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I first heard about The Hybrid Athlete, led by Joe Vennare and his brother Anthony, from an unlikely source, when it comes to health and fitness: The Smart Passive Income Podcast with Pat Flynn. (I happen to know that Pat has gone through at least one round of P90X and maybe some other programs, so it’s not too far-fetched.) The way the two brothers divide their work is that Joe is the “front man,” and Anthony is “the boss,” as described on their About page. Anthony did all the talking on the podcast, too, as he described their innovative online fitness business.
 Plank Rows with a kettlebell You can read the details, which are an interesting and touching personal story, but the short version is that they started with an at-home personal training business, then a 12,000 square-foot training center, and eventually The Hybrid Athlete website.
Here’s the innovative business idea: A “Pay What You Want” pricing for their workouts, in document form. They also sell kettlebells, which are included in some of their workouts, and they are charging the lowest price possible. Joe explained on the podcast that they worked out a deal with the manufacturer, because they strongly believe it is more important to help people get fit than it is to make a profit selling kettlebells.
What do they offer on the site?
- Go back to the About Us page, and read The Hybrid Manifesto for some inspiration!
- A Training Blog which covers a variety of fitness and health topics, including example workouts
- Videos demonstrating training circuits for a particular purpose (such as the “Do More Pull Ups” video, above right); they also have a YouTube channel for demonstrating individual exercises and full workouts.
- The Pay What You Want store, where there are recommended prices for some training programs, others listed as zero dollars, and the kettlebells for the lowest price possible (and free shipping!)
I decided to try one of their workouts, so I purchased The Body Weight Training Program. This is a six-week program. For now, I just wanted a “taste” of what the workouts were like, so I did them for a few days. They are structured similar to a P90X workout, minus the equipment of course (body weight!). Start with a warm up (jumping jacks, arm circles, etc.) and move on to push ups, lunges, squats, and so on. What I like about using a written exercise plan is that you can really pace yourself as hard as you want, or back off if necessary. This training program shows you exactly what to do each day, for six weeks.
If you are unfamiliar with any of the exercises described in the workouts, (such as the Bird Dog, a plank exercise), just look it up on their website.
I recommend The Hybrid Athlete as a “free to try” option to find a new workout, or a training program you can use for a few weeks. They also have specialized programs for Obstacle Races, Triathlon, and even Social Media for the Fitness Professional. Go ahead and try one for free, but I hope you’ll be glad to pay something and help their business/mission to grow and prosper.
 C’mon y’all! Let’s GOOOO! In all the excitement of the past month (ha ha), I forgot to mention the results of my first round through Beachbody’s Insanity workout program. To be honest, when I started, I was more concerned about injuring myself than I was about losing weight. After all, my brother-in-law gave the DVDs to me, after admitting he was hurting his knees and wasn’t going to use the workouts anymore.
The short version of my results: I lost 5 lbs, and a half inch from my waist. Not too bad for a guy who’s already at his goal weight. Also, during that period of time, I celebrated my birthday, my wife’s birthday, and a few days’ vacation. It was a great weight maintenance strategy, I guess. Plus, for two months I had no desire to do mini-workouts at the office. Those five-minute exercise breaks? Nope. None.
In the weeks since completing my first round of Insanity (and there will be more!), I have been doing a variety of workouts. (You can read about some of them in my series Free Workout Fridays). I’ve lost four additional pounds (that’s 9 pounds since Insanity Day 1), and another inch around my waist. I think Insanity kicked my metabolism into high gear!
So here are my suggestions for getting through 60 days of Insanity without getting injured:
- Warm up before the warm up: The Insanity warm up is really a high-intensity interval workout in disguise. I was preparing myself by doing the P90X2 warm up sequence, just because I am familiar with it: Stretches, lunges, and squats while holding a stability ball. Slow and controlled, for about five minutes before the Insanity warm up.
- Listen to Shaun T: Pace yourself. Take breaks. Use your core (not your back). Jump from the bottom of a squat. When you squat, push your butt back, and your knees should be above your ankles.
- Listen to your body: As the old joke goes, “If it hurts when you do that… Don’t do that!” We all have sore spots, in our back, or our knees, or maybe all over. Do what you can, but don’t overdo it!
Please let me know if you’re a fan of Insanity, or if you’re thinking about starting the program. Leave a comment below, or on the Facebook group.
 Lisa Marie demonstrates Switch Lunges I was introduced to the dailyhiit website by Jason from Geek and Gamer Fitness. He is a user of the website, and was asking if anyone else had tried the workouts. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to check out another source for free workouts!
This site is a part of the BodyRock.tv site. Apparently the DailyHiit series was created in late 2012, as the next generation of their online workouts. DailyHiit provides a calendar with a different workout every day, with names like hiitreps, hiitlean, hiitcombat, etc.
There are several hosts, depending on the workout series. Lisa Marie (pictured at left) hosts the workouts I used for this review:
My Booty Rocks – HiitBody # 2
Scream and Shout – HiitReps # 3
I like how much information they provide for each workout. There are demonstration videos, with step-by-step instructions. There are realtime workout videos, with timed exercises where appropriate (30 second intervals, for example. If you need even more instructions, some workouts have photo galleries, such as this one for the Scream and Shout workout.
 Image gallery for a workout With all this detail, and under the instruction of these attractive hosts, what’s not to like? Well, what I don’t like is that many of the workouts consist of 4-10 exercises, repeated as many times as you like. This is essentially one circuit from a workout program such as Beachbody’s Insanity. For example, the Scream and Shout workout consists of four exercises, a “burpee challenge” in which 3 exercises are burpee variations. The search feature of the Workouts page does not include workout length as a search criteria, so I found quite a few of these shorter workouts before I stumbled onto the My Booty Rocks workout, with 18 exercises. Don’t get me wrong: They are all challenging, but some might be a little too much of a good thing.
Many of the workouts require no equipment, which is very nice. The others use items which are available from the website, including a “sandbag” (which is a two-handled bag filled with sand), a Lebert Equalizer (looks like a senior walker, used for upper body exercises) and so on, available from the DailyHiit Shop. The site is so well designed, I can’t blame them for selling stuff as part of their revenue model, in addition to advertisements. (Interesting to see Insanity and P90X on there!)
Take a look around the site, and see if you can find a host and/or workout style that you like. Leave me a comment below, or in the Facebook group.
BodyRock.tv on Facebook
 Before (Spring 2008) and after (Spring 2013) I have mentioned the Calorie Count website a few times in blog posts, as an important part of my health and fitness journey. Before I started calorie counting in 2009, my attempts at portion control, using Weight Watchers Points, and “eating healthier” just weren’t working.
Around that time, a podcaster friend mentioned his recently formed habit of calorie counting using his iPhone. Well, I didn’t have an iPhone (still don’t) but I went online to find an alternative, because I liked the idea of using an online food journal to easily look up calorie and nutrition information. I looked at MyFitnessPal and the NutritionData website (now part of self.com). I was also familiar with about.com and their extensive collection of websites on various topics. It turned out they had a health/fitness site devoted to calorie counting and weight loss, and I already had an about.com account created, so I figured I would give it a try. That’s how my use of Calorie Count started, in July 2009.
Today I was excited and honored to be featured as a weight loss success story on Calorie Count’s blog. There you can read more details about my slow (and not so steady) journey to gain and then lose 50 lbs of excess weight, with a quick burst at the end thanks in part to calorie counting. As of today’s weigh in, I am still at my goal weight, and thankful to have found so much support along the way.
 Bodylastics (Amazon.com) I am a fan of the Bodylastics brand resistance bands. I have been using them for my workouts (particularly P90X and P90X2 ) when doing pull downs as a replacement for pull ups, because my basement has a low ceiling. Besides the pull down, there are so many exercises which can be done with a simple resistance band! The added benefit Bodylastics provides is that the band tension can be adjusted by combining multiple bands on a single set of handles. Each band has a metal clip on either end, and is labeled with an approximate “weight” for the maximum tension it provides.
 Blake Kassel, the inventor/founder The good news, since this post is about free workouts, is that Bodylastics also provides access to a large sampling of their workouts (free!) on YouTube (user bodylastics). Check out their videos if you’re looking for some ideas about how to use the resistance bands you already have, or even if you’re looking for workouts using body weight or some kickboxing moves.The Bodylastics company shows us how to use their product in a very practical way, with an online workout site called LiveExercise.com. There are a variety of workouts available, and there is at least one released every day. There is a free trial period if you purchase the Bodylastics resistance bands. The length of the trial period varies depending upon the package you buy. After the trial period, there is a subscription fee, which is currently $5.95 per month. That’s less than the cost of a single workout DVD in most cases.
One of the workout hosts is Blake Kassel, the inventor/founder of Bodylastics. I think of him as a sort of “Tony Horton with a Jersey attitude.” He is often joined by a co-host who participates in the workout. There are workouts which feature other hosts, male or female.
You might see ads for Bodylastics on this page (posted by Google AdSense). I am a user of the product, and I have affiliate ads on this page. Of course I would appreciate it if you used the ads to check out and purchase their products, but I am featuring their videos because I really like their approach, and they do have a lot of free material out there.
Please let me know what you think of Bodylastics in the comment section below, or on the Facebook group.
Featured Products
Bodylastics (Amazon.com)
P90X
P90X2
Related Posts
Bodylastics (previous uses/references)
Free Workouts
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