of such charities:

National Military Family Association – the voice for military families – serves military spouses, children and families.

Operation Home Front – provides emergency assistance and morale to our troops, to the families they leave behind and to wounded warriors when they return home.

The Armed Forces Foundation was established to promote the morale, welfare, and quality of life of the United States armed forces community, including active duty military, reservists, and retired personnel and their families. Last year, the Foundation donated 91% of all outside contributions directly to deployed military families.

Soldiers Angels - volunteer-based nonprofit, we have over 30 different teams supporting all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. Through special projects, dedicated teams and individuals supporting our troops, we make a visible difference in the lives of our service members and their families.

Armed Services YMCA – a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, is a national member association of the YMCA of the USA and works with the Department of Defense. ASYMCA offers essential programs such as childcare, hospital assistance, spouse support services, food services, computer training classes, health and wellness services, and holiday meals, among many others.

The Fisher House™ – program is a unique private-public partnership that supports America’s military in their time of need. The program recognizes the special sacrifices of our men and women in uniform and the hardships of military service by meeting a humanitarian need beyond that normally provided by the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

Homes for Our Troops – building specially adapted homes for our severly injured veterans

Intrepid Fallen Heros Fund - Join our effort to support those who have sacrificed so much in service to our nation. 100% of all donations fo to our programs; nothing is deducted for administrative expenses.

Operation Helmet sent over 35,000 shock-absorbing helmet upgrades to the troops, and still have a backlog of over 900 troops headed into combat with old-style helmet. They are a 100% volunteer, non-partisan, charitable organization headquartered in Montgomery, Texas (near Houston) with volunteer operations around the country. 99.96% of all contributions are used to send upgrade kits to our troops!

Wounded Warrior Project – Wounded Warrior Project provides unique, direct programs and services to meet the needs of severely injured service members.

For a comprehensive list of more military-related charity associations, visit Military.com

And if all you can afford to give is time and words of appreciation – eMail Our Military. “eMOM” founder is a military wife, the daughter of a veteran and an avid troop supporter. They are volunteers from all walks of life who understand that regardless of our political views, our military service members deserve our respect, support & encouragement.

As this project has finally come full circle, we are pleased to note that Kenneth Blackstone has returned home and still serves in the military stationed at nearby Dobbins AFB in Marietta.

Elaine Keller produced and promoted the contest to cast the workout through her company Keller Lane Productions, LLC. With a rich background in event marketing and production with more than 20 years of experience, she has worked with multiple entertainment, conference and sports properties as well as corporate internal and external events. She has a special expertise with start-up events and sports properties, having been on the inaugural staffs of NBA and NHL franchises, two Olympic Games, the Goodwill Games, and professional cycling races including the Amgen Tour of California, Tour de Georgia and the Tour of Missouri.

Robert Dothard (aka Trainer Bob) recruited for such companies as Sports Life®, opened the first Gold’s Gym® in Georgia, was a representative for Crunch®, Australian Body Works-now L.A. Fitness®–and currently owns a Fitness Together franchise. He has combined his in-gym instruction with that of personal appearances to spread the message of total wellness. Robert has been a guest lecturer in schools and has done over 100 broadcast and print media segments on health and fitness, including Atlanta’s Biggest Loser Competition and CNN’s Fit Nation Tour. He also continues to be a pioneer in his field as a recognized fitness expert after having been the first male step instructor in history.

Tammie Leady is an IFBB Pro competitor, model and fitness professional who lives and works as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor in the Atlanta area. With over 15 years of experience, she’s been voted one of Atlanta’s fittest females and top personal trainers. When asked about her participation in the project, Tammie replied “I felt being a part of Cramped Quarters would be a fun way to motivate our troops to stay fit and energized. Also a way to say thank you to the men and women who serve and protect our country.”

ShaNay Norvell considers herself to be a Fitness Artist. Often referred to as “The Potter”, Shanay molds bodies like a clay maker and her body is her billboard. She creates individualized fitness programs to promote weight loss, greater endurance, and lifestyle change and is available for in home training, corporate seminars, and international travel with clients. Shanay is a celebrity trainer, media fitness contributor and was 1st Runner Up in Season 1 of NBC’s New American Gladiators 2008.

Heidi Matheny earned her BS degree in Health and Exercise Science and just recently went back to school to get certified to teach Health and PE in the public schools. “I want to influence young people to turn off the video games- and get active!!” A certified group fitness instructor and trainer, Heidi lives in Canton with her husband Donny and 2 sons, James and Jake. “I wanted to be a part of this program because I support our troops and I believe in them. I was so happy to hear of an opportunity to give a little something back to them in return for ALL they do for us and for our Nation. I am grateful for their service to our country.”

Gin's Cramped Quarters

Cramped Quarters is a workout created especially for our men and women serving overseas in the military. It’s a high-energy boot-camp style workout done in 7 segments. This intermediate to advanced circuit workout is designed for small spaces with limited equipment required – just bodyweight and dumbbells.

Within hours of posting, Gin-fans requested the option to get it on DVD. So it’s been replicated with a glass master and now available in our online store. For only $2.99 + S&H the dvds are packaged in a plain sleeve and will play world-wide.

While FREE is cool, most workout fans still have a preference for sweating in front of their TVs instead of their computers. If you’re traveling and need a quick fix, check out the online versions available in Flash or Quicktime.

Cramped Quarters – Flash for PC
Cramped Quarters – Quicktime for Mac & iPhone

You can preview the segments through YouTube to make your selection of any of the seven sequences that fit your fitness needs. Start with the warm-up, select any or all of segments 2 – 6, and end with the cool-down.

Thanks for supporting this project and please pass it on to your friends!

Kenneth Blackstone SFC

When Gin first announced her intention to provide a free workout for the men and women overseas serving in our military forces, I knew it was a great idea. Inspired by Kenneth Blackstone, Jr. who was serving our military in Iraq and had contacted us about workouts to help him teach fitness classes to fellow soldiers, Gin set her mind to task. She ran a contest, cast and shot the segments all of which are boot-camp style circuits.

That done, she moved on to several other projects and the details for delivering the content were left to me. At the time, we were using the free Brightcove player – a somewhat classier version of YouTube. By the time the paid gigs were out of the way and time could be spent on the charity project, Brightcove decided to go the way of paying for the service.

Since we are a very small business – interested primarily in paying the electric bill to keep us connected to the outside world  – we could not afford to pay for the service. That was coupled with the fact that they had discontinued their pay media downloads – which we had tried with limited success on one of Gin’s workouts.

On the home front, we had succeeded in delivering short choreography clips via digital download through our online store. But having worked with a Shopsite shopping cart for nearly a decade, we decided to shop for other shopping carts.

Fast forward to November of last year… it took nearly 6 months to get the new store up and running. Our 3dCart is a vast improvement, but the one thing it lacks is the ease of digital content delivery that we had with the old store – and our current hosting plan lacks the harddrive space to store the content.

Mindfull of the recession that’s upon us, we decided not to upgrade the store to accomodate the huge video files. Since we changed to YouTube for our preview clips, we checked that option for content delivery, but they exceed the time limit.

So we decided to just post the segments on the main site – free for all! This eliminated the quandry of deciding and delivering the content for some (military and their families) and charging others.

As technology has progressed, some at the video fitness forum have discovered the ability to download the files with Real Player. (Not mentioned is that you can also save the file to your computer if you have Quicktime Pro by going to the iPhone page – those files also work on desktops with Quicktime.) One person wondered if we knew they could download them. As the one who has pondered greatly the delivery of this project, I say more power to you!

Nevertheless, there do seem to be those who just don’t have time to figure all that “right click, left click, save as… what’s an flv file?”

For those who viewed and liked the content, but prefer to do workouts the old fashioned way – put the dvd in the player and press play so I can see it on my TV instead of my laptop or cell phone – we have decided to press ‘cost of goods’ convenience copies of Cramped Quarters.

We’ll keep you posted on the availability.

• CQ either on a disc or downloadable to burn to disc
• A new Step Workout by Gin

There are tentative plans for both.  With Cramped Quarters, it’s been quite a quandry in terms of content delivery.  After looking into many options, it was decided to post for now as a freebie for all and to see what the demand might be.

With the Step Reebok 20 year anniversary, Gin is planning a new step workout.

That’s all for now – comments are appreciated!