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Old 01-16-11, 07:58 PM  
F1mom
 
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Join Date: Jan 2002
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The Flaming Hypocrite's Guide to Tracy Anderson 30 Day Method

Yes, I'm writing a review of TA's book and the enclosed DVD. Yes, I also wrote the scathing review of Tracy's Post Pregnancy Workout when I was a few months post partum with my son. Yes, I sold off or traded the three TA DVDs I owned even though I still did TA Mat arms for months. Yes, I posted a picture from her FB page critiquing her figure here and on my old blog which lead to a closed thread, my first here (I think). And yes, not too long ago I posted here that I was craving heavy weights after nearly two years of low weight/hi rep.

As my new blog states, I'm a fitness DVD addict. Going back and forth between workouts, jumping on bandwagons, falling off bandwagons and whatnot go with the territory. So go ahead, call me a flaming hypocrite. Just know I'm the flaming hypocrite who lost an inch each off my arms, waist, bust and hips in only 4 days. Besides, when it boils down to it, TA is the teeny-tiny one training most of Hollywood and making millions while I'm struggling with two babies, middle class blues and being 'roomy' (to quote Hannibal Lecter).

What lead to this 180 degree turn back in a direction I swore I'd never go in? That darned Laura Stroud blog. Who could resist pictures and results like hers? She hit the right nerve in me, the nerve that wants to be back in the skinny jeans like RIGHT NOW. And don't give me any of that "it took 9 months to get to this body" blah blah blah because I'm sick of jeans with panels. So at barely 3 months post partum with my daughter I bought the book out of curiosity, then decided to jump in and try it minus the menu plan since I'm still lactating.

In hindsight I think TA should have released this book first, then released the other DVDs because it gives you good insight into what she's doing with all those moves and even breaks down the moves so you can follow them, especially the cardio. Now this isn't NROWL or any of Kathy Smith's books. And don't be put off by the poor subject/verb agreement, use of the vernacular or rambling, stream of consciousness prose mixed with buzz words like 'musculostructural'. There is a method to the madness, uh, Method.

The point of her Method is muscle confusion by working the muscle on a diagonal. Actually, it's not even muscle confusion but muscle bewilderment. After years of 3, 5, and 8 pound dumbbells with an occasional foray into 10 and 12 pounds, my muscles were set in their ways, sedate, restful. I'm still struggling to understand how the first set of arm movements in the First Sequence burned all the way to my breastbone in a manner that made TA's Mat workout look like my toddler waving bye-bye.

Before I tried this bootcamp I never understood what TA meant about the muscle being pulled close to the bone and thought it was a lack of education and even slight delusion. In the book when Tracy says within 2 to 3 days of doing the DVD exercises you'll feel like you have flu symptoms, know that I had them within a few hours of Day 1 and I literally felt like my bone marrow was being pulled out of me. And each day for the 10 days of each sequence you're to add 5 or so reps to each exercise until you reach 60 reps. Already there's a serious dread factor to this workout for me, but as the book says, in a few days your body will start to crave the pain. And she's right about that, too.

The cardio portion of the workout is a godsend for those of us who bought Dance Cardio, said and quickly traded or sold it off. The book does not break down the DVD exercises the way it does the muscular structure work, nor does it need to. The moves are simple step touches and hamstring curls to start. She then goes into moves many of us will remember from workouts like Jane Fonda's, high impact moves like jacks, heel-toe moves, forward and side kicks and side-to-sides. The bonus is that after learning the 10 minute sections, you can then play your own music when you get bored with the DVD's music. Tracy even includes a playlist to accommodate the 40 minute workout.

But don't despair if you, like me, have spent the better part of the last two decades doing low impact. The book includes modifications for all exercise levels to allow you to master her dance cardio. Tracy Anderson? Modifications? Seriously? Yes, seriously. And let me tell you, high impact gets the endorphins going faster than climbing the step, at least for me. At least I still call it high impact; the book calls it jumping and you're to progress from low impact step touches to high impact in 10 minute increments until you have a 40 to 60 minute high impact dance workout.

If you got excited about how cheap the book and companion DVD are compared with her other DVDs and rushed out to buy the book like I did, don't get smug. The book is just bait, like one of those 0 down/0 up front/0% interest deals that sell cars. The real cost of doing this program is yet to be calculated. Already I'm out $70 for a new pair of shoes.

And I'm hunting my local Goodwill for an armless chair that will support my weight that doesn't smell like mothballs or cigarettes. I've eschewed a space heater for my workout space, choosing to barricade myself in the master bedroom while running the shower on full hot blast to raise the room temperature. Maybe once the gas and water bills show up I'll start hunting seriously for the heater. I do think it helps, especially in the cold, dry winter air.

The cost goes even higher if you follow the menu plan. A juicer can start at $35, then go up as you quickly need to replace it after chewing up those kale leaves. Yacon syrup, the sweetener of choice, is at least $11 online, not including shipping. Oh, you say your local corner grocery store carries it? You must be in NYC or LA and you probably already have it in your pantry. But those of us in other areas of the country will no doubt look bewildered at a recipe calling for purple and white carrots or asking the butcher to french cut your chicken breast. And I'm laughing out loud imagining someone like my mother in law trying to pronounce "yacon" to the average Chevy Z71-driving teenager at her local Piggly-Wiggly.

This is where the real Tracy comes out: she is a trainer to the stars, people, not American middle class moms with a Publix, Kroger and WalMart around the corner. Having left small town Indiana, she's looking to folks who have someone do the shopping and cooking for them, or who at least live in the Hamptons like Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa. I'm not saying she's a gold digger, but you never see her messin' with a broke ... client to paraphrase Kanye West, of all people. I'm sticking to WW to preserve not just my milk supply but my sanity, though her recipes look wonderful and the TA studio has a chef on staff who helped prepare the menu and recipes for the 30 day bootcamp. Get down girl, go head, get down.

To sum up, this is an intense, intensive 30 day program not for the shy or the broke. Besides the 45 to 90 minutes needed for muscular structure, as she calls it, you'll need another 40 minutes for cardio, and God knows how much time to shop and prepare the tasty meals. Despite the time and expense, the woman knows her stuff. One of her shortcomings has always been, in my opinion, that she does not have the educational background to relay her knowledge in a manner that would satisfy many advanced exercisers who have tried every method out there and who lived through the move from high impact/no weights in the early days of home fitness to safer low impact moves and added resistance for quicker results.

The other shortcoming is that she talks a lot about how she formed her Method but does little to demonstrate those early days. I only wish she'd included Before/After photos the way Callan Pinckney did her in book to show the gastric bypass patient who benefitted from her Method along with the mother of multiple children and the original 150 or so women she experimented with in the days before Madonna and Gwyneth. Those experiments and the people involved remain shrouded in darkness, lost among reports of bankruptcies, walk outs and ex-business partners. Despite all of that, TA has not just survived but thrived. She has at least 10K more people following her on FB than Cathe, and more all the time. Where the revelation of bad girl behavior would have tanked any other fitness pro, for some reason it made TA even stronger, at least for now.

So for now I'm satisfied with Laura Stroud, the 18,000 people following her on Facebook and my own shrinking hips and stomach. Even if that makes me the ultimate vidiot-crite and requires a willing suspension of disbelief. Being right and being teeny-tiny are not mutually exclusive. My ability to stick with any one method, no matter how promising or proven the results, may not last long enough to get me truly teeny-tiny, but it's the promise of reaching that goal that keeps me tied to the 30 day rotation and monogamous to Tracy. After that no doubt my video ho self will move on to the Next Big Thing.
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Old 01-16-11, 08:40 PM  
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Old 01-16-11, 08:44 PM  
Joni O
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Great review. I hope you've also put it in the Reviews section so it can be forever saved and easy to find in the future.
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Old 01-16-11, 09:31 PM  
paideiamom
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Great review.
Sigh. Still no interest in TA though, even to whittle down my T and A.
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Old 01-16-11, 09:33 PM  
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Thanks for your post, F1Mom. I have been lurking in your check-in, as you may remember, and I've read the whole Laura Stroud book like a novel. It has crossed my mind more than once that Laura has some secret deal with Tracy, but whatever.... she's great marketing for it. And now, you are, too. Someday..... maybe some day I will actually manage to do TA more than one day in a row.
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Old 01-16-11, 10:29 PM  
txfitmom
 
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That was a great post F1mom. I am in a similar situation being a mom to a 10 month old and having tried numerous fitness videos that just would not cut it...my body had gotten used to literally everything. TA's routines don't allow for slackers since there are so many reps and changes in routines every 10 days.

I am in the 30 Day Challenge right now and already bought a Fluidity Bar off Craigslist. Stocked up on lots of good food...which was not cheap and have been looking at new shoes for her dancing routines. Now that she is coming out with the new DVDs I guess I will be a sucker for that too...but if it works then I am all for it!
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Old 01-16-11, 10:44 PM  
hotncmom
 
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Best. Review. Ever.

OK, that's it...I'm going to commit to this at the end of February, when the chance of kids/DH home for snow days, teacher workdays, holidays, etc. that constantly interrupt my workout schedule is over, and when we get back from a Disney trip in February.

I just hope, this time, that it doesn't hurt my back. Perhaps I am blaming TA unfairly, but I had been doing book sequence 1 for a few days when the fateful event happened, of picking up DD for the millionth time, and this time having my back seize up, muscles contracting so tight that when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I literally thought I was going to be paralyzed. Good times.

Is the prospect of being smaller than ever before worth taking the risk?

And like you, a video ho, I just don't know if I have what it takes to be faithful for 30 days. Right now I am in the middle of my ALL OF THEM rotation, which is hard enough, because the ones I have set aside I already miss a bit, and I'm having to restrain myself from cheating.
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Old 01-16-11, 11:43 PM  
shortie
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Nice review!!!!

I'm heading into Day 11 of the 30 days, and agree with everything you said. Despite finding myself furrowing my brow at Tracy's explanation of how you'll "bolt your muscles" together differently with her work, and my wish that she'd actually done some more quality control on her DVD, I'm loving this boot camp and feeling stronger and tighter all the time.
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Old 01-16-11, 11:53 PM  
Diavolobella
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A question

What keeps me from trying Tracy is that I simply cannot find any clips of her actual workouts. I can find clips of her talking about them or clips of her advertising her workouts, but no clips of an actual workout I can buy. I want to be able to see what I'm buying. If you can point me toward a clip, so I can see what I'm getting into, I'd really consider trying her workouts.
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Old 01-16-11, 11:55 PM  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Diavolobella View Post
What keeps me from trying Tracy is that I simply cannot find any clips of her actual workouts. I can find clips of her talking about them or clips of her advertising her workouts, but no clips of an actual workout I can buy. I want to be able to see what I'm buying. If you can point me toward a clip, so I can see what I'm getting into, I'd really consider trying her workouts.
Not much, but bits and pieces (Mat):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4xTA...50BE48&index=6

Again, bits and pieces, but mostly her talking (PP):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYisE...eature=related
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