After spending 13 hours of travel time not including a 5 hour layover in Las Vegas from Detroit to Kauai we finally arrived. It was a very long day but I highly recommend anybody flying from east to west take the red eye from Las Vegas to Honolulu as you get a full day upon arrival.
There were people from Beachbody waiting for us at the airport to take us to our hotel but we decided to rent a car so we could go out and do things on our own during the week. A red Ford Mustang Convertible was calling us so we picked it up and headed to the St. Regis in Princeville which was about 45 minutes away. The drive was a lot of fun and the views were amazing. Driving through the jungle and being near the coastline made it enjoyable.
We flew in a day before the Beachbody activities were to take place to get use to the time change. It ended up being a great day. We hung out by the pool and met a lot of the other Top Coaches who flew in that day too. The goal was to stay up until 11pm to force ourselves to get use to the time and 3 out of the 4 of us did. He are some of the photos we took on the first day.
Day 2
Even though we made it to 11pm the night before we still woke up at 4 am as we were use to Detroit time. With nothing else better to do I headed to the gym at the resort and got in 4 miles on the treadmill. While being in there I saw some more Beachbody Coaches there than I did at the pool yesterday. We exchanged some hello’s and got to work.
There was nothing planned by Beachbody until 7pm that night so we had the whole day to do whatever we wanted. We spent a good part of the day looking around the city of Hanalei and took a drive until the road ended. Along the way we stopped at a couple of beaches and caves. It seemed like every time we got out of the car it was raining. This was a common theme for the whole week unfortunately. It would rain for 15 minutes then stop for an hour then rain, stop, rain.
When we were done sightseeing for the day we headed back to the St. Regis to get ready for the welcome dinner put on by Beachbody. It was the first time I would get to meet all of the Top Coaches. To get the dinner started, CEO Carl Daikeler said a few words of thanks for putting in the effort to make it on the trip and was followed up by President Jon Congdon (think “Congdon Curls” for you P90X junkies) saying something similar.
It was a terrific dinner and we had a great time. Beachbody decided to even give out a $300 gift card to all of the coaches which was unexpected and greatly appreciated. Even though Beachbody was paying for our breakfasts, a couple dinners, and a activity during the 4 days we were there it still did not cover every thing. We had sticker shock when Andrea and I paid $62 for breakfast the previous morning.
Andrea and I had our picture taken with Tony Horton and she became one of his favorites as they have the same last name. After dinner was over we headed upstairs to have a couple drinks and I met Jason “Puckhead” Diebold.
Jason was from Michigan and we talked it up for awhile. He told me how much P90X changed his life and that he is now doing the Beachbody Coach business full time like me.
I thought I talked a lot about P90X but Jason took it to a whole new level, like a permanent level. He pulled up his shirt and showed me his tattoo that read “Body by P90X.” I had to take a picture. After getting the photo it was time for bed as the time change was setting in. Tomorrow was going to be our first day working out with Tony Horton so some rest was needed. Here are some photos from the day.
Day 3
Day 3 of the trip started with the reason why all of us were there to begin with and that is working out. To start the day off we did P90X Yoga X with Tony Horton. This was my second time doing Yoga with Tony as I did it the first time with him at the Beachbody Game Plan Event in California a couple months ago. Yoga took about 50 minutes and was done near the beach of the St. Regis. There was a little bit of light rain near the end of it.
After yoga was finished Beachbody had breakfast prepared for all of us with a Shakeology table set up too. While we were eating, Tony grabbed the microphone and told a couple of emotional stories about fitness and health. Most of it was about the current obesity trend going on in the United States. He said some interesting facts and one was that when he was in High School there was only 1 person in his graduating class who was obese.
It is now estimated that 1 out of 3 High School seniors are obese. He has made it a mission to make fitness apart of every body’s life. There were other moving stories and I’ll be writing about it more in depth on a future post.
The highlight of the day for Andrea and I was that we were going to be interviewed by Carl Daikeler for a Beachbody Coach infomercial. We were both a little nervous as neither of us had done something like that before.
The goal of the interview was to talk about our experiences building our Beachbody Coach businesses while doing the workouts like P90X, Insanity, and ChaLean Extreme.
Carl enjoyed the story I told him about the business expo I attended where all of the other network marketing business owners came over and told me that we were the real deal. The shoot took about an hour for both of us and was done right near the beach in the Hanalei Bay. He even took a photo of Andrea and I posted it to his Twitter page here and here.
When we got back to the resort we headed down to the pool for a couple hours. Tony Horton and almost every other Beachbody Coach was there hanging out talking about how the products changed their life and what they are doing to build their business. Later on that night Beachbody had a cocktail hour for everybody and it was a great time. Here are some photos of the day.
Day 4
The 4th day of the trip started out with another workout session with Tony Horton. Tony went a little easy on all of us yesterday doing some Yoga so we knew we were in for a challenge when he said one of his celebrity clients (Usher) only made it about two thirds of the way through before falling on his face.
The workout was going to be Plyo Legs which is apart of the Tony Horton 1 on 1 series. I’ve never done this particular workout, just normal P90X Plyometrics. Fellow Coach Jeff Armbruster took a video of everybody working out. I’m wearing the maroon shirt and shorts representing my Alma mater Central Michigan. Andrea is right next to me.
Tony warned us before the workout that many of the moves involved with this are very intense and if we pushed ourselves too hard our butts and hamstrings were going to be sore for the next 4 days.
Of course none of us listened to him when he said “I’m going to do 50 reps, you should be stopping at 25.” I along with a lot of other people pushed ourselves to keep up with Tony. Hey Tony, WE ALL DO YOUR WORKOUTS. We are very prepared for the craziness that’s about to happen.
Of course it ended up being very hard. I was able to do as many reps as him on almost all of the moves. I’ll probably feel it tomorrow as Tony is right about that stuff all the time.
After our morning workout we headed over to breakfast and listened to a very informative speech put on by Isabelle Daikeler (Beachbody CEO Carl Daikeler’s wife). She created Shakeology and talked about it extensively. I guess she knows what she’s talking about as she has numerous degrees in nutrition and is in the top 1% of some fancy health / fitness / nutrition thing that I forgot to write down. Isabelle has many celebrity clients like Brad Pitt who she put together meal plans for to help them get into shape for their movies.
With our workout and meeting of the minds out of the way it was time to do our first activity of the trip. We decided to go ziplining at the Princeville Ranch. None of us had done it before and were excited to do it. What made the day a lot of fun was sharing it with some of the other Top Coaches and their guests.
I got to know Jason “Puckhead” Diebold, Barbie Decker, and a couple of the Beachbody employees who came with us. It was a very fun day that ended with a 1200 foot long zipline named “King Kong” which you could race somebody down. I beat Andrea.
Day 5
Well, Tony was right. My legs and butt were sore from yesterday’s Plyo legs workout. Should have listened to him and not pushed it so hard. Andrea was so sore that she did not want to go to the workout. I told her there were probably going to be consequences for skipping it. I headed down for the workout while she stayed in bed.
Beachbody moved the workout inside and Tony was going to be leading us in his Cardio Interval workout from his 1 on 1 series. Tony made the end of the workout a little bit harder with one of his ab workouts. This one was new to me so I struggled through it. Everybody was drenched in sweat at the end. Here is a video that fellow coach Jeff Armbruster took of us working out. I’m to the left of the guy wearing the grey shirt. (Did you notice how Tony is up on his toes in this picture to make it look like he’s as tall as me.)
After the workout was over I went up to Tony and asked to have my photo taken with him. After the photo was over he asked me where Andrea was. I told him that she was not able to make it to the workout as she was too sore from yesterday’s workout knowing that this was not what he wanted to hear.
He responds with “She needs to be here working out so she can work through the lactic acid that’s been built up.” He continued with more fancy science terms before I stopped him and told him he was talking to the wrong person and that Andrea would be at breakfast in 10 minutes.
I headed over to the restaurant, made a plate of food, and sat down while Andrea went up to the omelet line. While she was waiting in line Tony made a bee-line right to her. “Why were you not at the workout this morning,” says Tony. “I’m sore,” Andrea replies. “Are you injured? No. Give me your plate, then drop down and give me 10 push ups.”
Everybody standing in line turns and gave that your in trouble look to her. Tony did not make her do push ups but told her the science behind why its important to workout even where your sore. I think Tony was instilling the “Do your best and forget the rest” mindset that he teaches with P90X.
When breakfast was done we headed back up to our rooms and started getting ready for the day. Andrea decided to do a spa day (not awesome) and I went for surfing lessons (awesome). Our group was taken over to the beach where we met three instructors. After 15 minutes of instructions on the beach we headed out to the ocean.
Waves were 2 – 5 feet tall. I was able to get up on the board on my second try. Besides the whole push feeling from the waves it was not that much different than snowboarding. We were out there for four hours and I came in one time to take a couple pictures. Took about an hour to catch a wave that took me all the way to the beach.
My shoulders and lower back were getting sore near the end of it but I kept on pushing as I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to surf again. Carl Daikeler paddled on over from his beach house (where we did the interview on day 3) and surfed with us for a couple hours. He does stand up paddling which our instructors (who said they do the P90X workout also) say is not cool. One of the coolest things we saw was two whales jumping out of the water about 300 yards away from us.
It had already been an action packed day but there was one more thing to do. Beachbody put on a luau that night to end the trip. It was a awesome evening and was another chance to meet other Coaches. They had hula and fire dancers performing in the tent. Tony Horton and I got pulled up on stage to do a Hula Dance.
The food was great and everybody partied it up. I probably told Carl and Jon thanks a hundred times for making the Beachbody Coach opportunity available. Otherwise I would not be able to have afford a trip to Hawaii like this. They told me thanks for putting in the effort with the biz and the workouts as I’m a good representation of the products.
Its been awhile since I’ve received a compliment from a boss type figure. Being able to talk with them on a one on one basis was really cool as I had a chance to see how they think about things and what drives them. The biggest one is they truly care about getting people in shape and ending the trend on obesity in the country.
The luau was a great way to end the week. It was my first real take on how the “other half” lives. What I mean by that is people who do something they really enjoy and to have the freedom to do what they want, when they want.
Almost all of the other coaches I met had a similar story to mine. They used P90X or another workout to get into shape and continued to use the Beachbody products. The biz part just came along with it. The whole trip re-assured me that what I am doing is making a difference not only in my own life but also with the people I share my story with. Thanks Beachbody.
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