Is your gym a grueling 30 minutes in traffic from your home? I just wish you could do the workout at home and still get the same results.
A promising idea and the trainers over at Beachbody have supposedly designed the perfect at-home workout plan (Just Bring Your Body) – or have they?
About the Creators
Carmel Rodriguez
Hailing from Vancouver, Canada, Carmel Rodriguez is one of the leading fitness influencers and models in her field of expertise. She’s been featured on Instagram’s Top 10 New Female Fitness Gurus (New York Observer).
She’s also a big advocate of working hard for the results you want and doesn’t love the idea of complaining about something you didn’t work for.
Scott Mathison
Scott Mathison is actually a calisthenics expert, the training style that requires only your body weight as resistance. This makes him ideal for helping design this kind of plan, and his more than 10 years of training and coaching experience will come in handy.
Julian Daigre
Julian Daigre is a fitness influencer and coach. She specializes in bodyweight workouts and aims to create an environment of sustainable fitness. She’s also quite popular on social media for her energy and enthusiasm.
Ryan Tremaine Klarenbach
Ryan is actually – first and foremost – not a fitness personality. He’s actually a stunt performer and has worked on films like Snake Eyes and Black Adam. That said, he’s still incredibly athletic and fit, which makes him perfect for this plan.
Just Bring Your Body Overview
As mentioned before, Just Bring Your Body is 100% a bodyweight workout program, similar to Joel Freeman’s Core de Force. That means no weights, no bands, no nothing – anyone else getting flashbacks to lockdown?
- Fitness level: Intermediate
- Duration: 60 days
- Workouts per week: 5 workouts per week
- Average workout duration: 30 minutes
- Equipment needed: No equipment
- Goal: Lose weight
While you’ll “only” be doing bodyweight workouts, you’ll be incorporating various training methods – such as plyometrics, calisthenics, and martial arts. The way they’re able to do this is by using all the coaches they have.
Each coach will have one session per week, while one coach will have two. They’ll use their own experience in their respective field to create a fun and dynamic workout that’ll keep you engaged.
Just Bring Your Body Program Details
The 5 workouts of the week will take place from Monday through Friday, and weekends will be used as rest days. This might not be the best option for recovery, although it might be pretty good for adherence.
Strength From Bodyweight?
Ask anyone what strength training looks like, and they’re more likely to gesture toward the 300lbs powerlifter taking a nap between 1000lb squats rather than the person doing bodyweight exercises. That said, the creators of this plan are adamant you can gain strength from this plan.
Right off the bat, the fact that you don’t have equipment makes it a lot harder. In some of the strength-based workouts, like the “Strength and Balance” series, you’ll be challenged, however.
They’ll challenge you by using various lifting techniques to make reps and sets a lot harder than they are:
- Tempos: By creating a longer concentric, eccentric, or isometric part of the lift, you make it sufficiently harder. There’s also actually some evidence that a longer eccentric might be beneficial for muscle growth, so good on them for using this technique.
- Supersets: By combining different kinds of movements into one superset, you increase the amount of fatigue you’ll experience. This could allow you to contact the higher threshold motor neurons, allowing for more muscle growth.
- Compounds: Instead of just doing a pushup, you’d do a walkout from a standing position (trains the abs) into a Judo pushup. This, obviously, makes the movement a lot harder.
Overall, these are pretty effective ways of increasing strength. Is it the best? No, a hard and well-rounded no. You have to practice progressive overload, and since you can’t change the load with bodyweight training, it’s not the best – but still effective.
More About the Workouts
Some of the other JBYB workouts are definitely more conventional when it comes to bodyweight training. The Ladder Cardio workouts will include some higher-intensity movements that’ll have you moving and/or jumping in one place.
That said, the cardio training days do change. They make a great effort to keep things interesting by introducing some fun cardio methods, such as:
- HIIT with a focus on core development
- Tabata training with a focus on cardio
- MMA cardio training, which obviously includes a lot of shadowboxing
- Timed cardio, which, as the name suggests, would be done within time intervals
Now, the strength-based workouts do get repetitive. You only have so many movements you can do without equipment. So you’ll have to purchase some weights (i.e., dumbbells or an Olympic set) or bands at some point to really start increasing strength past your current level.
The body needs more resistance as you build more muscle. You need mechanical tension for muscle growth to occur, and if you never increase the resistance profile, you’re never going to be able to grow optimally.
Unfortunately, apart from the workout videos, there’s really nothing else in this plan. There’s no mention of changes you can make in your daily life to live healthier and no mention of healthy eating. This is quite disappointing, especially when you have four coaches…
A little bit more than just bodyweight workouts would be great, sort of like Shaun Week. Measurement tips, health tips, diet advice, really anything more than just the bare minimum.
4 Beachbody’s Just Bring Your Body Pros
- It’s not overwhelming: It’s a very straightforward workout plan. You get a video with every workout (no written copy, which sucks), and that’s it. No fuss, no equipment needed.
- Engaging: Because there are various trainers all bringing their own training style and lifting techniques, the plan doesn’t appear to get stale at all.
- Improves more than just strength: While the change in body composition will certainly depend on your diet, there’s a decent amount of cardio and core training here. Both of these are great for overall health.
- Beginners could do this: While they say this plan is for intermediates, it’s actually very approachable. The workouts aren’t that hard, and most people would be able to do some of them. The harder bodyweight movements might be a little too much, but overall, it’s very achievable.
2 Beachbody’s Just Bring Your Body Cons
- Just a workout: Unfortunately, it’s just a workout. There’s zero mention of nutrition in this plan, nor do they try to teach you about a healthier lifestyle. If the overarching goal is to change people’s lives, wouldn’t you do everything you can to do that? It feels like a missed opportunity, especially when you compare it to other workout plans.
- Bodyweight is limiting: While it has its place, like in lockdown, bodyweight training is incredibly limiting. You cannot practice progressive overload too well, and that means your strength and muscle growth adaptations are going to be very subpar. If you want the best results, you’re better off incorporating some resistance from equipment.
Just Bring Your Body – Final Thoughts
As far as workout plans go, this one is actually pretty decent. While it does have certain pitfalls, it has to be said – it does what it says on the box. While they might be overpromising with the whole “you can gain a massive amount of strength,” you’ll get some results.
There are plenty of benefits to this plan:
- Home training means less commute time to and from the gym
- Less of a financial strain compared to purchasing equipment
- It’ll increase cardiovascular fitness, which is great for health
- It’s sustainable – you could do this plan for as long as you’d like, technically
For all its benefits, it’s still only a workout plan. It isn’t a full program with nutrition and lifestyle advice. You’ll have to spend more money to learn about those areas, which is kinda disappointing.
It would’ve been nice to see the coaches all give their own opinions on diet and lifestyle to show you how much it can differ from one person to the next. Unfortunately, the plan leaves a lot on the table in that aspect.
Just Bring Your Body is a solid plan. Certainly not life-changing, and certainly not revolutionary.
It’s just okay.
Nothing to write home about… except for this review.
Breaking the fourth wall in a review? Sick.
Rating: 3.0 out of 5
