My Tracy Anderson Method Review

I’ve been a long-time fan of Tracy Anderson.  I have so much respect for her as a pioneer in the fitness industry.  After doing a considerable amount of research, Tracy created her workout method as a combination of muscle work and cardio.  I’ve tried a lot of workouts in my life. Tracy’s program continues to resonate with me and my body, even as she’s evolved over the years.  Below, I break down my experience and results with the Tracy Anderson Method.

Tracy Anderson Metamorphosis

After being a newsletter subscriber for 2 years, I finally bought my first Tracy Anderson DVD set in 2012.  This was her newly launched Metamorphosis program. It had four different versions based on body type so customers could choose a workout tailored to their needs.  

The workout is an hour total: 30 minutes of dance cardio and 30 minutes of muscular structure work on a mat.  Each set contained 10 DVDs total, plus a measuring tape and food guide.  One of the DVDs was the dance cardio routine, while the other 9 were different variations of muscle work.  Tracy asks that you do each mat routine every day for 10 days before moving on to the next DVD.  This meant that in the whole set, you had 90 days of workouts.

I’ve been doing at-home workouts since I was 11. I was used to motivating myself at home, but I wasn’t used to Tracy’s style.  She doesn’t speak during the workouts, so you really have to follow along visually.  This is intentional, as she wants to workout our brains as well as our bodies.  The music, being affordably license-free, is not great.  Tracy also believes in muscle exhaustion, and most moves on the mat were repeated 40 times, which sometimes felt endless.  Also, because she doesn’t cue you, I found myself constantly checking the video to see when she would switch.

My first attempt at this program was not great.  I tried it as prescribed – one hour a day, 7 days a week. When that wasn’t sustainable, I pretty much gave up in the first 10 days and went back to alternating elliptical, yoga and ballet barre sessions four times a week.

I never followed the food guide so I can’t speak to that. I do know that Tracy has moved away from restrictive eating and now promotes a mostly whole food, organic diet.

Tracy Anderson: The Pregnancy Project

I got pregnant a year after Tracy had her second child, which was when she launched The Pregnancy Project.  She filmed it while pregnant, and offered a workout for each month of pregnancy.  

I loved the concept of this.  If I had committed to her program before becoming pregnant, I probably would have relied on this more.  I definitely incorporated The Pregnancy Project throughout both of my pregnancies. However, I felt more comfortable sticking to my elliptical/yoga/ballet barre routine because it’s what I (and my body) already knew best.

Tracy Anderson Post-Pregnancy I

After I had my first baby, I felt ready to workout after 2 weeks.  However, I was nursing on demand and couldn’t leave the house for any serious amount of time without my baby.  My cardio was pushing my baby in her stroller, but I was sick of my yoga and ballet barre DVDs. I was also kind of freaking out about my stomach.  That’s when I ordered Tracy Anderson’s Post Pregnancy I DVD.

This DVD was incredibly challenging when it came to the abs, but wow did I see results unlike anything else.  I did this about 4 times per week. People kept commenting that they couldn’t believe how my stomach went back like it did.  While some credit goes to being active before and throughout pregnancy, I’m positive this DVD was a major factor.

Tracy Anderson In Studio

As I was basking in the glow of finding my abs again, I got an email reminder from Gilt. Apparently, I’d purchased a bunch of steeply discounted classes at Tracy Anderson’s studio back when I was 8 months pregnant. (I probably bought this while eating a bowl of cereal on my giant belly and trying not to freak out about it.)

I took my first class when my daughter was 7 weeks old. It was tricky balancing the studio schedule with my nursing schedule.  The studio itself wasn’t close by, so I had to take a taxi each way.  Between that and feeling awkward in the classes, I didn’t buy a new package when mine ended. 

Tracy Anderson Metamorphosis (Round 2)

After deciding not to continue in the studio, I gave Metamorphosis another try.  After all, I loved Tracy’s actual method, just not the inconvenience of getting to the studio.  This time I approached her workout in my own way, committing to just 4 days a week.  I would do the same DVD for 2 weeks before moving on to the next mat workout.  

I did the mat workout before my daughter woke up and the dance cardio after she went to bed.  To keep it motivating, I muted the videos and played my own music.  On days where I got 10,000 steps, I skipped the dance cardio completely.  This created a version of the Tracy Anderson Method that was sustainable for me.  It still required hard work and dedication, but let me tell you, my body looked and felt incredible.

And then I got pregnant again 😂

Tracy Anderson Post Pregnancy II

After having my son, I found out Tracy came out with a second postpartum workout DVD.  Since I loved my results with the original, I immediately ordered it.  This is going to be a short review.  It wasn’t as good as the original.  My guess is someone advised Tracy to go gentler on the abs, and she listened.  

Tracy Anderson Method Streaming – Round 1

Around the time my midwife cleared me to workout again, Tracy launched her streaming program.  It was expensive, but not compared to how much I spent on a monthly gym membership plus boutique fitness classes.  I decided to give it a shot, but things went wrong pretty quickly.

First, I was still carrying extra weight from my pregnancy. Second, I wasn’t wearing supportive enough sneakers.  Third, and worst of all, I was dancing on the concrete floor of my basement. Our house is old and has creaky floors.  The basement is the only place I can dance around and not wake or annoy my entire family.

Long story short, I got achilles tendinitis and couldn’t do anything on my feet for several weeks.  I even had to buy Crocs just so I could walk!  Needless to say, I quit streaming.

Tracy Anderson Method Streaming – Round 2

In the years since, my husband bought me an elliptical machine, and I did my yoga teacher training.  I also taught ballet barre classes on the side here and there.  Towards the end of last year, I felt like my workout routine wasn’t challenging me enough.  I had this grand plan of spending 2022 doing all the different free trials out there to shake things up.  My intention I set at Yule is to get stronger, and my existing routine was keeping everything status quo.  

During the first free trial I tried (not naming names), I kept thinking how similar to Tracy Anderson it was…only less.  When that trial ended, I saw that Tracy was doing a 3-week free trial for her streaming.  I decided to give it a shot, and 2 months later, I’m still going strong.

Streaming has changed since I first tried it years ago.  The focus is now mostly on the muscular structure. You take a quiz to assess the appropriate level for you: beginner, intermediate or advanced.  I got intermediate, and the results were accurate.  I tried the other two levels to see, but the beginner wasn’t challenging enough, and the advanced was too crazy.  

There’s also elective content, which is where dance cardio now lives, along with other types of content.  This time around I wear very supportive sneakers. I now have a carpet plus 3 mats on top of my basement floors.  Since I’m mostly doing the muscular structure work, I’m not jumping around so much anyway.  

Just like I did in my second iteration of Metamorphosis, I make streaming work for me.  The “prescription” is 4-7 days of the muscular structure workouts on the mat.  While the beginner mat classes are around 30 minutes, the intermediate and advanced versions are an hour long.  Since 30 minutes works better for my schedule, I split the intermediate class into 30 minute blocks.  On weekend days, I might do the full class if I’m not pressed for time. I do this for 6 days in a row so I do the class at least 3 times total. On the 7th day, I pick something from the elective content as a palate cleanser. Then the new class for the week is posted, and I repeat my routine.

Who’s to say I won’t change what I do in the future? For now, I look forward to my workouts every morning.  I’m used to the method, and the music, though still license-free, is much better than in the DVDs.  Tracy also creates Spotify playlists to accompany her workouts, but I haven’t really bothered with those yet.  Even though there’s still no talking, a sound plays to cue the next move. My one critique is that sometimes the new content doesn’t launch on time each week. In that case, I keep repeating the class, or I go back to a Metamorphosis mat workout.

If you want to check it out for yourself, Tracy Anderson offers a 2-week free trial. The cost is $90/month. Save 25% by purchasing the year in full.