Tracy Anderson – UBeCute

“Both pleasure and pain are great teachers”. By Swami Vivekananda

I wanted to do a 3-month follow-up to my last post “Cherishing the birth of my baby girl” and follow up on my attempt to get my life and body back after baby and C-Section. During my pregnancy, I had gained about 30 pounds. Within two weeks after my C-Section, I had automatically lost all but about 10 pounds. So when I embarked on my journey back to health, weight loss was not my main goal. Instead, I was focused on gaining my physical and mental strength back.
I was looking for a workout plan that was holistic in nature and one that would help both my mind and body heal. So I decided to give Bikram Yoga a try and do it for 30 consecutive days. The studio near my home had a deal for newcomers, so I decided to sign up.

Bikram yoga to the rescue:

More about Bikram: Bikram yoga is a series of fixed postures performed in a heated room designed to strengthen the entire body. Bikram is a system created by Bikram Choudhury and made popular in the US in the 70’s. It is also a controversial form of yoga. While practitioners swear by the efficacy of Bikram others believe the benefits of intense heat to be a bit questionable.

I used to practice Bikram over ten years ago and had worked my way up to advanced level. In my own personal experience, I had found Bikram to be extremely rejuvenating and cleansing when combined with ujjayi breath. It is important to follow (as much as possible) the instructions provided by the yoga instructors. The amazing part of the class is that even though you practice the same sequence over and over again, no two days are the same. You can never master a pose as there is always deeper you can go into each pose. Bikram teaches that achieving the perfect posture is not important, stumbling out of a pose helps you overcome your ego.

“Falling out of a posture
Means you are human;
Getting back into the posture
Means you are a yogi”
-Bikram Choudhury

It wasn’t long after I resumed my Bikram yoga practice, that I realized a decade worth of non-practice followed by pregnancy, had added more than a few cobwebs to my once flexible body. My way back to yoga was a very humbling experience. Pregnancy changes your body in a major way. My hips, shoulders, and abdomen felt tight and lacked the strength to hold positions. I was determined to succeed though and open to the challenge. I even started to see some initial results within two weeks. I felt bendier, my skin was glowing and I was even beginning to enjoy the heated room. Unfortunately, by the third week, the initial euphoria gave way to extreme exhaustion. I found the heat way too intense. Rather than helping me move deeper into the poses (which it is supposed to) I found it unbearable. I would come back home from my class completely drained and unable to carry on through the day. I tried to hydrate myself with liquids and Gatorade but nothing was working. So I started skipping classes. Hard as I tried Bikram yoga left me with far lesser energy than when I even started. I finally decided to discontinue my practice thinking maybe I had embarked on it a bit too soon after delivery.

Tracy Anderson’s – Post Pregnancy workout
Since Bikram yoga did not work out for me, I decided to look elsewhere. I was stuck at home too long and considered doing a workout DVD while my baby slept. I, therefore, decided to give Tracy Anderson’s “Post Pregnancy workout” a whirl. Tracy herself is a young mom and something about her words really resonated with me. Being a new mom she understands how hard it is to find any time for oneself and how hard it is to get one’s strength back after pregnancy, which you need a lot of if you are to take care of an infant. In the past, I have tried some of Tracy’s workouts such as her Mat workout, Cardio Dance and Boot camp. So I am not new to Tracy’s style. Her workouts hit the abs, thighs, and hips in just the right fashion and she aims at tiring the large muscle groups first and then bringing the smaller muscle groups into action throughout her workouts.

Pros
Fun workout: The DVD is really fun to follow and Tracy has an amazing body which I must say is an absolute inspiration for me. The DVD is 45 minutes long and composed of ab work, legwork, side ab work and arm exercises. The exercises are really challenging for me which I like as I tend to get bored if I don’t have sufficient challenge.

Melts your post pregnancy tummy: By the 4-5th day this DVD did a little wonder for my ab muscles. My ab muscles started kicking in with her moves where previously they felt almost dead. A little bit of tone has also returned in my hips and glutes. This has given me all the motivation I needed to persist.

Low intensity, high impact: This workout has no cardio just some intense Pilates-type moves that are really effective. Some of the exercises require light weights (no more than 2 pounds) so you know you are not going to hurt yourself. The workout has a slow steady pace and raises your heart rate without tiring you completely.

Cons
Knee exercises: I don’t like the fact that Tracy always does the leg section on knees. I find that a bit taxing on my poor knees. But if you fold a towel under your knees it should cushion the stress.

Poor verbal instructions: Tracy offers insufficient verbal directions which I must say is pretty characteristic of her in all her workout dvds. At times while working on one leg she will move to the other leg without ever giving verbal queues so if you are not watching her constantly you can get out of synch. But I found that a small nuisance in comparison to everything she has to offer.

Repetition: A lot of the exercises such as the arm series are repeated in all of her DVD’s. With that said they are effective and will tighten your arms like nothing else.

After just two weeks of doing this DVD 4-5 times a week, I feel so much stronger and more positive about getting my old body back. I know I still have a long way to go but I am in no hurry. I know I have nothing to prove and just want to work my way back into health. Like Tracey, herself states in her video, “It took you 9 months to have the baby, so it will take some time to get back your old body.” I will do a follow up at my 6-month post-delivery mark and let you know my experience and results then.

Meanwhile, I would love to hear from you. Tell me about your post-pregnancy experience. What did you do to get back into your old jeans or maybe it was no problem for you (in which case I am so jealous of you). Give me the skinny on what worked and what did not?

Sometime early this year, I decided to start a completely new exercise routine that I had been hearing raving reviews for; Tracy Anderson Method.

It all started with an innocent if at all a bit vain google search that read like “Body Metamorphosis”. As you can expect Tracy Anderson’s Metamorphosis popped up in the top 3 search results.

Tracy Anderson’s method is broken down in 4 DVD’s (1 dance video and 3 Muscular structure workouts). You even get to choose the Method based on your body type: omnicentric, abcentric, hipcentric or glutecentric. I decided to choose Omnicentric because I honestly could not figure out which body type I am… *gulp* 😦

I started the routine like I start almost everything; full gusto…The DVD’s come with a small pamphlet of food plan with menu items that would fill your appetite if you were a bird …a sparrow to be precise! It also comes with a pamphlet to track your progress (which I actually loved).

Tracy wants you to do 30 minutes of her dance routine followed by 30 minutes of the Transform DVD. Each Transform DVD has 3 unique workouts and is supposed to be completed in 30 days after which you move on to the next DVD and so forth. Here is my honest unequivocal review of her method.

Pros:

1) Dance Cardio: I really enjoyed the dance DVD the first few weeks. The first time I tried it I absolutely loved it. I was jumping around like a little girl in my living room and all the movement got my blood pumping and my mood elevated. The choreography is fun although difficult to follow at first, but Tracy does mention that if you cannot follow along you can freestyle it. I always believe that any exercise is better than no exercise and had no issues with free styling a large part of her moves. In the end, I was sweating like a dog and felt really happy almost euphoric.

2) Any exercise is better than no exercise. This is also true for Tracy’s method. Tracy wants you to get a combination of cardio and body transforming muscle conditioning exercises on a daily basis (6 days a week) in order to make the change happen. In that, it is pretty effective. Both the 30-minute dance and 30-minute muscular workouts got me sweating and my muscles exhausted. Her workouts are constantly changing which causes sufficient muscle confusion so you do not plateau and continue seeing results.

3) Muscular Transformation exercises are really good. This is not your typical High-Intensity Jillian Michael workout. These moves are mostly stationary done either standing or on your hands and knees. The focus is on intensity, repetition and muscle confusion. In just 30 days of working out to her routines, I did notice a definite muscle conditioning and my arms and legs felt stronger and looked more toned.

Cons:

1) Dance Routine: Now for the cons. While I loved her dance routine the first 2-3 weeks, I started to tire off within a month of the same dance routine. The idea of using the same routine for an additional 2 months was really wearing on me. I even tried muting her audio and playing my own numbers, but I do enjoy variety. Also by the 3rd week my knees were really starting to buckle and hurt and I needed a break.

2) Muscle definition Transform 2 DVD. Tracy is the queen of creating hard to follow exercises and really does not provide sufficient instructions during the routines. What’s more each week her workouts got not only harder but I feel: quicker and jerkier. What I mean is that she does not give you enough time to move from one sequence to the next, and I almost always ended up jerking my neck and back. I really did not enjoy her Transform DVD 2 and for a couple more weeks went back to her Transform 1.

3) Diet Plan: I cannot speak enough on how dangerous, amateur and irresponsible her meal plan is. The fact that I tried to follow it for a couple weeks is something I am really not proud of. To start with I was not doing her workout to lose weight but to tone up. Her meal plan assumes that you are either a sparrow or you are working out to lose tons of weight. The truth is even if you are trying to lose weight, if you are exercising as much as she wants you to, it is essential to give your body wholesome nutrition so it can sustain the new and strenuous exercise routine. Her meal plan clearly lacks detailed research. I felt it was loosely put together without making sure that you get a good combination of proteins, minerals, carbs and fat required to sustain a healthy body. In just 2 weeks of following her meal plan I lost 4 pounds (which I did not need to) but I also lost tons of hair (which I definitely did not want to). I have since thrown away her diet plan and continued eating a balanced diet consisting of plenty of fruits and vegetables.

Overview: Even though I only lasted on Tracy’s method for a Month and a half in all honesty her workout cannot be completely dissed. Her muscle-conditioning routines are good and you do feel the burn in a very short time. I would have continued with Tracy Anderson’s workouts if the moves weren’t too fast, jerky and complicated for me to follow. I am taking a break from her workouts and am instead doing Piloxing by Viveca Jenson which I absolutely love and will soon do a review of. In all honesty if you are able to follow Tracy’s moves you will see results but be prepared to be really patient and expect little instructions during the program.