Tracy Anderson is awful. I don’t know how else to say it. No one should listen to what she has to say about anything. She’s making it up as she goes along. She lies. She judges the sh-t out of anyone who doesn’t eat, exercise and live the way she expects them to. She’s rude and petty to her clients. She’s close-minded about any form of exercise that isn’t her “Method.” In past interviews, she’s thrown shade at yoga enthusiasts and she’s trashed cycling, the elliptical and running. She also bitched about those of us who enjoy walking, saying: “Now, I’m not knocking any level of showing up, but I think many people are stuck in preschool with their bodies. Going for a walk is like going to preschool—but you could go to college, you could get your master’s degree.” As in, walking is for children. The Tracy Anderson Method is grad school. Well, now Tracy is saying different words. For some reason.
“I always approve walking as a really great cardiovascular workout to do,” fitness expert Tracy Anderson, who has trained Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow, tells PEOPLE. “It’s something that people think is for the aging crowd or that it’s not really aggressive enough, and I completely disagree with that. It’s a really responsible form of exercise.”
“One of the great things about walking is that it’s something that almost everybody can do,” she says. “It’s something that is very healthy because it doesn’t have harsh impact on your joints. And even though you are doing the same movement over and over, you can change your speed, you can change your stride, you can change all different things to keep yourself engaged.”
“You burn less calories running than walking if you aren’t able to run for very long or run very well,” says Anderson. “To really be effective and calorie-burning, you have to be able to work your body to where it’s working up a sweat, where it’s pushing into that zone of actually being optimized to be effective in the calorie-burning range, so it’s much better to go for a long and powerful walk than it is to go for a short run.”
Yeah, I love how this bitch is now acting like she invented walking when just a few months ago, she was calling walking-enthusiasts “pre-schoolers.” She’s such an a—hole. I’m a walker – walking is a big part of my workouts, and it’s because compared to running (which I hate), it’s less wear-and-tear on my ankles, knees and feet. You have to walk uphill (my go-to incline is 6.5, because that’s what is comfortable for me) and you have to walk at a good pace, but walking is extremely beneficial. I wish Tracy didn’t talk about it like she invented it. I wish she didn’t talk about it like she’s always promoted walking.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
You could have ended the headline at Tracy Anderson lies.
and finished the article with “I wish Tracy didn’t talk.”
Don’t we all.
Amen. As for why, what do you want to bet she has a line of walking shoes coming out? Or a treadmill video? There is some monetary reason she is doing this.
You’re probably right.
However in and of itself I don’t see a problem in the apparent contradiction in what she’s said. I think a lot of people say apparently contradictory things at times. Depending on the day, what’s on my mind at the time, who the audience is, etc. There are a lot of factors that influence the direction we go in with speech content. It’s plausible to me that she both encourages walking and also sees it as far from adequate in certain cases
That’s exactly what I was thinking. There’s some kind of Tracy Anderson Walking program about to come out.
She has a new line of protein bars advertised in the latest Target ad ( I think it was Target).
LOL a treadmill video!
and her cold, 1000 yard stare
Beware someone that tells you over and over again that they’re the only one that can help you, if you just pay them a lot of money.
I’m not a fashion hound. But lawdy is that pink dress in the top picture awful. It’s like an ill-fitting Barbie costume!
You are too nice really; it looks like an ultra-cheap night gown to me.
Also, did something happen to her nose?
It IS a nightgown. Looks just like one I used to have.
Personally I love it, but I always love when Barbie dresses are made in real life….
However I agree that it does not flatter her. Have to see the whole look though, head to toe….
It’s an awful dress and the way the ribbons are positioned behind her makes it look like the straps are tied with bows.
Pink is not her color. Also her number one client Gwyneth is not her friend if she continuously lets Tracy show up to events in lacy, nylon undergarments.
Tracy’s whole look is very Donna Martin
YES! So Donna Martin and that is never ever a good look!
Tracy Anderson graduates!
I could have said Vioelt Bickerstaf but that would have been too mean
I never understand why people like Tracy assume that there is only one method of working out. I love to walk and run as an exercise. And I see the biggest difference in my body when I do that. I’ve taken yoga and barre classes and HATED them. But, some women loves those classes and swear by them. We all do what is best for us.
Exactly. The only way most people will exercise long term is to find the activities that they enjoy. And being active and feeling good is the whole point, not working out to look a certain way using someone’s patented method.
One of the teachers in my Doctor of Naturopathy program is fond of saying, “Find your FSA and do it!” FSA = Fun Sweaty Activity
That teacher likes playing field hockey and he does it 4 – 5 times a week. I like being outside (even if it’s raining, cold, etc.) which is why I enjoy running. I take my dog for walks. I like it, which means I’m going to do it.
Some people like swimming, some yoga, some playing basketball. Find your FSW and just do it!
They don’t. But she’s promoting her particular workouts. Just like Insanity and PX90 videos are full of ‘if you want to see results you have to do this’ talk and lifting trainers will talk up lifting and talk down anything beyond basic cardio. They’re talking to their audience, and their audience obviously wants the particular results their workouts give otherwise they’d have chosen something else. Tracy’s thing is getting a dancers body, so her comments assume that’s what you want too. Just like a yoga teacher will assume you want more flexibility and a cardio trainer will assume you want to be able to run faster and longer.
Shut uuuup! This is the type of half-truth that drives me mad. Of course an hour of running is far more effective (for a runner, not a beginner) than an hour of walking. But if your goal is to burn calories (and my understanding of this woman is that this is her main goal), walking the same distance can also burn a LOT of calories. Also, a short run with sprints (or trail running) is not less effective than a long walk. WHAT? It all depends on distance, intensity, your overall fitness, your weight etc. For a fit person or a runner, a 45 min walk is a nice addition. I personally love it on my days when I don’t run. Super relaxing. It won’t, however, replace a proper run.
I don’t know why I’m bothering. People here know this. It’s this hack who seems to not know a damn thing.
Yup! It’s so common-sense, right? While I am always thrilled about any positive promotion for walking as a “legitimate” form of exercise, Anderson doesn’t deserve any credit here. I’ll say this – sometimes during the week I’ll run a 10k and 5k during the week, and then do a 15k weekend walk. The walk, combined with errands, coffee breaks, and carrying home purchases, is often far more tiring than either run. Walking around the city was the way I got back into fitness after years of being far too sedentary, and I wish it were the first form of exercise people tried rather than running. Running’s great, but you’ve got to build up your base fitness for it to be enjoyable!
Walking only burns about half the calories of running. For a couple of reasons:
When you run, the takeoff is a plyo movement and the explosive movement by nature burns more calories.
Folks also don’t tend to walk very briskly.
That said, if walking is what floats someone’s boat, then more power to them. If that’s what they enjoy and that’s what inspires them to move, that’s what’s important. There is no ‘one’ way to exercise, for goodness sake.
I live. In live in urban area and work in NYC and walk for exercise and my daily errands(dry cleaning, supermarket…) i opt for stairs over elevator when I can. I never gain weight. My doctors said I have an incredible heart, heart rate, cholesterol….
My grandma walked everywhere and died in her 90s.Tracey welcome to a concept that has helped people through time…. walking!
She is so, um, strange looking.
No neck AND no torso. Like a troll doll. Yes I body shamed her -,because she’s a liar.
I honestly feel sorry for her because she has a head stuck on top of shoulders, no neck at all. And that’s something she can never change. I think she’s aware of it and tries to pose accordingly (look at her neck tendons, she’s sucking in and lifting her chin at the same time). Bottom line, she can’t improve that feature and it probably drives her crazy.
She has always talked about walking, in her first book she says pretty much exactly what she says here. But walking won’t do a whole lot to change your body unless you’re starting from a very high weight, you have to do more to see obvious results. That was her point, not that walking is only for children, but that you can’t expect it to work wonders. If you want anything more than basic fitness and to be a comfortable weight, you’ll have to do something else as well.
As for judging, her job is to figure out clients trouble areas and work on them. That’s literally what they pay her for, customising a workout for their specific body. If she just said ‘you’re great as you are’ she’d be incompetent. She takes clients like Kim Kardashian and Lena Dunham and is happy to connect them with her brand even though they don’t show anything like the results someone like GOOP does. She’s not judgy about food, she’s been overweight and she still eats a lot of junk. Her pregnancy and post-pregnancy DVDs are by far the least demanding I’ve come across, there’s no crass ‘get back in your skinny jeans immediately’ talk.
She talks some crap while trying to pretend her workout is more complicated than it is, but other than that she’s really not that bad. Someone like Jillian Michaels is way judgier about what you put in your mouth, and way meaner about it all.
Yes, that’s what I thought she was saying the first time. She wasn’t dissing people for walking, when she said preschoolers she was obviously comparing it to the more advanced exercise routines she gets paid to teach. I don’t mind staying in preschool myself. They have cookies and naps….
I totally agree with everything you said. I have her post-natal dvd and another one and she’s very warm and non-judgemental.
Totally agree Kate – I don’t get all the negativity… I have lots of her DVD’s and when I do them and watch what I eat the results are amazing. Since having a baby, I am that woman that cannot lose the last 10 pounds. If I follow Tracy’s workouts I can (though I tend to yo yo) but if I walk, uhm no, it’s not enough to get me truly lean and in shape.
Here is my thing about her: her message always changes depending on who she is talking to. In one of her books she said running makes your leg muscles too big and too muscular. Then she says walking is for preschool, then she says it is fine.
She changes her diet advice like crazy too -she was pro- juicing, then pro baby food, now is all low carb. Why trust her?
Tracy advocates for a very specific body type, and speaks publicly about that a lot and sends a pretty negative message. No thanks.
Every trainer does. She likes the dancer’s body so promotes a workout that’ll give you that. Trainers who are into lifting will promote that and eschew cardio, and vice versa. Pilates trainers, yoga trainers, martial arts trainers…they all have an end result they prefer.
If you have different goals she’s obviously not the trainer for you, just like a lifting trainer isn’t for someone who wants a runners body.
Her head is disproportionally large.
Possibly because it’s stuffed with so much bullshit.
Ha! Great comment!
I love walking. It’s my main form if exercise and I’m 28! I only do low impact: walking, swimming, Pilates, gentle yoga, paddling. You have to do what works for your own body! I physically can’t hop on the trend of cross fit or lift weights. I get very hurt. But power to those who can! To each his own.
I lost so much weight just by walking more and using my car less that I started depending on it as my exercise, and I haven’t looked back
You know those people who really long to be seen as “experts”, but they have only accumulated enough knowledge to make themselves somewhat dangerous? So when they speak, they try to use a whole lot of buzzwords to convince everyone they know what they’re talking about? That’s exactly what I thought of when I heard the Tracysplain version of cardiovascular physiology: “To really be effective and calorie-burning, you have to be able to work your body to where it’s working up a sweat, where it’s pushing into that zone of actually being optimized to be effective in the calorie-burning range…” And every exercise physiologist (who are truly scientists, mind you) had the eyes-rolled-so-hard-they-got-a-headache moment. Just like in almost every industry, the glamorous blowhards like Tracy get to take credit for the scientific breakthroughs that were actually discovered by the sweat and tears of the not-so-glamorous scientists. And people pay good money to these blowhards, because they are uneducated themselves.
Preach.
Reminds me of Jessica Alba and her toxins. Or Goop and her toxins. All these celebs with their organic/natural skincare crap and their toxins. These half-truths drive me crazy. I want to see a degree. Does Tracy have a degree in anything? I’m not saying people can’t be self-taught or that experience isn’t worth something. But this woman. Ugh. As soon as a personal trainer tries to tell me, a woman, that I need to be careful not to build unattractive muscle mass? Bye.
Exactly! I know a woman (cyber-know, fortunately I have never had to meet her in person) who had gastric sleeve surgery…80% of her stomach permanently removed…and somehow that turned her into an expert in nutrition. Pretty much everything she advocates is complete bullshit, and considering she is a veterinarian, she should have enough knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and nutrition to know that it was all bullshit. But she thinks she’s an expert, and she bullies anyone who disagrees with her.
I am LOLing so hard at the muffin top/underwear line in the second pink dress. I bet that just kills her 😂. Hehe, Tracy, maybe you are human after all.
Oh lord, what is she peddling now?
This woman clearly has self esteem issues. If she’s abusive to her clients, I can’t imagine what she says to herself. I’m a runner (I never thought I would be) and I actually enjoy it. I see people out walking all the times during my runs. Walking is a great workout. She just needs to have a seat and people need to stop giving this woman a platform to spew her “advice” A personal trainer is supposed to work with you and tailor your workouts according to your level. I would never pay this woman a dime. I’m a size 6 so I’m sure she would think I’m a fat pig.
I googled her and she’s “leading” a 5k walk at the end of September in LA. No wonder she’s fine with walking now. Ugh!
My friend was a fitness instructor like Tracy. She was stronger, faster, and seemed more energetic than anyone, male or female. Her diet was really ‘clean’ too.
Then she realized she actually had an eating disorder. No one knew, not even her husband. She realized she had been making her kids eat gluten free, dairy free and sugar free because she was scared of those foods making them fat.
It was interesting, she told me that if a husband did 2-4 hours of exercise every day, in addition to being a dad and working a desk job, you’d think that was a little weird. But she was a mom, had kids, a part time desk job, and also did hours of fitness classes almost every day for decades and she just thought that was normal, just like Tracy I am guessing.
she said the gym was the perfect place to hide her disorder, because everyone else was always on a diet and obsessed with working out and convinced they are fat even when they are not.
Made me look at gyms in a whole new light, and wonder about Tracy too…
I sort of get what she’s saying about walking is pre-school. I don’t think she’s saying it’s not effective, I think she’s saying it’s a beginning and eventually you can/should move into harder workouts. But she’s also a liar and a hack.
I hate walking, it bores the crap out of me, yet I love the elliptical and will stay on it for an hour. No idea what the difference is, I’m still stuck on machine going no where.
Can someone tell me if that’s a spray tan she’s got on? I feel as if I’m looking at some hoo-boy level sun damage. If that’s the case, I’ll pass on anything else she has to say about how to keep yourself healthy, because if melanoma hits you, well–enough said, I guess.
Brisk walks instead of running are my preferred form of exercise. I’m over 50 and if I can work up a good sweat 4-5 times a week for ca. 30 min, it’s quite sufficient for me. It’s definitely less traumatic for your knees, particularly if you’re carrying a few extra pounds. With the help of walking and a diet of ca. 1300-1400 calories per day, I lost over 20 lbs. since the end of May. Slowly but surely. No need for fancy exercise classes or personal trainers. You have to find what works for you and just stick with it.
Tracy looks like crap.She needs to be quiet.
Those who can’t Do,
Teach
Is she trans?
Uggggh. Tracy Anderson is the Donald trump of exercise.