My Vitality Week with Tracy Anderson

Before I start on My My Vitality Week with Tracy Anderson, let me tell you about my journey with the Tracy Anderson Method (aka “TAM”) because it has been a long and very rewarding one. I started off doing her DVDs and webisodes, moved on to the her 4-year Metamaorphosis program and then transitioned into her online streaming offering a few years ago. My TAM habit has become a precious time that I carve out no matter what to connect with myself on a daily basis and I absolutely love everything about it. More on that here.

Last week, I got to do what most “TAMmers” dream of doing at least once in their lifetime: attend a Vitality Week with the butt-lifting fairy ninja herself. It was in London – the first one outside the US – and brought together over 60 TAM aficionados from around the world, ranging from beginners to more advanced. There were even a few from the UAE!

Verdict
It was amazing. The classes were a bit too full, but I loved working out with her – as committed as I am to her online program, nothing beats doing it alongside the master herself. I also don’t think I have ever been in a room with such a high concentration of positive, supportive, strong women in my life. No joke, we all felt like we knew one another already and had each other’s backs.

What is the format?
It lasted 4 days. Every day we got a one-hour lecture/Q&A followed by an almost 2-hour workout. The latter is a long version of her Master Class, which she streams online every week: a dynamic standing arms choreography and a variety of weight-bearing mat-based exercises that challenge mind and body.

What’s she like?
A girl’s best friend. Really. She’s one of us. She wants to help women overcome their challenges and that totally transpired when she did the lectures. She’s not arrogant, fake, cold or anything like that. She’s not “too” smiley-friendly either. There is this honest, raw and uncensored quality about Tracy that’s refreshing and inspiring. And she’s kind of funny too.

The workouts
They were long versions of her Master Classes, as described above. Depending on your fitness level and experience with the method, you may need to slow down or take breaks but they’re do-able. I was ok with the workouts themselves, but the heat was insane – even coming from Dubai – and seriously made the workout extremely challenging. More on that later.

The lectures
The lectures were mostly in a Q&A format. Questions varied a lot. From women who’ve just had kids and don’t know where to start to others who have had surgeries and need to adapt certain moves. Regardless the topic though, she almost always answered in a very holistic way – and I found that interesting. Here are some of the points that were covered I found of interest to those of you who are familiar to the method. If you aren’t and have other questions, let me know!

What’s with the heat and humidity?
As far as TA is concerned, if you are working out alone at home, you need to be able to get your room to 99/100 F heat and 70% humidity. Get drenched in the first half of the class, then let some air in.

Why? It’s not to rid you of toxins as we might think. Sure, muscles are easier to work with in a warm environment, but that’s not the main reason either: she wants us to get out of our comfort zone. We live too comfortably these days with cars, AC, internet, TV, etc and have become denatured. Our bodies are meant to survive elements way past what we put them through physically. We are meant to be able to turn on functions in our brain to make us adapt to different conditions. That’s why she greatly enhances the workouts with heat and humidity. They are also there to make us feel so uncomfortable and challenged that we force our brains to become absolutely focused on what we’re doing.  It’s also why she puts the music so loud: she doesn’t want you to be thinking about your long to-do list, stressful boss, the cable bill you forgot to pay or emails you need to send. It’s about focusing on connecting your mind to your body in the moment. As she said, “it’s her job” to make sure we do that during our workouts, which is why she insists on extreme heat and blasting Eminem. These are essential elements to the workout experience – and she really tries to make sure you get them at Vitality Week.

Note: she also did mention you had to listen to your body. So when the heats gets so overwhelming that you lose that focus and start flapping your arms and legs without intent, that’s when you need to open that door and/or get some fresh air in. Always stay in that sweet spot where you are focused and performing.

Being loose like an animal
Actually that was my question: I have decent form when doing mat moves, but when it comes to dancing and standing arm choreographies where the head swings side to side and the shoulders shimmy, I curse my upper body stiffness. She had a really good answer I wish I had videotaped, but here are some of the things she said: we need to be able to get in control and let go of it too. She doesn’t know how we are in life, how much we take on, what makes us uptight, etc. but to get physically comfortable moving loosely and expressively the way Beyoncé or Justin Timberlake do, we need to give ourselves the permission slip to get loose. Something we’ve experienced (past sports, other lanes in our lives or aspects of our behavior) may have taught us not to, but we can: our brain knows how to command those types of movements, we just need to let go. It may also mean getting to the root of different things that cause tension and fear. It’s about “bringing your emotions to your physicality” and being expressive with them. Tapping into your adrenaline when necessary is going to make you an animal in terms of calorie burning, regeneration, fighting disease, being able to take on things that are thrown at you, etc. x

Muscular balance: it’s like learning languages
She said this a couple of times over the course of 4 days: if you want to learn French, you practice it every day. If you do Spanish on Monday, Italian on Tuesday, Mandarin on Wednesday and French on Thursday, you won’t learn it. Same with exercise. If your objective is to have a balanced muscular structure, don’t bike one day, swim the next day, run on the third day and play tennis on the fifth day because that’s going to challenge a lot of the same muscles. If you love biking, then love the legs you get from it. If you don’t, then move in ways that give you the leg shape you want. Period. Of course, you can still bike or run, but see them as daily activities, not as exercises that are focused on designing a balanced muscular structure.

Don’t try to be something you’re not
She says this a lot. Don’t wish for some super star’s butt, legs or abs. Aim for the most balanced version of you.

The sweet spot between the cardio, mat work and diet?
This is another topic that came up a lot. Here are some of the key points: unless you need to lose weight, you don’t need to do daily cardio, it’s the muscular structure that’s key. She loves the dance aerobics and does it from time to time to maintain cardio strength but at 42, feels like an hour Master Class is enough on most days. Finding the sweet spot is trial and error. Also, you have to have a growth mindset and be willing to change the formula within the method from time to time. Say that you do the MC and then an hour of cardio every day, you could end up gaining weight for various reasons (you get a bigger appetite, hormonal changes, etc), in which case it you should reduce it.

You have to be in tune with your body and different moments and cycles in your life. Too little exercise causes accelerated aging, too much exercises also causes accelerated aging. When you shift and change, don’t freak out because of the “the vanity threat”, ask yourself questions (what’s my eating these days, what have I been doing, is it the time of the month, etc), be honest with your answers and adapt your diet and exercise.

Streaming vs DVDs: where does one start
Overall, she seemed to encourage streaming because it’s the real thing: her giving a class. No editing, she’s sweaty, her hair is a mess and you get as close as possible to the studio experience.

She doesn’t believe in doing one-off DVDs for too long. She creates these DVDs so she can engage with someone who wants to lose weight and might not feel ready for streaming. They are designed with strategy but people then need to move on to something else, they can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. That’s why she went on to do Perfect Design Series, Metamorphosis, and Streaming.  All her programs have a strategy, but she doesn’t advise anyone to hop onto a different TAM workout every day. Pick a program and stick with it.

Where streaming is concerned, she also encouraged to do the Master Class if you can – Beginners streaming is more for people who have had injuries, are very overweight, or who need to build more strength, coordination and endurance.

Teens, body image
One mother in the audience asked about how to deal with teens who struggle with body image. Needless to say, being a mom and ex-teenager who had body image issues, Tracy had my full attention on this. Especially since she is writing a book for teens as we speak. In brief, these were some of her thoughts: It is important to set a healthy example for kids on how to take care of their health as they build their identity. Their minds are developing, you need to make sure you send the right messages: how you behave, what you do, what you say. I loved the way she put it: “They need to see you feel beautiful in your own skin in ways that are really natural”. She went on to say that In this day and age, it is so easy to have a really distorted understanding of what beauty is. In her opinion, someone who takes charge of themselves is more beautiful, accomplishing things to become healthier is beautiful, and this is what we should teach our kids. So if your teen says “Mom I’m fat” when really she isn’t overweight, she said you need to take it in and understand why she feels this way. You can mention the fact that on her last physical, the doctor said she was in a healthy zone – you need to approach it from a place of health, not vanity. If she doesn’t like what she looks like, try to untangle that and understand where it comes from. Also, If their idea of beauty is one size, one age, one type of look then give them exposure to a bigger variety when it comes to entertainment, cinema, music. Let them listen to Selena Gomez, but also allow them to discover Tchaikovsky, so that they can put things into perspective.

Is she a guru?
She doesn’t like being referred to as a guru. I think many of us TAMmers tend to think she knows everything about health and fitness. Yes, she is an absolute expert in terms of muscles, muscle design, movement and getting a balanced body. She also continuously researches many other key topics like nutrition or hormones because it’s all connected. However, throughout the 4 days, it seemed pretty clear to me that as much as she may know about them, she prefers to focus on her mission of helping women achieve their physically most balanced selves. She will address nutrition and hormones to the extent that they contribute to achieving that objective, but doesn’t hesitate to refer to specialists when necessary. In fact, she believes it’s crucial to have good doctors your trust, and although she is all about self-education, she does not believe in auto-medicating yourself, using supplements without supervision or anything like that. The one piece of general advice that came up often however was to make sure you are having honest conversations with yourself, make sure your goals are aligned with what you do. Don’t drink every kool-aid out there on the market and fool yourself into thinking they will solve your wellness issues.

Interested?
If you already do her method, I strongly suggest you do one of her Vitality Weeks, it will really give you a better sense of how to approach your workouts and give you a good dose of inspiration. If you have never done her method but are looking to get as balanced a body as you possibly can, then definitely try one of her DVDs or her online streaming program. You can also go on Instagram and search for the #tamily or #tracyandersonmethod hashtags. You will see lots of examples of the moves she includes in her method and find heaps of inspiration!