Beachbody PiYo – Is It For You?
Beachbody PiYo is a new live workout program led by fitness trainer Chalene Johnson. Here’s our review.
What is Beachbody PiYo?
Beachbody PiYo is a new live workout program that promises to help you define “every inch of your body” without performing heavy strength workouts or straining your joints.
Unlike many other Beachbody programs, PiYo is a “live” program, which means classes are performed live at a certified Beachbody training center.
The program is also available to download as a series of 7 workout videos across 3 DVDs.
The exercises in PiYo emphasize low-impact, high-intensity moves to improve your strength, flexibility, and cardio.
There are also no weights and no jumps required: “just hardcore results”.
Some of the promised benefits of Beachbody PiYo include sleek, long arms; sexy, flat abs; a tight, lifted butt; and the confidence that comes from looking and feeling your best.
The name PiYo, by the way, comes from a combination of Pilates + Yoga. The workout program promises to combine the best qualities from both of these two programs into one convenient workout. As the creator of the program, Chalene Johnson, describes it:
“[PiYo] combines the muscle-sculpting, core-firming benefits of Pilates with the strength and flexibility of flowing yoga movements. You’ll use your body weight to perform a series of continuous, targeted moves to define every single muscle—big and small.”
BeachBody PiYo Features
Each PiYo class lasts for one hour. You can take classes at a Beachbody fitness training center or through a PiYo-certified fitness trainer.
Some of the promised benefits and features of a PiYo class include:
-Strong, sculpted, lean muscles all over your body
-Cardio, strength training, and stretching all combined into one workout
-Shape your body without lifting a single weight
-Burn “crazy amounts” of calories without joint-straining jumps or high-impact cardio
-Improve your balance and core strength
-Perform flowing yoga and Pilates-inspired movements without the boring poses or microscopic repetitive movements often associated with both workouts
How to Find a Beachbody PiYo Class
Beachbody has a page where they list all of the certified PiYo instructors across the United States and Canada. Type in your location to find a class near you: beachbodylive.com/piyo/find-class/
All of the classes listed in that map are taught by a PiYo LIVE Instructor.
How to Become a PiYo Instructor
You can also sign up to be your own PiYo LIVE Instructor through Beachbody. To do that, you’ll need to sign up for a PiYo workshop and pay a $249 USD fee.
You can learn more about becoming a certified PiYo instructor here: beachbodylive.com/piyo/training/
Your workshop doesn’t just teach you how to lead the class. It teaches you how to promote and market yourself and how to connect with the best gyms in your city for maximum results.
About Beachbody Live
Beachbody is a major fitness training program retailer known for programs like P90X and Insanity.
In the last few years, however, the company has branched into Beachbody Live, which consists of live training classes taking place across the United States, Canada, and the UK.
So far, the main training classes available live include:
-PiYo Live
-Insanity Live
-Turbo Kick Live
-P90X Live
So if you’re the type of person who learns better from a certified instructor instead of through a video-based workout, then Beachbody’s Live classes may be the right choice for you.
How to Buy Beachbody PiYo
If you would rather learn PiYo through a video training workout and avoid seeing other people at the gym (I get it), then you can purchase the PiYo training program for yourself at a price of around $100 USD. That training program comes with 7 different modules, including:
-Align: The Fundamentals
-Define: Lower Body
-Define: Upper Body
-Sweat
-Drench
-Sculpt
-Strength Intervals
The 7 workouts are spaced across 3 DVDs.
Basically, these video workouts cover all of the same lessons you were going to learn at a hands-on PiYo class. The main disadvantage is that you don’t have a trainer guiding you through the workout in-person – you just have Chalene Johnson guiding you through the workouts on the video.
About Chalene Johnson
Chalene Johnson leads the video-based Beachbody PiYo training program. She also created the training program taught to future PiYo instructors.
Chalene is described as a “high-energy celebrity fitness trainer”. She’s also a mother of two and a New York Times bestselling author.
She’s best known for creating past Beachbody programs like ChaLEAN Extreme and TurboFire.
Chalene claims she created PiYo because…
“…she wanted a workout that would provide hardcore results—without straining your body. Chalene loved the benefits of yoga and Pilates but got bored with the sitting still in yoga and the microscopic movements in Pilates. She wanted to move and burn crazy calories”
Ultimately, PiYo is a popular fitness program that uses low-intensity exercises with no weights and no jumping to give you a leaner body. If you like the movements and ideas behind yoga and Pilates, but get bored with the actual workouts, then PiYo could be exactly what you’re looking for.
