Every issue, GRAZIA USA highlights Game Changers who inspire, educate, and celebrate individuality, beauty and style. Meet Tracy Anderson, the fitness pioneer who revolutionized the industry with her results-proven fitness methodology, the Tracy Anderson Method.
For someone who didn’t set out to build a fitness empire, Tracy Anderson sure did change the game. She created the Tracy Anderson Method, a dynamic, holistic approach to movement that balances the body by activating small muscles to create that elusive long, lean dancer’s physique. She has members-only studios in New York City, Los Angeles, the Hamptons and Madrid, Spain, and she’s built the largest bank of fitness content on record with over 170 DVD workouts and the TA Online Studio, a video-on-demand streaming service. “I don’t consider myself an entrepreneur because I didn’t set out to start a business,” Anderson tells GRAZIA USA. “I set out to create a body of work that actually supported the complexity of being human — the complexity of aging, the complexity of wanting to feel balanced and connected to your body.”
Anderson spent five years researching a group of 150 women as they engaged in custom workouts and walked away with leaner, transformed bodies. “I still didn’t even do that to back a brand or anything,” Anderson says. “I just did it to figure out a way forward for people that couldn’t get comfortable in their bodies.”
Her business grew after Gwyneth Paltrow — who was trying to lose stubborn baby weight after the birth of her son Moses — lost 11 inches in the first 10 days of working out with Anderson. The two became business partners in 2008. Today, Anderson’s brand has body and skincare products, activewear collections, at-home exercise equipment and more. She’s constantly coming out with new launches and workouts — and won’t be slowing down anytime soon. “I learned that when the body gets bored, systems start to shut down,” Anderson shares. “At 48, I feel better and more boundless in my body, like I can do anything, and move however I want. I have no pain, and that means that I have to have a continuing, evolving conversation going with my body and tend to it in different ways.”
It’s a workout philosophy she’s making sure her clients can benefit from, too. “I was signing up to create the largest language of choreography fitness had ever seen because each week, when people come to the online studio, there are three new classes waiting for them. I create 10 new hours of content a week now.”
She also brings that same level-headed approach to life outside the fitness studio. “At the end of the day, I’m very forgiving of the things that I don’t get done, and I’m very proud of the things that I do accomplish. I let go because I care very much about my sleep,” she says. “I also care very much about my intimate relationships with my partner, my children, my friendships, my team. I try and just make sure there’s quality in my life.
Anderson may not have known just how far her brand would go when she did her first research study in 2001, but she realized she created something pretty special when she was training Madonna and was credited as the pop singer’s fitness “secret weapon.”
“It hit the press that I had some special [gift],” she recalls. “But I don’t believe in gurus. I worked really hard to have the skills that I have.” She adds, “I felt the recognition that I’ve built something of substance, and it took a few years, but I realized I didn’t want to be beholden to train individuals, I wanted to give it to the world.
Read GRAZIA USA’s Summer issue featuring cover star Priyanka Chopra Jonas:
