It’s no secret that I have been obsessed with Kayla Itsines Beach Body Guide (BBG) since I started last August. I have seen crazy results and honestly? I feel like I have grown more on the inside than I show on the outside. Obviously seeing ab definition and being able to do a ton of push ups is awesome, but I really can’t say enough about this program and how it changes your mindset. (Here are 3 things I’ve learned!) Let’s start with how exactly you can begin and what you need to know.
- I bought the first round e-book HERE and it gives you 12 weeks of workouts, with 4 weeks of pre-training if you are starting from scratch. I have since bought the second 12 week e-book and I love those books. You download them on your computer and each day I went to the gym I wrote down the 8 exercises I needed to do on a slip of paper and did that. You can begin these rounds over and over again (I’m on the third round), and because they always change from week to week, you won’t get bored. They don’t get easier, either! I am doing the first round over again now and even though I did it when I first began, I can do the exercises faster, meaning I do more each workout. I also add more weights to challenge myself and I still die EVERY SINGLE TIME. This round I am trying out the sweat app, which is the exact same as the e-book, except it is preloaded on my phone and it times the workouts for me. I DO like the app, a lot. I have it for a trial price and I like how it pushes me to rest less and I can have everything I need on my phone. That being said, the workouts are the same as they are in the ebooks, and it isn’t that hard to write the workouts down and time yourself.
- When you begin week one, make sure you warm up really well ( I do 10 minutes on the treadmill, typically), and then gather the equipment you need. In the beginning you mostly use body weight exercises. These look deceptively easy, but it will be HARD. The equipment I have seen so far includes hand weights, jump rope, medicine ball, a bench to step up on or do ab work on, a barbel for squats, a bosu ball, and a kettlebell. I think you can multi-task a lot of this stuff and modify it for home. I work out at the gym and just like having all the equipment around me, though I do switch things up if I need to. You will also need something to time yourself with is you aren’t using the app. I just used my iphone or my watch.
- Each resistance day is built up of 4 exercises that you do as many as you can for 7 minutes, then you stop for 30 seconds and do a second set of 4 exercises as many times as you can in 7 minutes. You then repeat them both for 7 minutes each until the 28 minutes are up. The first time you do this you will probably only be able to do the circuit (4 exercises) just once in that 7 minutes. That is okay! You will get faster and more efficient as you get stronger.
- These workouts are built to be challenging. You focus on 3 resistance days and you will burn out your legs, arms, and abs on these days. I almost always have trouble walking down the stairs after leg day, or raising my arms to blow dry my hair after arm day. If you are not sore, you probably aren’t challenging yourself! That being said, in the beginning you will see jump squats or simple sit ups and they will look easy, but repeated over and over and they are a killer! Just do the best you can. Modify when you burn yourself out. I always try to do the full version of the workout until I can do no more, then I dial it back until I can finish. For instance, if you need to do 15 push ups, do as many as you can on your feet (even if it is one!), then modify on your knees. I promise you, each week you will build up to more of the full version until that is all you can do. I like to make sure I do each rep in an exercise to the best of my ability. It is better to do less and get each one right, then to rush and not do them properly.
- The other days of BBG focus on cardio. You do two kinds: low impact steady state (LISS) and high intensity interval training (HIIT.) In the beginning you only do LISS, and I typically do the 40 minutes doing an incline walk on the treadmill (going 3.5 mph at a 6-8% incline.) I listen to podcasts while I do this and the time passes by quickly. Another LISS I do is the stair climber. I switch things up by walking up for 5 minutes, walking sideways to the right for 5 minutes, walking sideways to the left for 5 minutes, skipping a step for 5 minutes, then repeating this until the 40 minutes is done. The program calls for 3 LISS days, but in the beginning I pretty much did just the resistance days and sometimes did a short LISS after, but it isn’t recommended to do them both on the same day (you will be too tired!) HIIT isn’t recommended till later on in the program. Right now I tack it onto LISS days and either do interval sprints, or I do various exercises (burpees, tuck jumps, jump squats, ect. for 30 seconds on and then 30 seconds of rest for 15 minutes.)
- My current workout routine looks like this: Monday (Leg day), Tuesday (LISS and HIIT), Wednesday (Arms and Abs); Thursday (LISS and HIIT), and Friday (Full Body.) I constantly tweak this, though, based on how my body is feeling! I am probably going to replace a cardio day with a resistance day based on my current goals, but right now this is working for me. For beginners: don’t worry about doing all of this! Like I mentioned, in the beginning I only did the resistance days, and I slowly added in the cardio stuff. Do the best you can and build up to more when you can.
That’s it! Please feel free to comment below if you have any questions! I love helping people get started with this program because I have seen so much growth for myself, not just on the outside, but on the inside.
*I recently went live on my Facebook page to explain in detail how I eat (I count my macros!), and exactly what that entails. Btw, are you following me over there? I post daily and we have the best community of folks commenting and supporting each other! I post there a lot more than I do here, so there is that, too;)
