This must be how some people feel about Tony Horton and Jillian Michaels (they both have their critics from a personality standpoint–people find them irritating, but I don’t). Before I get into anymore information on the program, I want to give my opinion of Sagi and the program in general. So he has the background for this program. He has a degree in fitness and nutrition, and has trained bodybuilders. Sagi is a real body builder who has won bodybuilding competitions in Israel (he is Israeli). I actually did 3 fitness programs simultaneously, with Body Beast being the core rotation, Weider Ruthless supplementing to round my workouts out to an hour and I followed the PiYo rotation in the afternoons as my doubles workout. Finally, his workouts are shorter than what I am accustomed to, so at different times I added some additional “add-ons” to round my morning workouts to an hour. I will post my rotation below, which will show what I added on and where. Sagi does not stretch you out very much, so I do feel more was necessary. I also don’t normally spend the amount of time I think I should on yoga/ flexibility, so since this program is so focused on strength training, I decided to give flexibility more focus. So I kept my cardio sessions short–30 minutes or less and of the HIIT variety. I did try to stay true to the idea of Body Beast by doing less cardio than I am accustomed to doing, but still–once a week is just inadequate for me. I did the Lean Rotation but I also supplemented it with additional cardio and yoga/stretching. In the Huge rotation you only use it in the final 3 weeks. There is one cardio workout in the entire program and you use it once a week in most of the Lean rotation (twice a week during the last month). I didn’t gain or lose any weight, but I did build significant muscle.īody Beast comes with two rotation calendars–Lean and Huge. And in the end I was successful for the most part. I always try eat adequate protein, but I still tend to eat a lot of carbs so leaning my diet even more toward protein without eating excessive calories was no fun.
It is something of a balancing act which I did not particularly enjoy. However, that does not mean you need to eat excessive calories (unless you are trying to bulk up–which most women are not!), but do eat at maintenance level and make sure you eat plenty of protein and good carbs so your body builds lean muscle mass and pulls energy from carbs and body fat rather than muscle tissue. You also do not want to cut calories to a weight loss level–otherwise your body will catebolize your muscle tissue. You need adequate protein so your muscles will repair themselves and adequate good carbs (as in not refined/processed/sugar carbs) to power you through these workouts. In addition, there is little point in doing a program such as this without also doing the work in the kitchen and I do not mean that from a weight loss point-of-view (as in cutting calories so you actually lose weight rather than expecting exercise alone to do all the magic) but from a muscle building perspective. I am not a Beachbody “coach” so I’m not all about pushing Beachbody products. Now, of course, Beachbody offers their brand of supplements to use with this program (a whole line of them!), but you don’t have to buy them from Beachbody and you certainly don’t need the vast amount of supplements they recommend. Now, supplementation isn’t essential, but if you are trying to build muscle, drinking a daily protein shake (ideally after your workout) that includes BCAAs (Branch Chain Amino Acids) should be included. Additionally, the program requires supplementation. He always has two crew members with him and one of them will always be doing the “limited equipment” option. If you don’t, you can substitute a stability ball (and sometimes a chair when a stable surface is required) for the bench, resistance bands for the pull up bar and just use dumbbells when the barbell is used.
If you have a weight bench, barbell and pull up bar then you have everything you need. Now, more than that is needed but you have choices.
What do you need for this program? Required is a variety of dumbbells. There are also 3 bonus workouts: the Tempo DVD which contains two additional workouts and the Lucky 7 DVD, which contains a 23 minute total body metabolic strength workout. The base system contains 12 workouts, a workout/nutrition guide and workout calendar. Beachbody’s website describes it as the most advanced, muscle defining, resistance training program designed to get you completely ripped and chiseled in just 90 days. First, what is Body Beast?īody Beast is a Beachbody Fitness Program. I’m doing the entire program, so this review will not post until I am finished. My review posts have slowed down, but that is because I have been doing the Body Beast program.