Eating healthy on Super Bowl Sunday can be difficult, but with Beachbody Super Trainer Joel Freeman in town, exercising doesn’t have to be.
“It’s perfect, right?” Freeman said. “We can work out in the morning and then we’ll go and have a beer and watch the game.”
Freeman, 35, from Los Angeles, is hosting a live workout at the Dimond Park Field House on Sunday from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Freeman is one a select number of “super trainers” for Beachbody, the company behind home-fitness programs as P90X and INSANITY. Before becoming a Beachbody trainer, Freeman was just a group fitness exercise instructor with a lot of passion.
“Everyone that comes into the fitness world is looking to better themselves in some form or fashion and with that comes a degree of positivity,” Freeman said. “I absolutely love that and that’s what’s kept me in it for so long.”
After leading group exercise classes in Olympia, Washington, and Los Angeles, Freeman joined the Beachbody team a few years ago. Last year, Freeman and a teammate created an original Beachbody program, “COR DE FORCE,” that uses mixed-martial-arts movements.
Tickets for the event on Sunday are $40 and the time on the turf will also include a Q&A session and meet and greet.
Freeman spoke to the Empire on Tuesday from Los Angeles. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Juneau Empire: You’re known in fitness circle nationally, but for people that have never heard of you, what does it mean to be a professional Beachbody Super Trainer?
Joel Freeman: To me it just means doing whatever I can to help people find their fitness — as I call it the fitness path. Every single person on this planet is different. So something that works for me will not work for you, and what works for you will not work for the next person. There’s no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to fitness path. Me personally, my Joel Freeman fitness website is all about real fitness for real life. … I’m the guy that’s going to take you through a workout and then I’ll go to the bar with you to have a beer afterward to celebrate.
Empire: When you talk to people for the first time, are there takeaway messages that — whether someone’s hearing you in Alaska talk or in North Carolina — you want every single person to walk away with?
Freeman: Yeah I want everyone to walk away knowing that — just kind of repeating — that one size does not fit all. And to not feel that they have to put themselves into a spot where they feel they’ve watched somebody else be successful in this particular realm and so then they’re like, ‘OK, I’m going to do that exact same thing and I’m going to be successful too.’ And that’s not always the case. That’s why there’s a lot of people that get dejected in fitness and stop. They start something and they overdo it or hurt themselves or they don’t enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to want to do it.
Empire: You had a lot of experience in the fitness industry working in different capacities when you joined Beachbody. What compelled you to jump into the home exercise world and become a Beachbody Trainer?
Freeman: The thing that I like the most when I was presented with this opportunity was to really branch out and spread to more populations. So being in the gym world, you’re very geographically isolated. You’re only going after the people within a five to 10-mile radius of your location. I’ve worked for a lot of great facilities one the years and worked for the iconic Golds Gym as the (marketing) director for one of their franchises. I always loved it but it always just bugged me — the geographic limitation (of working in a gym). With Beachbody, there is no geographic limitation.
Empire: Would you say home fitness programs can work for everyone or do they only work for a certain type of person?
Freeman: I think that everyone can find something in home fitness that works for them. What I mean by that is I personally am not the type of person that is going to work out in my living room, but I also live in a place where I have lots of options. I live in LA so there are a lot more options around me. … But there are a lot of people that are geographically isolated and not able to go into a gym … so I think for those people the great thing about with Beachbody on Demand — with thousands, literally thousands of workouts on the platform — is somebody can find something that speaks to them.
Empire: How quickly has COR DE FORCE caught on and is that the pinnacle of being a Beachbody trainer is being able to create your own program?
Freeman: Yeah, pinnacle is a great word for it. It’s not every day that you get the opportunity to put something together that’s like a passion project so to speak and have a company behind you to push it out there. … My teammate Jericho (McMatthews) and I we absolutely loved doing it because mixed-martial-arts style of training is something that we both know and love and been doing it for a long time.
Empire: What people can expect when they come to this workout on Sunday?
Freeman: We’re going to do a full COR DE FORCE live workout which is the group exercise format of the home kit. It’ll be in the same structure that we’ve done everything so people can expect a mixed martial arts style training program. There’s no weight, there’s no equipment, it’s all using body weight and really working through movements. It’s not about fighting, it’s about what this kind of training can do for you.
Empire: Forty dollars is a lot of money for just a couple hours of working out. Can you give some incentives why it will be well worth the money to come out?
Freeman: When it comes to a live event, with that comes a level of energy. It’s not something that you get when you’re streaming something into your own living room. Jericho (McMatthews) and I, when we filmed this program, we’ve been into group exercise for a long time, so we were able to bring some of that through the TV and into the home-user audience. But there’s a level of energy when you surround yourself with like-minded people within the fitness world.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.
