Chalene vs. Tony: A Beachbody Showdown

Long time readers know that I lost a lot of weight, kept it off, and that I work out. If you aren’t familiar with the story, here’s Obligatory Diet Posts Part One and Part Two. 

I’ve done a lot of different workouts over the years. I change up either to stave off boredom, to get around a plateau, or to achieve a certain fitness goal. I’m still generally a fan of Joyce Vedral. I still recommend military workouts because they work and require almost nothing in the way of equipment. I’ve also done a few taped workouts. For example, there was this Denise Austin video that just made me have unhealthy thoughts about her continued well being. There was this somewhat harder Pilates video (I bought all the hype about Pilates being all about strong core without bulk, and I have a tendency towards bulk); at least I wished the trainers no violence. There’s a Tai Chi with Kickboxing workout featuring Janis Saffell and Scott Cole — he’s nice to look at! —  but the first time I tried to do it there were so many interruptions that I took it as A Sign. There was also Nancy Marmorat’s Daily Exercise Routine, which really wasn’t bad at all, especially for flexibility.

For a while, my exercise partner and I have discussed the idea of a hard-core boot-camp style workout such as Tony Horton’s P90X. You’ve seen the infomercial, right? Who doesn’t want to look like that! However, it’s hard to plan to devote 45-90 minutes a day for 90 days, and it was even harder to figure out where we could mount a chin-up bar or find space/equipment for both of us to work out at the same time. Luckily, Tony had a solution for us! 

We ordered 10 Minute Trainer last summer and started within days of receiving it. Yeah yeah it’s got an infomercial too. Each of the workouts is 10 minutes of actual work and probably 12-13 minutes of run-time (and another couple minutes of commercials for the other Beachbody products). Make no mistake, he works your butt off for 10 minutes, and yes I mean that literally. The workouts are Cardio, Abs, Lower Body, Total Body, and Yoga/Flex. All the equipment you really need is one of those resistance bands, (one is included) although a mat is also very good to have. You can do one, two, or three routines daily. We did 2 daily and were generally pleased with the results. 

Even so, it was time to rev things up.

Last week, we began ChaLEAN Extreme, from Tony’s colleague Chalene Johnson. Chalene’s thing is free weights, although the workouts can be done with bands. Specifically, the principle is to work the heck out of your muscles with relatively heavy weights such that you can only reasonably do 10-12 reps of any given exercise. It is a progressive, 90 day program that gives you roughly 2 days off per week. I like the integrated warm-up and cool-down. A group of 4 people show you a variety of skill/strength levels, including tips for those who aren’t very strong yet. There’s a mid-week interval training block that I suspect won’t be so bad once I’ve actually learned the moves (I found it rather awkward). The beginning level ab routine is a bit tame compared to Tony’s. There is an upgraded routine that I will probably sub in next week. I am pleased with how certain things are shaping up so far. Really, the weight routines are pretty good (with the universal caveat that you have to watch your own form).  [More]

However, I was sorely disappointed with the “Recharge” workout, described as “an invigorating flexibility workout.” Despite her claim at the beginning of the routine that flex is an important and often overlooked part of fitness, it feels like an afterthought. It is roughly 25 minutes long, but baby-steps of flexibility. She talks over and over about how many people have problems with stiff hamstrings, and then she does things  that are unlikely to make them more flexible — wrong stretch, too little time, too much movement. Several of the “modified” versions for the less flexible are completely ineffective if not actively counter-productive. Some of the yoga poses are not as I have ever seen them before. Chalene clearly doesn’t beleive there’s anything to yoga beyond some funny stretches. If this is your only stretching routine, you are unlikely get more flexible. 

Tony Horton said in the introductory materials to p90x that “[I’m not strong] because I do a bunch of pull-ups. I’m strong because I do yoga.” After we finished Chalene’s workout, we did Tony’s 10 minutes of yoga. It felt really good. 

*** UPDATE ***: I have gotten a personal reply from Chalene herself, recommending “Full Body Flexibility” by Jay Blahnik. Her stance on flexibility among the Joe and Jane Average crowd are reflected in this work. It is clear that the ChaLEAN Extreme flex workout is aimed at someone with more “average” flexibility, which is odd because I always considered myself something of a “Johnny Stiffguy”. As with the entire workout series, to get the best improvement you are going to need to push yourself as hard as you can every time you work out. While I will absolutely stick with the weight routines, I will probably go back to Tony for yoga. Also worth noting that 4 new routines are under development.

In Closing: oops, he had the wrong kind of anthrax after all; when it comes to health insurance “reform”, who do you trust?; contractors continue a 200+ year tradition of bilking the military and short-changing our troops; I am unclear how bankruptcy judges can really do their jobs if they can’t address the single biggest asset and debt the people before them have; how to merely sound Japanese; and Cat Sanctuary.