I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of Jillian Michaels. Her workouts are punishing and involve too many burpees and I’d rather do free weights than kettlebells any day. If you like her no judgment! Whatever works for you and keeps you coming back. I like my video trainers peppy and nice. (And yes probably easier than Michaels.) Michaels has that reality show on E!, Just Jillian, which wrapped in March and has not yet been renewed yet. So I’m not sure what she’s promoting here on the cover of Shape, but she does say a lot of great things about women getting strong and lifting weights.
On how exercise keeps her calm:
“Whenever I’ve had a rough day, I like to pour my frustrations into my workouts. Being a strong woman in a man’s world can make one want to knock a few people out, and this has always been the healthy outlet for the release of that aggression. After a workout like that, I feel so Zen and focused and ready to take on the world again from a calmer, cooler, more confident place.On how fitness trends have evolved over the past decade:
“I’ve watched the trend go from being all about the low-intensity fat-burning zone to crazy for HIIT. People are also moving away from machines and toward body-weight and free-weight training. Strong, not skinny, is now sexy, and long workouts are a thing of the past.”On designing routines for everyday exercisers (and herself):
“The best teacher is ultimately the best student. I train in different modalities so that each muscle is targeted twice a week, with two days of rest in between. So if I do a workout that’s focused mostly on ‘push’ muscles [triceps and those in the chest and front of the should] like yoga, I don’t train those muscles again for two days and instead focus on ‘pull’ muscles [traps, biceps and those in the back]. I also do HIIT in almost every workout to improve my VO₂ max and keep my metabolism cranking.”On the myth that lifting weights will make women “bigger”:
“On the contrary, [weight lifting] will help you amp up your metabolism, shed fat, and maintain lean muscle mass and strong bone density.”
Compare Jillian’s thoughts on strength training to the absolute b.s. which Tracy Anderson spouts about how spinning bulks you up or using heavy weights bulks you up. 1. It takes a lot to bulk women up and 2. Who cares? If this is “bulky” sign me up. Strong is the new sexy. Jillian’s workouts may not be my cup of tea but I cosign her message definitely. Also, I related a lot to what she said about working out. Maybe I should meditate or do yoga or something, but nothing I do day to day gets me more relaxed than exercising. I wrote that and then realized it’s not true. Taking a nap does.
Now that I see these photos from Shape maybe I should give Jillian’s workouts another chance. Damn.
photos credit: Don Flood/SHAPE Magazine
Jillian’s workouts have changed my relationship with exercise. They are easy to follow and challenging to complete, and work for Everywoman. Love her and her whole outlook.
Word. She’s happening.
You should try her No More Trouble Zones DVD. It has a dumb, fitness-bait name, but I’ve found it to be very effective and there’s not a single burpee in the whole thing!
Laura I tried to do her BeFit 30 Day Shred (Free on YouTube) and it practically starts with pushups. I can do a few, but spring them on me at the end!
I just started her circuit training DVD and must admit that it is difficult but it’s not overly insane……still hurt at the end but there is a recovery time between the next circuit training segment she has on the DVD. Nice cardio plus good muscle strengthening
I honestly love her 30 shred and am working on it right now. As a certified personal trainer, I decided to try a little experiment – the dvd has three levels, each are harder than the last. I’m working out at home for the next month, mon-fri with weekends of, but doing at least 1 outdoor activity with my boyfriend on either Saturday or Sunday. So this week I’m doing the first level exercise, next week I’m doing the second level, third week is the third level, then the forth week I’m alternating between the 3 exercises during the week. Push-ups do suck and so do burpees… But they work 😉
I listen to her podcast, and it sounds like her show has been canceled.
I think she gives out pretty solid advice, especially in comparison to a fraud like Anderson.
I don’t know anything about her. But, I agree on the strong not skinny. I lost a lot of weight over the past few years (I’ve regained some, of course), but while my initial aim was to lose weight and ‘be thin’ as I exercised I was more excited and inspired by watching my body become toned than I was by it becoming thin. I didn’t want to be skinny, I wanted to be strong and fit and healthy,
Her body is insane and SO inspirational! I haven’t tried any of her DVDs but it might be time.
“Whenever I’ve had a rough day, I like to pour my frustrations into my workouts.”
I WISH I did that. I usually throw my frustrations into furiously cleaning the house or more commonly, chocolate or a pint of ice cream.
I’m only replying to say your locs have really grown! I’ve since cut my locs 😥 and I don’t know what to do. I’m back doing the bald fad thing but I’m bored with it. I did the bald fad for years (and am really tired of it) before finally growing out enough hair to begin the loc process. So I’m stuck in that emotionally unsettled place of let it grow and start the loc process over versus cut it and just rock the tried, the true & old bald fade.😒
Hey Dena! I actually have a tapered fro that I’m growing out at the moment but in my profile pic I have Feeding Cornrows.
https://instagram.com/p/BAus8vhBhc2/
I’ve never had locs but I’ve thought about it multiple times. I would love to see a picture of your hair! I know you’re rocking the fade. Do you have an fb you link me to? I know all about being undecided when it comes to hair 😩
A good diet and JM DVDs have helped me develop abs in the past so I’m a believer. But I did always hate when she she focused on ‘getting into a smaller jeans and having a cute but’ during one of her earlier DVDs than actually being strong and developing muscles.
I bulk up easily if I don’t watch my diet. I ran and lifted and my legs and arms clearly bulk up if I’m consistent with the workouts. I have to eat very mindfully and incorporate more cardio than strenght to get that lean look.
It was recently in the news that a study showed that contestants on The Biggest Loser have destroyed their metabolisms. Most have gained their weight back and their metabolisms are half of that of people at the same weight who didn’t do extreme dieting and exercise. IMO, that really damages her credibility.
I think that’s a big part of why she left the show.
I think it’s more likely that they never had very good metabolisms in the first place (hence why they were so overweight) and they just reverted back into their old routines. Keeping up the strict diet and 8 hour a day workouts was always going to be impossible. The show was terribly unhealthy for the contestants. They were starving themselves for money. In 1000 years future humans will see the barbarity in that. Jillian did too, I think.
That was a fascinating study. They don’t really know if that happens to everyone who loses a lot of weight, though. Given that 2/3 of adult Americans are overweight or obese, we have this thriving dieting industry yet people really aren’t able to keep weight off, I wouldn’t be surprised if weight loss in itself causes permanent changes.
About 15 years ago I was put on a tricyclic antidepressant for pain management and it made me ravenous, and I gained 50 pounds. It took me 3 years to lose it and I’ve kept it off, but it’s a struggle. I barely eat anything.
There was this other show with one of the trainers of biggest loser, but the show only focused on 1 person for 1 year, sure they didn’t loose like 500 pounds in 2 months, but they did lose a good amount of weight to be healthy, but the focus was different it showed that losing weight and being healthy was constant work, they were changing habits in their lives, and acomodating exercise in their schedules and eating as healthy as they could. It was great.
There are some studies that suggest obesity either alters or exhibits different bacteria present in the gut in contrast to people with healthier weights. I seem to recall one or two studies done with mice that actually found transferring “good bacteria” into obese mice actually helped control their weight better. We’re only recently starting to realize how much our symbiotic microbiota influence our bodies, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that becomes more significant in the future.
I covered that study for my job. The two scientists I spoke to told me their metabolisms dropping likely had far more to do with a) the nutrition/calories they were receiving at the ranch compared with the way they used to eat before and the evolutionary response to store, store, store when your diet changes so rapidly and b) the disruptions of your hormone cycles that occurs when you never work out, and then start working out 3 hours per day, then ramp it up to 8 hours per day in only a few months.
If you’ve not worked out or eaten well in a long time, then go from zero to 60 in less than 3 months, your body revolts. It’s not the kettlebells or the yelling or whatever else she does. The environment they are in is a huge shock to their systems, and likely has far less to do with the trainers’ methods than the structure of the show. They’re trying to make hugely obese people become (and stay) a normal weight in under a year.
Be careful if you do try her workouts because many other experts say that the form she often teaches is wrong and can be dangerous. Like Tony Horton. He moves so quickly from pose to pose in his yoga workouts it puts people at risk for tearing something in their backs or legs should they try to workout like that on their own. I do think, though, that motherhood has softened Jillian. She was pretty horrible on the biggest loser, but she seems like a much better person these days.
What exactly is half of metabolism or full metabolism? She dodged the bullet when she left that poor show. I love her and her no nonsense attitude really works for me, but she is definitely an acquired taste
I love strength training and the reason why I crossfit instead of yoga or running or whatever is that it makes me feel so strong – I feel the focus on strength versus body size extremely liberating
Dont agree. As long as you set sexy to be “anything other than what you are”- you will not be sexy, but striving. And she doesnt look that different than most models to be entirely honest– still very skinny even if she has muscle instead. How many women can actually look like this? The minority— yet again.
Whenever someone declares SEXY to be strictly *this* or *that*, I want to smash something. There are so many ways to be sexy. I’m naturally slim, and I do an average of nine hours of pilates every week, so I’m toned as well. I feel strong, and I feel good about myself, and I don’t give a damn about if that makes me *sexy* in anyone’s book.
I have a friend who has a completely different body type, she’s voluptuous, and in all the right places. She works out, too, and yet she will never be slim, or overly toned. It’s just not her body type. Does she look *sexy* whenever she wants to? HELL, YES!
There are so many ways to be whatever. Just be yourself, take good care of yourself, don’t eat too much crap, be kind to yourself and others – and you’ll be happy, and probably not worry too much about whether or not you’re “sexy” according some completely random fashion of the moment. Sorry, pet peeve, and I’m fuming out of my ears already because of the madness that is Brexit and the media’s treatment of it.
I don’t think she’s making generalizations for everybody else, honestly. It reads more like she’s discussing the shift in terms of what exercise and body types are entering the mainstream beauty standard as the ideal. To that extent, I agree with her that the toned, athletic look is replacing the waifish model look that was more popular in the early 2000s.
I think you’re right, and I didn’t even mean Jillian Michaels specifically when I wrote that. I was trying to make a broader point, sorry if I didn’t formulate that clearly. I’m sick of “sexy” being defined as one thing, as if there were only one way, and the definition of that changing every couple of years on top of that.
That we can both agree on. 🙂
Strong itself is NOT sexy. But it can be, just as curvy and skinny can be both sexy, depending on one’s personal tastes. I’m so tired of being told what is sensual and what isn’t. Trends are senseless.
Strong is sexy. Curvy is sexy. Healthy is sexy by majority.
Mostly, it’s what makes YOU feel sexy. For me. It’s running that extra mile or being able to lift more weights than a previous week. It boosts my confidence and is imo sexy.
And it’s damn tough to put on bulky muscle. You have to breath that lifestyle. And for many ladies the definition isn’t too obvious unless their muscles are swollen from a recent workout. Short of that they just look a little toned, but not too strong until muscles are activated to that extreme.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that thing about the swelling as well. In the evening after my workout, I have a defined six-pack. The next morning, just a tad.
JustVisiting – I agree. Sexy is whatever you feel. Also, I use to body build and I can tell you that unless you actually want to be bulky, it isn’t going to happen. The work and dedication involved is absolutely insane and 99% of people are not going to want to go the distance with it. I no longer work out to that extreme but my daughter lives the lifestyle and I know what she is putting in for that.
I always love to go out the night of a good arm workout. The sleeveless thing looks so much better on me with a nice definition. Sure it’s mostly gone the next morning but it was great for the night.
Lol ladies! I’m guilty of lifting some free weights or hitting the gym before going out… it makes the difference.
I completely agree on the “sexy is how you feel best”. You girls are so lucky, muscles feel and look completely out of place on my very frail self, I mean, it makes me look like an overworked and starved out ballet dancer. I’m so much better off being skinny fat lol.
If you don’t think this woman is extremely thin, you’ve got an eating disorder.
To have the definition and stamina she has means she has to take in a large amount of calories. Not to be thin, but to maintain her muscle mass.
And she appears thin here because she’s sweating out water/salts while her muscle tissue is swelling with the blold. That causes the muscle to be more defined and push to the skin’s surface beyond the layer of fat that tends to cover.
After a boot camp class that is the same as what she’s doing in the photos I’ll look close to this. Next day though I’m hardly the same definition wise.
You need to understand how exercise and muscle mass impacts the body pretty and post workout to see how your statement is uninformed. Unless it’s just your opinion to think she looks healthy is to think we have body dysmorphia issues projecting.
Saw that mag yesterday at the salon. I got out my workout clothes. She looks fab!